If our Government will equalize these artificial disadvantages under which our vessels labor and will do for them enough to make up to them the disadvantage caused by raising the standard of living of the men they employ and to make up to them the disadvantage, coming from the fact that their foreign competitors are subsidized by foreign governments for the purpose of promoting foreign trade against American trade, we will have an American merchant marine and American ships to carry passengers and freight and mails between South and North American ports. A bill to provide that is pending in Congress now. It has passed the Senate. It is in the Committee of the House. I hope that all of you who agree with me in believing that our Government ought to be fair to the American merchant marine will say so out loud; say so to your neighbors; say so in such a way that American public opinion will realize that that kind of fair treatment is not a matter of the lobbyist, but is a matter of broad, American public policy. There is one other subject--very important as a part of this general outlook and forecast of American policy looking towards the south. That is our special relation towards the countries, the smaller countries about the Caribbean, and particularly the West Indian countries, the islands that lie directly on the route between our ports and the Panama Canal. Some of them have had a pretty hard time. The conditions of their lives have been such that it has been difficult for them to maintain stable and orderly governments. They have been cursed, some of them, by frequent revolution. Poor Cuba, with her wonderful climate and richness of soil, has suffered. We have done the best we could to help her, and we mean to go on doing the best we can to help her. I think the key of our attitude towards these countries can be put in three sentences: First. We do not want to take them for ourselves. Second. We do not want any foreign nations to take them for themselves. Third. We want to help them. Now, we can help them; help them govern themselves, help them to acquire capacity for self-government, help them along the road that Brazil and the Argentine and Chile and Peru and a number of other South American countries have travelled--up out of the discord and turmoil of continual revolution into a general public sense of justice and determination to maintain order. There is a good deal of talk in the newspapers about the annexation of Cuba. Never! so long as the people of Cuba do not themselves give up the effort to govern themselves. Our efforts should be towards helping them to be self-governing. That is what we are trying to do now and what we mean to try to do.