THE AMERICAN ARMY

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the march for lack of food and clothes, fall under hostile shot and shell because misled by incompetent officers; but that the great volunteer army of the United States in the future shall have an adequate organization for its medical attendance, its supply of clothing and food and arms, its transportation, its organization, its command.

Already the Congress at the present session has passed a bill for the organization of the militia which substantially every administration of this country has endeavored to secure since 1794, when George Washington sent his first message to Congress asking for militia legislation. Already Congress has advanced to the last stage, where it now awaits action, a bill for the establishment of a general staff which makes possible adequate organization for the volunteer armies of the future. Superior intelligence shows itself by prevision and provision for the future. The people of the country owe it to the American army that that prevision and provision shall be given to the organization which will enable it to accomplish the tasks of the future as it has accomplished the tasks of the past. And I pledge you the faith of that army that never in all the years of the future will it depart from the highest standards of American citizenship. Never will it depart from the lofty ideals and the beneficent purposes for the blessings of mankind which inspired its great commander in the recent wars, the beloved friend whose memory we honor tonight.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE

PHILIPPINES IN 1900

ADDRESS OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR, AT CANTON, OHIO OCTOBER 24, 1900

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HEAVY burden of proof rests upon those who ask the American people to reject the further services of the Republican administration. Under that administration the legitimate objects of government have been attained to a degree which challenges comparison with the happiest periods in the life of any nation in any age. Never in human history anywhere on earth have security for life and property, unfettered opportunity for intelligence and energy, individual freedom, and the self-respect of manhood, attained a higher level than now marks the condition of this fortunate Republic.

The material results of wise and successful government are visible on every hand. We never before have had so many million people owning their own homes unencumbered, so many million people with accumulated earnings in savings banks, such universal employment of labor at such good wages, such abundant production from farm and factory and workshop of all material things which meet the necessities and contribute to the comfort and pleasure of life. The markets for our products are extending over the whole earth. Abundant home capital is obtainable at lower rates of interest than were ever known before for the productive enterprise which employs labor and creates wealth. We are rapidly paying our debts to Europe for the money borrowed to build our railroads and develop our country, so that the constant drain upon our earnings for the payment of interest abroad

is ceasing; and we are lending money to Europe, so that the current of annual payments is setting in our direction. There never was in this world a greater body of people so well fed, well clothed and well housed.

Above and beyond all these material things are universal opportunities for education and the general exercise and training of intelligence. The newspaper, the magazine and the book find their way into the humblest home. The doors of our free schools are open to every child, and it is rare indeed that poverty withholds access. The patriotism of the rich is devoting millions to the building up of colleges, technical schools and great universities, in which the poorest boy can rise to the loftiest heights of learning and intellectual power. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech and the constant consideration and discussion of political problems are training and exercising the whole people to a degree of competency for self-government never before equaled. The aristocracy of America is the aristocracy of achievement. It is with intellectual and moral qualities that our people achieve fame and fortune. The pathway to the highest distinction is open to every boy who thumbs his primer in the common school. Inherited wealth is a hindrance rather than an aid in the race of life. Call the roll of those whom the nation has honored the president and his cabinet, the great judges, the great senators, the great congressmen, the great governors-call the roll of the men whose great fortunes are the cause of envy and disparagement, and among them all you will find that the man who cannot look back upon a youth of privation and struggle, with no capital but his own energy and ambition, is the exception. The softening and ennobling influences of charity and religion find sway in every community. Hospitals and asylums and libraries and schools and churches grow apace with homes and manufactories, and the swift response to every appeal of humanity for the

relief of misfortune answers to the quickened activity of industrial enterprise.

Of course this happy condition has not been created by government, but without good government it could not have been created. Without sound governmental policy and wise and efficient governmental administration, the blessings we have enumerated would have been impossible. Government does not make crops grow, or weave cloth, or mould iron; but wise government opens the markets for crops and for cloth and for iron; and for the want of them you and I have seen corn burned for fuel in the valley of the Mississippi, cloth unsalable gathering dust in the warehouses of New England, ores unquarried and furnaces unfired among the hills of Pennsylvania and Alabama, and the productive power of millions of American workingmen idle and helpless. Government does not make enterprise; but wise government evokes enterprise by the certainty of reward for its activity. Government does not invest capital; but wise government gives to capital that confidence in security for its investment which draws it from the hiding places of distrust and transmutes it into the plant and material out of which labor creates prosperity. Government does not give employment to labor, but wise government creates the conditions under which industrial activity employs labor. Prosperity does not come by chance. History is full of examples of earth's fairest regions nourishing only poverty, misery and degradation, because of the folly and incompetency or corruption of government. We are not without illustrations in our own land, of the ruin which can be wrought by unwise government and the attempts of men in power to apply crude and impracticable theories to the complicated and delicate machinery of industrial life. Under bad government no fertility of soil, no thrift or industry of population, can bring prosperity to a people. Security, opportunity, confidence, activity of trade