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State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft

W >> William H. Taft >> State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft




The commission appointed by authority of the Congress to report on proper
method of securing railroad development in Alaska is formulating its
report, and I expect to have an opportunity before the end of this session
to submit its recommendations.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

The far-reaching utility of the educational system carried on by the
Department of Agriculture for the benefit of the farmers of our country
calls for no elaboration. Each year there is a growth in the variety of
facts which it brings out for the benefit of the farmer, and each year
confirms the wisdom of the expenditure of the appropriations made for that
department.

PURE-FOOD LAW

The Department of Agriculture is charged with the execution of the
pure-food law. The passage of this encountered much opposition from
manufacturers and others who feared the effect upon their business of the
enforcement of its provisions. The opposition aroused the just indignation
of the public, and led to an intense sympathy with the severe and rigid
enforcement of the provisions of the new law. It had to deal in many
instances with the question whether or not products of large business
enterprises, in the form of food preparations, were deleterious to the
public health; and while in a great majority of instances this issue was
easily determinable, there were not a few cases in which it was hard to
draw the line between a useful and a harmful food preparation. In cases
like this when a decision involved the destruction of great business
enterprises representing the investment of large capital and the
expenditure of great energy and ability, the danger of serious injustice
was very considerable in the enforcement of a new law under the spur of
great public indignation. The public officials charged with executing the
law might do injustice in heated controversy through unconscious pride of
opinion and obstinacy of conclusion. For this reason President Roosevelt
felt justified in creating a board of experts, known as the Remsen Board,
to whom in cases of much importance an appeal might be taken and a review
had of a decision of the Bureau of Chemistry in the Agricultural
Department. I heartily agree that it was wise to create this board in order
that injustice might not be done. The questions which arise are not
generally those involving palpable injury to health, but they are upon the
narrow and doubtful line in respect of which it is better to be in some
error not dangerous than to be radically destructive. I think that the time
has come for Congress to recognize the necessity for some such tribunal of
appeal and to make specific statutory provision for it. While we are
struggling to suppress an evil of great proportions like that of impure
food, we must provide machinery in the law itself to prevent its becoming
an instrument of oppression, and we ought to enable those whose business is
threatened with annihilation to have some tribunal and some form of appeal
in which they have a complete day in court.

AGRICULTURAL CREDITS

I referred in my first message to the question of improving the system of
agricultural credits. The Secretary of Agriculture has made an
investigation into the matter of credits in this country, and I commend a
consideration of the information which through his agents he has been able
to collect. It does not in any way minimize the importance of the proposal,
but it gives more accurate information upon some of the phases of the
question than we have heretofore had.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR

I commend to Congress an examination of the report of the Secretary of
Commerce and Labor, and especially that part in which he discusses the
office of the Bureau of Corporations, the value to commerce of a proposed
trade commission, and the steps which he has taken to secure the
organization of a national chamber of commerce. I heartily commend his view
that the plan of a trade commission which looks to the fixing of prices is
altogether impractical and ought not for a moment to be considered as a
possible solution of the trust question.

The trust question in the enforcement of the Sherman antitrust law is
gradually solving itself, is maintaining the principle and restoring the
practice of competition, and if the law is quietly but firmly enforced,
business will adjust itself to the statutory requirements, and the unrest
in commercial circles provoked by the trust discussion will disappear.

PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION

In conformity with a joint resolution of Congress, an Executive
proclamation was issued last February, inviting the nations of the world to
participate in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to be held at
San Francisco to celebrate the construction of the Panama, Canal. A
sympathetic response was immediately forthcoming, and several nations have
already selected the sites for their buildings. In furtherance of my
invitation, a special commission visited European countries during the past
summer, and received assurance of hearty cooperation in the task of
bringing together a universal industrial, military, and naval display on an
unprecedented scale. It is evident that the exposition will be an accurate
mirror of the world's activities as they appear 400 years after the date of
the discovery of the Pacific Ocean.

It is the duty of the United States to make the nations welcome at San
Francisco and to facilitate such acquaintance between them and ourselves as
will promote the expansion of commerce and familiarize the world with the
new trade route through the Panama Canal. The action of the State
governments and individuals assures a comprehensive exhibit of the
resources of this country and of the progress of the people. This
participation by State and individuals should be supplemented by an
adequate showing of the varied and unique activities of the National
Government. The United States can not with good grace invite foreign
governments to erect buildings and make expensive exhibits while itself
refusing to participate. Nor would it be wise to forego the opportunity to
join with other nations in the inspiring interchange of ideas tending to
promote intercourse, friendship, and commerce. It is the duty of the
Government to foster and build up commerce through the canal, just as it
was the duty of the Government to construct it.

I earnestly recommend the appropriation at this session of such a sum as
will enable the United States to construct a suitable building, install a
governmental exhibit, and otherwise participate in the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition in a manner commensurate with the dignity of a
nation whose guests are to be the people of the world. I recommend also
such legislation as will facilitate the entry of material intended for
exhibition and protect foreign exhibitors against infringement of patents
and the unauthorized copying of patterns and designs. All aliens sent to
San Francisco to construct and care for foreign buildings and exhibits
should be admitted without restraint or embarrassment.

