Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
One of the works that Uncle Sam has on hand just at present is digging
the Panama Canal; and it is going to be dug. It is going to be dug
honestly and as cheaply as is compatible with efficiency; but with the
efficiency first. I wanted Congress to give me power to remodel the
commission. It did not do it. So I remodeled it anyhow, purely in the
exercise of my executive functions. I made up my mind this time that
I was not going to make the slightest effort to represent different
sections of the country on that commission, that I was going to have
the whole country represented, by putting the best man I could get in
any given position, without the slightest regard to where he came from;
and while it was an accident, still I may mention it as a fortunate
accident that the two most important positions were filled from
Illinois—Shonts and Wallace are both from Illinois.
These are external questions, as regards which the interests of the
whole country and not the interests of any party or any section of the
country must be considered by the President. So it is with certain of
our great internal policies.
Among the vital questions that have come up for solution, because of
the extraordinary industrial development of this country, as of all the
modern world, are the questions affecting capital and labor as regards
each other, and the questions resulting from the effect upon the public
of the organization into great masses of both capital and labor. I
believe thoroughly in each kind of organization, but I recognize that
if either kind of organization does what is wrong, the increase in its
power for efficiency that has resulted from the combination means the
increase in its power to do harm; and that, therefore, corporation—that
is, organized capital—and union—that is, organized labor—must alike be
held to a peculiar responsibility to the public at large, and that from
each alike we have the right to demand not only obedience to the law,
but service to the public.
There are two sides to what I have said, and we are very apt to hear
only insistence upon one side—sometimes insistence upon one side,
sometimes insistence upon the other, but not as often as we should
insistence upon both sides.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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