Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-12-08

ready with its resources, its energies,
| its forces of production, and its means
of distribution
ut is a very practical matter, a
matter of ways and means. We have
the resources, but are we fully ready
to use them? And, If we can make
ready what we have, have we thu
means at hand to distribute 1t? We
are not fully ready; neither have we
the means of distribution. We are
willing, but we are not fully able. We
have the wish to serve and to serve
greatly, generously; but we are not
prepared as we should be. We are not
ready to mobilize our resources at
once. We are not prepared to use
them Immediately and at their best,
without delay and without waste.
Development Hindered
TO speak plainly we have grossly
erred in the way in which we have
stunted and hindered the development
of our merchant marine. And now,
when we need ships, we have not got
them. We have year after year de-
bated, without end or conclusion, the
best policy to pursue with regard to
the use of the ores and Forests and
water powers of our national domain
in the rich States of the West, when
we should have acted: and they are
still locked up. The key is still turned
upon them, the door shut fast at
which thousands of vigorous men, full
of initiative, knock clamorously for
admittance The water power of our
navigable sterams outside the national
domain also, even in the Eastern
States, where we have worked and
planned for generations, is still not
used as it might be, because we will
and we won't; because the laws we
have made do not intelligently bal
anee encouragement against restraint.
We withhold by regulation.
II have come to ask you to remedy
and correct these mistakes and omis-
sions, even at this short session of
Congress which would certainly seem
to have done all the work that could
reasonably be expected of it. The
time and the circumstances are extra
ordinary, and so must our efforts be
also.
Urges Prompt Passage
Fortunately, two great measures,
finally conceived, the one to unlock,
with proper safeguards, the resources
of the national domain, the other to
encourage the use of the navigable
waters outside that domain for the
generation of power, have already
passed the House of Representatives
and are ready for immediate consid-
GRAFTON and action by the Senate.
With the deepest earnestness l urge
their prompt passage. In them both
we turn our backs upon hesitation
and makeshift and formulate gen.
uine policy of use and conservation, in
the best sense of those words. We
owe the one measure not only to the
people of that great western country
for whose free and systematic deYel-
opment as it seems to me, our legiS-
| lation has done so little, but also to
the people of the nation as a whole;
and we as clearly owe the other in
fulillment of our repeated promises
that the water power of the country
should in fact as well as in name be
put at the disposal of great industries
which can make economical and
profitable use of it, the rights of the
public being adequately guarded the
while, and monopoly in the use pre-
vented. To have begun such measures
and not completed them would indeed
mar the record of this Congress very
seriously. L hope and confidently be-
lieve that they will be completed.
And there is another great piece of
| legislation which awaits and should
receive the sanction of the Senate; L
mean the bill which gives a larger
measure of self-government to the
people of the Philippines. How better,
In this time of anxious questioning and
perpleXed policy, could we show our
confidence in the principles of liberty
as the source as well as the expression
of life, how better could we demon
strate our own self-possession and
steadfastness in the courses of justice
and diSinterestedness than by thus 60
ing calmly forward to fulfill our prom
ises to a dependent people, who will
now look more anXiously than ever
to see whether we have indeed the
liberality, the unselfishness, the cour-
age, the faith we have boasted and
professed ] cannot believe that the
Senate will let this great measure of
constructive justice await the action
of another Congress. Its passage
would nobly crown the record of these
two years of memorable labor.
Toll Not Complete
But l think that you will agree
with me that this does not complete
the toll of our duty. How are we to
carry our goods to the empty markets
the ships? How are we to build up
great trade If we have not the GER
tain and constant means of transporta-
ton upon which all profitable and
useful commerce depends? And how
are we to get the ships If we wait for
the trade to develop without them?
| To correct the many mistakes by which
we have discouraged and all but de-
stroyed the merchant marine of the
country, to retrace the steps by which
we have, 1t seems almost deliberately,
Withdrawn our flag from the seas, eX-
cept where, here and there, a ship of
war is bidden carry it or some wan
dering yacht displays it, would take a
| long time and involve many detailed
| items of legislation, and the trade
which We ought Immediately to han
| die would disappear or find other
channels while we debated the items.
'The case is not unlike that which
nent was to be opened up to settle
ment and industry, and we needed
| long lines of railway, extended means
of transportation prepared before
hand, if development was not to lag
intolerably and wait interminably. We
lavishly subsidized the building of
ltranscontinental railroads. We look
back upon that with regret now, be-
cause the subsidies led to many scan
dals of which we are ashamed; but
we know that the railroads had to be
built and if we had it to do over
again we should of course build them,
but in another way. Therefore L pro-
pose another way of providing the
means of transportation, which must
precede, not tardily follow, the de-
velopment of our trade with our
neighbor states of America. 1t may
seem a reversal of the natural order
of things, but it is true, that the routes
of trade must be actually opened
by many ships and regular sailings
and moderate charges before
streams of merchandise will flow