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND THE CITY OF WASHINGTON

The city of Washington is a beautiful city, with a population of 352,936,
of whom 98,667 are colored. The annual municipal budget is about
$14,000,000. The presence of the National Capital and other governmental
structures constitutes the chief beauty and interest of the city. The
public grounds are extensive, and the opportunities for improving the city
and making it still more attractive are very great. Under a plan adopted
some years ago, one half the cost of running the city is paid by taxation
upon the property, real and personal, of the citizens and residents, and
the other half is borne by the General Government. The city is expanding at
a remarkable rate, and this can only be accounted for by the coming here
from other parts of the country of well-to-do people who, having finished
their business careers elsewhere, build and make this their permanent place
of residence.

On the whole, the city as a municipality is very well governed. It is well
lighted, the water supply is good, the streets are well paved, the police
force is well disciplined, crime is not flagrant, and while it has purlieus
and centers of vice, like other large cities, they are not exploited, they
do not exercise any influence or control in the government of the city, and
they are suppressed in as far as it has been found practicable. Municipal
graft is inconsiderable. There are interior courts in the city that are
noisome and centers of disease and the refuge of criminals, but Congress
has begun to clean these out, and progress has been made in the case of the
most notorious of these, which is known as "Willow Tree Alley." This
movement should continue.

The mortality for the past year was at the rate Of 17.80 per 1,000 of both
races; among the whites it was 14.61 per thousand, and among the blacks
26.12 per thousand. These are the lowest mortality rates ever recorded in
the District.

One of the most crying needs in the government of the District is a
tribunal or public authority for the purpose of supervising the
corporations engaged in the operation of public utilities. Such a bill is
pending in Congress and ought to pass. Washington should show itself under
the direction of Congress to be a city with a model form of government, but
as long as such authority over public utilities is withheld from the
municipal government, it must always be defective.

Without undue criticism of the present street railway accommodations, it
can be truly said that under the spur of a public utilities commission they
might be substantially improved.

While the school system of Washington perhaps might be bettered in the
economy of its management and the distribution of its buildings, its
usefulness has nevertheless greatly increased in recent years, and it now
offers excellent facilities for primary and secondary education.

From time to time there is considerable agitation in Washington in favor of
granting the citizens of the city the franchise and constituting an
elective government. I am strongly opposed to this change. The history of
Washington discloses a number of experiments of this kind, which have
always been abandoned as unsatisfactory. The truth is this is a city
governed by a popular body, to wit, the Congress of the United States,
selected from the people of the United States, who own Washington. The
people who come here to live do so with the knowledge of the origin of the
city and the restrictions, and therefore voluntarily give up the privilege
of living in a municipality governed by popular vote. Washington is so
unique in its origin and in its use for housing and localizing the
sovereignty of the Nation that the people who live here must regard its
peculiar character and must be content to subject themselves to the control
of a body selected by all the people of the Nation. I agree that there are
certain inconveniences growing out of the government of a city by a
national legislature like Congress, and it would perhaps be possible to
lessen these by the delegation by Congress to the District Commissioners of
greater legislative power for the enactment of local laws than they now
possess, especially those of a police character.

Every loyal American has a personal pride in the beauty of Washington and
in its development and growth. There is no one with a proper appreciation
of our Capital City who would favor a niggardly policy in respect to
expenditures from the National Treasury to add to the attractiveness of
this city, which belongs to every citizen of the entire country, and which
no citizen visits without a sense of pride of ownership. We have had
restored by a Commission of Fine Arts, at the instance of a committee of
the Senate, the original plan of the French engineer L'Enfant for the city
of Washington, and we know with great certainty the course which the
improvement of Washington should take. Why should there be delay in making
this improvement in so far as it involves the extension of the parking
system and the construction of greatly needed public buildings?
Appropriate buildings for the State Department, the Department of justice,
and the Department of Commerce and Labor have been projected, plans have
been approved, and nothing is wanting but the appropriations for the
beginning and completion of the structures. A hall of archives is also
badly needed, but nothing has been done toward its construction, although
the land for it has long been bought and paid for. Plans have been made for
the union of Potomac Park with the valley of Rock Creek and Rock Creek
Park, and the necessity for the connection between the Soldiers' Home and
Rock Creek Park calls for no comment. I ask again why there should be delay
in carrying out these plans We have the money in the Treasury, the plans
are national in their scope, and the improvement should be treated as a
national project. The plan will find a hearty approval throughout the
country. I am quite sure, from the information which I have, that, at
comparatively small expense, from that part of the District of Columbia
which was retroceded to Virginia, the portion including the Arlington
estate, Fort Myer, and the palisades of the Potomac can be acquired by
purchase and the jurisdiction of the State of Virginia over this land ceded
to the Nation. This ought to be done.

The construction of the Lincoln Memorial and of a memorial bridge from the
base of the Lincoln Monument to Arlington would be an appropriate and
symbolic expression of the union of the North and the South at the Capital
of the Nation. I urge upon Congress the appointment of a commission to
undertake these national improvements, and to submit a plan for their
execution; and when the plan has been submitted and approved, and the work
carried out, Washington will really become what it ought to be--the most
beautiful city in the world.

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