The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1914-12-16
Wilson's MESSAGE
DEFENDS POLICY OF COUNTRY:
OPPOSES Big Army
REASSURES BUSINESS

Says Trust Legislation and Currency
Reforms Have Been About COM
pleted-We Should Provide an
Adequate Navy-No Use to Become
Excited Over War.
The full text of the address fol-
lows:
Gentlemen Of the Congress-:
The session upon which you are
now entering will be the closing ses-
sion of the sixty-third congress, q
congress, I venture to say, which will
long be remembered for the great
body of thoughtful and constructive
work which it has done, in loyal re-
sponse to the thought and needs of
the country. should like in this ad-
dress 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
ourselves too much part Of it to play
the part of historians toward it.
Moreover, our thoughts are now
more of the future than of the past.
While we have worked at our tasks of
peace the circumstances Of the whole
age have been altered by war What
we have done for our own land our
own people We did with the best that
was in us, whether of character or OF
intelligence, with sober enthusiasm
and a confidence in the principles up
on which we were acting which sus-
tanned US at every step of the difficult
undertaking: but it is done. It has
passed from our hands. It is now an
established part of the legislation of
the country. 1t usefulness, its effects
will disclose themselves in experience.
What chiefly strikes US now, as we
look about US during these closing
days Of 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 thom in the months to
come-face them without partisan
feeling, like men who have forgotten
everything but common duty. and
the fact 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
Need Our Trade.
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 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
to do-nany essen :ial and fundamen.
tai things. At any Fate, 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 with
out which their economic develop:
ment halts and stands still can now
get only small part Of what they
formerly imported and eagerly look
to US to supply their all but empty
markets. This is particularly true OF
our own ncighbors, 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 con-
inent of Europe.
I do not stop to inquire why, or to
make any comment on pre)aDle
causes. What interests US just now
is not the explanation but the fact,
and our duty and opportunity in the
presence of it. Here are markets
which We must supply, and We must
find the means Of action. The Unit
ed States, this great people for whom
we speak and act, should be ready, as
never before, tn serve itself and man
kind; ready with it's resources, its
energies, it's forces Of production, and
its means Of distribution.
It S q very practical matter, a mat
ter Of ways and means. We have the
resources, but ere 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 re-
sources 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 develop
ment of our merchant marine. And
now, when We need ships, We have
not got them. We have year after
year debated. without end or conclu-
sion, the best policy to pursue with
regard to the use of the ores and for
est 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 streams outside the ma
tional domain also, even in the East
ern 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 against re-
straint. We withhold by regulation.
l have come to ask you to remedy
and correct these mistakes and omis-
eiooe avo1 ~ tbic chorf caccioD of