Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
It discloses the results of recent legislation looking to the prevention
and punishment of polygamy in that Territory. I still believe that if that
abominable practice can be suppressed by law it can only be by the most
radical legislation consistent with the restraints of the Constitution.
I again recommend, therefore, that Congress assume absolute political
control of the Territory of Utah and provide for the appointment of
commissioners with such governmental powers as in its judgment may justly
and wisely be put into their hands.
In the course of this communication reference has more than once been made
to the policy of this Government as regards the extension of our foreign
trade. It seems proper to declare the general principles that should, in my
opinion, underlie our national efforts in this direction.
The main conditions of the problem may be thus stated:
We are a people apt in mechanical pursuits and fertile in invention. We
cover a vast extent of territory rich in agricultural products and in
nearly all the raw materials necessary for successful manufacture. We have
a system of productive establishments more than sufficient to supply our
own demands. The wages of labor are nowhere else so great. The scale of
living of our artisan classes is such as tends to secure their personal
comfort and the development of those higher moral and intellectual
qualities that go to the making of good citizens. Our system of tax and
tariff legislation is yielding a revenue which is in excess of the present
needs of the Government.
These are the elements from which it is sought to devise a scheme by which,
without unfavorably changing the condition of the workingman, our merchant
marine shall be raised from its enfeebled condition and new markets
provided for the sale beyond our borders of the manifold fruits of our
industrial enterprises.
The problem is complex and can be solved by no single measure of innovation
or reform.
The countries of the American continent and the adjacent islands are for
the United States the natural marts of supply and demand. It is from them
that we should obtain what we do not produce or do not produce in
sufficiency, and it is to them that the surplus productions of our fields,
our mills, and our workshops should flow, under conditions that will
equalize or favor them in comparison with foreign competition.
Four paths of policy seem to point to this end:
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