The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1914-12-10

lows:
Gentlemen of the Congress:
The session upon which you are now
entering viii be the closing session Of the
Sixty third congress, a congress-, l VEN
lure TO say. which will long be rer1ern.
bered for the great body of thoughtful
and constructive work which it has done,
In loyal response to the thought and
needs OF the country. l should like in
this address to review the notable record
and try to make adequate assessment of
it; but no doubt we stand too near the
work that has been done and are our
selves too much part of il to play the part
OF historians oWard il.
Moreover, our thoughts are now more
OF the future than of the past While
we nave worked at our tasks of peace
the circumstance of the whole age have
been altered by war. What we have done
iGd our oWn land and our own people, we
dld with the best, that was in US, whether
OF character or of intelligence, with sober
enthusiasm and q confidence in the prin-
clples upon which we were acting which
Undertakings; but it is done. 1t has
passed from our hands. 1t is now an
established part of the legislation OF the
country. Its usefulness, its effects Will
disclose themselves in experience. What
chleily 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 ,corne-face them without partisan
leellng, like men who ave forgotten
eyerything but q common duty and the
TACT that we are representatives. of a
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.
Must Help Europe.
War has interrupted the means of trade
not only, but also the processes of pro-
duction. In Europe it is destroving men
and resources Wholesale and upon a scale
unprecedented and appalling. There is
reason to fear that the time is near, if
II pc not already at hand, when sew
eral OF the countries of Europe will find
It difficult to do for, their people what
they have hitherto been always easily
able to do-many essential and funda-
mental things. At any rate, they will
need our, help and our manifold services
and we should be ready, more fit and
READY than we have ever been.
II IS or equql consequence that the
nations whom Europe has usually sup
Piled with innumerable articles of main
ufacture and commerce of which they are
In constant need and without which their
economIc development halts and stands
stlll can now get only a small part of
what they formerly imported and eagerly
markets: This is particularly True OF our
own n~eighbors, 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. l do not
49, ~ tN1aiIS why VI l. IllSlhS dlly
comment on probable causes. What in
terests US Just now is not the explana-
ton but the fact, and our duty and OPP
p~ortunity in the presence of it. Here are
markets. which we must supply, and we
must find the means of action. The
w Wnit snes states aad this his great sSd;, people Il for whom
never before, to serve itself and to serve
user ana to serve mankind; ready with
us resources, its energies it forces of
Rit4a"0'o" and its means of distri0u-
Urges Merchant Marine.
1t is a very practical matter, a mat
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 distribu-
ton. We are willing, but we are not full
~ able. We have the wish to serve
We are not prepared as we should be.
we are not ready to mobilize our re-
sources at once. We are not prepared
to use them Immediately and at their
best, without delay and without waste.
70 sepak plainly, we have grossly erred
IN the way in which we have stunted
and hindered the development of our mer-
chant marine. And now, when we need
ships, we nave not got, them. We ave
year after year debated, without end or
conclusion, the best policy to pursue with
regard to the use of the ores and for
ests and water powers of our national do
main 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 thou
knock DANGEROUSLY for adinittance. The
water power OF our navigable streams
outside the n%ationa! domain also, even
the eastern states, where we nave 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
couragement against restraint. We with
hold by regulation.
l have come to ask you to remedy and
correct these mistakes and omissions,
even at this short session of a congress
winch would certainly seem to have done
all the work that could reasonably be
expected of it. The time and the cir
cumstances are extraordinary, and so
must our efforts be also.
Conservation Measures.
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, nave already
passed the House of Representatives and
are ready for immediate consideration 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 a
genuine policy of use and conservation
In the best sense Of those words. We owe
the one measure not only to the neonnIee
of that great country for whose free and
systematic development. as it seems ia
me-, oui lCSlStdtiOn mas done so little. but
also to the people of the nation as a
whole; and we as clearly the other
IN fulfllment of our repeated promises
that the water power Of the country
should in fact as well as in name be mi
at the disposal of great industries which
can make economical and profitable use OF
1t. the right of the public being adeouateiv
guarded the while, and monopoly in the
use prevented. To have begun such meas
ures and not completed them would in
deed mar the record Of this great con-
gress very seriously. I hope and conf
pleted. WIN
And there is another great piece nj
legislation which awaits and should re.
ceive the sanction of the Senate: 7 maan
the bill which gives a larger meas,re ~
seit-government to the people of the PIN.
ippines. How better, in this time Of any
. snmid questioning and perplexed policy,
ciptes OF liberty, as the source as weIi &c
the expression OF life, how better cn,,id
We demonstrate our own self-possass;nn
ana steadfastness in the courses of i,,sl
nee and disinterestedness than bv TINS 90.
ing calmly forward to fulfill our nron,isas
TO a dependent people, who will now Look
more anxiously than ever to see whetbann
we nave indeed the liberality. the mn