Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1914-12-17

quire why, or to make any comment
on probable causes. What interests
us just now is not the explanation but
the fact, and our duty and opportu-
nifty in the presence of it. Here are
markets which we must supply, and
we must find the means of action.
The United States, shis great people
for whom we speak and act, should
be ready, as never before, to serve
mankind; ready with is resources,
its energies, its forces of production,
and it's means of distribution.
It is very practical matter, mat
ter 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
the means at hand to distribute it?
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 resour-
ces at once. We are not prepared to
use them Immediately and at their
best without delay and without waste.
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 in
itiative, knock DANGEROUSLY for admit
lance. The water power Of our navig-
able streams outside the national do
main 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 balance encouragement a.
gainst restraint. We hold by regula-
ton.
have come to ask you to remedy
and correct these mistakes and omis-
sions, even at this short session of a
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.
Fortunately, two great measures,
finely 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 consider
alton and action of the Senate. With
the deepest earnestness / urge their
prompt passage. In them both we
turn our backs upon hesitation and
makeshift and formulate genuine
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 devel-
opment, as it seems to me, our legisla-
ton has done so little, but also to the
people of the Nation as whole; and
we as clearly owe the other in fulfill
ment 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 right of the public being
adequately guarded the while, and
monopoly in the use prevented. To
have begun such measures and not
completed them would indeed mar
the record Of the Congress very seri-I
ously. / hope and confidently believe
that they will be completed.
And there is another great piece of
legislation which awaits and should
receive the action of the Senate: /
mean the bill which gives large
measure Of self-government to the
people Of the Philippines. How bet
ter, in this time of anxious question
ing 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 demonstrate our own self -posses-
sion and steadfastness in the course
of justice and disinterestedness than
L. kl..r -.~<~, :. o,fx>-ysx II