Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1913-04-10
Pres. WILSON DELIVERS
MESSAGE IN PERSON
President Has . Heart to Heart Talk
With Congress on Tariff

Washington, April s President
Wilson stood on the speakers ros-
trum Of the hall Of the house today
and personally read his first mes
sage to congress, the first president
since John Adams, to avail himself
of that prerogative.
Following is the full text Of the
message:
TO the Senate and House Of Rep
resentatives:> am very glad indeed
to have this opportunity to address
the two houses directly and to yeri
fy for myself the impression that
president of the United States is a
person, not a mere department of
the government, hailing congress
from some isolated island Of jealous
power, sending message, not speak
ing naturally and with his own
voice; that he is human being
trying to cooperate with other hui
man beings in a common service.
After this pleasant experience. I
shall feel quite normal in all our
dealings with one another.
| have called the congress togeth-
er in extraordinary session because
duty was laid upon the party now
in power at the recent elections
which it ought to perform prompt
ly, in order that the burden carried
by the people under existing law
may be lightened as soon as posi-
BILE and in order, also, that the busi-
ness interests of the country may
not be kept too long in suspense as
to what the fiscal changes are to be
to which they will be required. to
adjust themselves.
1T is clear that the. whole
country expects the tariff duties
to be altered. They must be
changed to meet the radical al
teration in the conditions of our
economic life which the coun-
try has witnessed within the
last generation.
While the whole face and method
Of our Industrial and commercial
life were being changed beyond rec
ognition the tariff schedules have
remained what they were before the
change began, or have moved in the
direction they were givenwhen no
large circumstance of our industrial
development was what it is today.
Our task is to square them with the
actual facts. The sooner that is
done the sooner we shall escape
from suffering from the facts and
the sooner our men of business will
be free to thrive by the law Of ma
ture (the nature of free business)
instead of by the law of legislation
and artificial arrangement.
We have seen tariff legislation
wander very far afield in our day
very far indeed from the field in
which our prosperity might have
had a normal growth and stimula-
ton. No one who looks the facts
squarely in the face or knows any
thing that lies beneath the surface
Of action can fail to perceive the
principles upon which recent tariff
legislation has been based. We long
ago passed beyond the modest no
ton of protecting the industries
of the country and moved boldly
forward to the idea that they were
entitled to the direct patronage OF
the government. For a long time
"a time so long that the men now
active in public policy hardly re-
member the conditions that preced-
ed tive have sought in our tariff
schedules to give each group OF
manufacturers or producers what
they themselves thought that they
needed in order to maintain a prac-
tically exclusive market as against
the rest of the world.
Consciously or unConsciously,
we have built up set Of privi-
leges and exemptions from COM
petition behind which it was
easy by any, even the crudest,
forms Of combination to organ
ize monopoly; until at last moth
ing IS normal, nothing is obliged
to stand the tests Of efficiency
and economy, in our world of
big business, but everything
thrives by concerted arrange
1 ment.
Only new principles Of action will
SaVn TIC from q f1nol I'D M or,,et ! l;,oag