US Presidency
1906

The conditions are so new and so trying, and the work so vast, that it would be absolutely out of the question that mistakes should not be made. Checks will occur. Unforeseen difficulties will arise. From time to time seemingly well settled plans will have to be changed. At present twenty-five thousand men are engaged on the task. After a while the number will be doubled. In such a multitude it is inevitable that there should be here and there a scoundrel. Very many of the poorer class of laborers lack the mental development to protect themselves against either the rascality of others or their own folly, and it is not possible for human wisdom to devise a plan by which they can invariably be protected. In a place which has been for ages a overnight for unhealthfulness, and with so large a congregation of strangers suddenly put down and set to hard work there will now and then be outbreaks of disease.