Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-12-09
CONGRESS HEARS
ANNUAL MESSAGE
OF THE PRESIDENT
Devoted Principally to Discussing War Prepar-
edness-Tells Business His Program
Is Nearly Completed

which sustained us at every step OF
the difficult undertaking.; but it Is
done. 1t has passed from our hands
It is now an established part Of tho
| legislation of the country. Its useful
ness, its effects will disclose them
selves in experience. What chiefly
strikes US now, as we look about us
during these closing days Of a year
which will be forever memorable in
the history of the world, is that we
face new tasks, have been facing them
! these six months, must face them In
the months to come-face them with
out partisan feeling, like men who
have forgotten everything but a COM
mon duty and the fact that we are
representatives of great people
whose thought is not of US but of what
America owes to herself and to all
mankind in such circumstances as
these upon which we look amazed and
anxious.
| War has interrupted the means OF
trade not only but also the processes
of production. In Europe it is de-
stroying men and resources wholesale
and upon a scale unprecedented and
appalling There is reason to fear
that the time is near, If it be not al
ready at hand, when several of the
countries of Europe will find it diff
cult to do for their people what. they
have hitherto been always easily able
| tai things. At any rate, they will
need our help and our manifold SER
vices as they have never needed them
before; and we should be ready, more
| fit and ready than we have ever been.
| 1t is of equal consequence that the
nations whom Europe has usually
supplied with innumerable articles of
manufacture and commerce of which
they are in constant need and without
which their economic development
halts and stands still can now get
only a small part Of what they for
merly imported and eagerly look to US
to supply their all but empty mar
kets. This is particularly true of our
own neighbors, the States, great and
small, of Central and South America.
Their lines Of trade have hitherto run
chiefly athwart the seas, not to our
ports but to the ports of Great Britain
and of the older continent of Europe.
III do not stop to inquire why, or to
make any comment on probable caus-
es. What interests us just now is not
the explanation but the fact, and our
duty and opportunity In the presence
of 1t. Here are markets which we
must supply, and We must find the
means of action. The United States,
this great people for whom we speak
and act, should be ready, as never
before, to serve itself and to serve
mankind; ready with its resources, its
energies. it's forces of production. and
its means of distribution.
1t 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 resources 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 initiative, knock DANGEROUSLY
for admittance. The water power of
our navigable streams outside the
national domain also, even in the
eastern States, where we have worked
and planned for generations. Is still
not used as 1t might be. because we
will and we won't; because the laws
we have made do not intelligently bal
ance encouragement against restraint.
We withhold by regulation.
have come to ask you to remedy
and correct these mistakes and omis-
SlOnS, even dt ILLS pC6olOn Va u
Congress which would certainly seem
to have done all the work that could
reasonably be expected Of it. The
time and the circumstances are ex-
traordinary, 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 con-
sideration and action by 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 peo-
pie of that great western country for
whose free and systematic develop
| ment, as it seems TO me, our legisla-
| ton has done so little, but also to the
people of the Nation as a whole; and