State of the Union AddressesHarding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel)
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State of the Union Addresses
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Again comes the reminder that we must not be unmindful of world conditions,
that peoples are struggling for industrial rehabilitation and that we can
not dwell in industrial and commercial exclusion and at the same time do
the just thing in aiding world reconstruction and readjustment. We do not
seek a selfish aloofness, and we could not profit by it, were it possible.
We recognize the necessity of buying wherever we sell, and the permanency
of trade lies in its acceptable exchanges. In our pursuit of markets we
must give as well as receive. We can not sell to others who do not produce,
nor can we buy unless we produce at home. Sensible of every obligation of
humanity, commerce and finance, linked as they are in the present world
condition, it is not to be argued that we need destroy ourselves to be
helpful to others. With all my heart I wish restoration to the peoples
blighted by the awful World War, but the process of restoration does not
lie in our acceptance of like conditions. It were better to, remain on firm
ground, strive for ample employment and high standards of wage at home, and
point the way to balanced budgets, rigid economies, and resolute, efficient
work as the necessary remedies to cure disaster.
Everything relating to trade, among ourselves and among nations, has been
expanded, excessive, inflated, abnormal, and there is a madness in finance
which no American policy alone will cure. We are a creditor Nation, not by
normal processes, but made so by war. It is not an unworthy selfishness to
seek to save ourselves, when the processes of that salvation are not only
not denied to others, but commended to them. We seek to undermine for
others no industry by which they subsist; we are obligated to permit the
undermining of none of our own which make for employment and maintained
activities.
Every contemplation, it little matters in which direction one turns,
magnifies the difficulty of tariff legislation, but the necessity of the
revision is magnified with it. Doubtless we are justified in seeking it.
More flexible policy than we have provided heretofore. I hope a way will be
found to make for flexibility and elasticity, so that rates may be adjusted
to meet unusual and changing conditions which can not be accurately
anticipated. There are problems incident to unfair practices, and to
exchanges which madness in money have made almost unsolvable. I know of no
manner in which to effect this flexibility other than the extension of the
powers of the Tariff Commission so that it can adapt itself to it
scientific and wholly just administration of the law.
I am not unmindful of the constitutional difficulties. These can be met by
giving authority to the Chief Executive, who could proclaim-additional
duties to meet conditions which the Congress may designate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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