Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 1 (of 7)

by Theodore Roosevelt

Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find that the chief factor in determining his success or failure in life is the sum of his own individual qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual initiative, his individual will and power; but he can best use that power if for certain objects he unites with his fellows. Much can be done by organization, combination, union among the wage-workers; finally something can be done by the direct action of the State. It is not possible empirically to declare when the interference of the State should be deemed legitimate and when illegitimate.

The line of demarcation between unhealthy over-interference and unhealthy lack of regulation is not always well defined, and shifts with the change in our industrial needs. Most certainly we should never invoke the interference of the State or Nation unless it is absolutely necessary; but it is equally true that when confident of its necessity we should not on academic grounds refuse it. Wise factory laws, laws to forbid the employment of child labor and to safeguard the employees against the effects of culpable negligence by the employer, are necessary, not merely in the interest of the wage-worker, but in the interest of the honest and humane employer, who should not be penalized for his honesty and humanity by being exposed to unchecked competition with an unscrupulous rival. It is far more difficult to deal with the greed that works through cunning than with the greed that works through violence. But the effort to deal with it must be steadily made.

Very much of our effort in reference to labor matters should be by every device and expedient to try to secure a constantly better understanding between employer and employee. Everything possible should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow-feeling between them, and every chance taken to allow each to look at all questions, especially at questions in dispute, somewhat through the other’s eyes. If met with a sincere desire to act fairly by one another, and if there is, furthermore, power by each to appreciate the other’s standpoint, the chance for trouble is minimized. I suppose every thinking man rejoices when by mediation or arbitration it proves possible to settle troubles in time to avert the suffering and bitterness caused by strikes. Moreover, a conciliation committee can do best work when the trouble is in its beginning, or at least has not come to a head. When the break has actually occurred, damage has been done, and each side feels sore and angry; and it is difficult to get them together—difficult to make either forget its own wrongs and remember the rights of the other. If possible the effort at conciliation or mediation or arbitration should be made in the earlier stages, and should be marked by the wish on the part of both sides to try to come to a common agreement which each shall think in the interests of the other as well as of itself.

When we deal with such a subject we are fortunate in having before us an admirable object-lesson in the work that has just been closed by the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. This was the Commission which was appointed last fall at the time when the coal strike in the anthracite regions threatened our Nation with a disaster second to none which has befallen us since the days of the Civil War. Their report was made just before the Senate adjourned at the special session; and no Government document of recent years marks a more important piece of work better done, and there is none which teaches sounder social morality to our people. The commission consisted of seven as good men as were to be found in the country, representing the bench, the church, the army, the professions, the employers, and the employed. They acted as a unit, and the report which they unanimously signed is a masterpiece of sound common-sense and of sound doctrine on the very questions with which our people should most deeply concern themselves. The immediate effect of this commission’s appointment and action was of vast and incalculable benefit to the Nation; but the ultimate effect will be even better, if capitalist, wage-worker, and law-maker alike will take to heart and act upon the lessons set forth in the report they have made.

Of course the National Government has but a small field in which it can work in labor matters. Something it can do, however, and that something ought to be done. Among other things I should like to see the District of Columbia, which is completely under the control of the National Government, receive a set of model labor laws. Washington is not a city of very large industries, but still it has some. Wise labor legislation for the city of Washington would be a good thing in itself, and it would be a far better thing, because a standard would thereby be set for the country as a whole.

In the field of general legislation relating to these subjects the action of Congress is necessarily very limited. Still there are certain ways in which we can act. Thus the Secretary of the Navy has recommended, with my cordial and hearty approval, the enactment of a strong employers’-liability law in the navy yards of the Nation. It should be extended to similar branches of the Government work. Again, sometimes such laws can be enacted as an incident to the Nation’s control over interstate commerce. In my last annual Message to Congress I advocated the passage of a law in reference to car couplings—to strengthen the features of the one already on the statute books so as to minimize the exposure to death and maiming of railway employees. Much opposition had to be overcome. In the end an admirable law was passed “to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to equip their cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes and their locomotives with driving-wheel brakes.” This law received my signature a couple of days before Congress adjourned. It represents a real and substantial advance in an admirable kind of legislation.

AT FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903

My Fellow-Citizens:

The Northwest, whose sons in the Civil War added such brilliant pages to the honor roll of the Republic, likewise bore a full share in the struggle of which the war with Spain was the beginning; a struggle slight indeed when compared with the gigantic death wrestle which for four years stamped to and fro across the Southern States in the Civil War; but a struggle fraught with consequences to the Nation, and indeed to the world, out of all proportion to the smallness of the effort upon our part.

Three and a half years ago President McKinley spoke in the adjoining State of Minnesota on the occasion of the return of the Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteers from the Philippine Islands, where they had served with your own gallant sons of the North Dakota regiment. After heartily thanking the returned soldiers for their valor and patriotism, and their contemptuous refusal to be daunted or misled by the outcry raised at home by the men of little faith who wished us to abandon the islands, he spoke of the islands themselves as follows: