Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-20
The Presidents Congressional Message

aware that the future developm ent
of society directly depends. Agen-
cies of International counsel and suB-
gestion are presently to be created
in connection with the League OF
Nations in this very field; but 1t is
national action and the enlightened
policy of individuals. corporations
and societies within each nation that
must bring about the actual re-
forms. The members of the COM
mittees on labor in the two houses
will hardly need suggestions from
me as to what means they shall seek
to make the Federal government the
agent of the whole nation in point
ing out and, if need be, guiding the
process of reorganization and re-
form.
Jobs For Soldiers
"I am sure that it is not neces-
sary for me to remind you that tnere
is one immediate and very practlca!
question of labor that we should
meet in the most liberal spirit. we
must see to it that our returning
soldiers are assisted in every prac-
ticable way to find the places 1or
which they are fitted in the daily
work of the country. This can De
done by developing and maintaining
upon an adequate scale the admirable
organization created by the Depart
ment of Labor for placing men seek
ing work; and it can also be done,
in at least one very great HELD by
creating new opportunities Tor IN
dividual enterprise. The secretary
of the interior has pointed out the
way by which returning soldiers may
be helped to find and take up lana
in the hitherto undeveloped regions
of the country which the Federal
government has already prepared or
can readily prepare for cultivation
and also on many of the cut-oVer
or neglected areas which lie WITHIN
the limits of the older states; and L
once more take the liberty OF recon-
very urgently that his plans
shall receive the immediate ana SUD-
stantial support of the Congress.
Business After War
peculiar and very stimulating
await our commerce and
enterprise in the imme-
diate future. Unusual opportunities
will presently present themselves to
our merchants and producers in for
eign markets and large fields for
profitable investment will be opened
to our free capital. But it is not
only of that that I am thinking; 1t is
not chiefly of that that l am think
ing. Many great industries pros
trated by the war wait to be rehabili-
tated, in many parts of the world
where what will be lacking is not
brains or willing hands or organizing
capacity or experienced skill, but
Tor q q
capital. believe that our business
men, our merchants, our manufac-
turers and our capitalists, will have
the vision to see that prosperity in
one part of the world ministers to
prosperity everywhere; that there
is in a very true sense a solidarity of
interest throughout the world of en-
terprise and that our dealings with
the countries that have need of our
products and our money Will teach
them to deem us more than ever
friends whose necessities we seek in
the right way to serve.
"Our new merchant ships, which
have in some quarters been feared
as destructive rivals, may prove
helpful rivals, rather, and common
servants, very much needed and very
welcome. Our great shipyards, new
and old, will be so opened to the use
OF the world that they will prove
serviceable to every mari
time people in restoring, much more
rapidly than would otherwise have
been possible the tonnage wantonly
destroyed in the war. 1 have only
to suggest that there are any points
at which we can facilitate American
in foreign trade by op-
Slo 10 =
for American merchants to go where
they will be welcomed as friends
rather than as dreaded antagonists.
America has a great and honorable
service to perform in bringing the
commercial and industrial undertake
ings of the world back to their old
scope and swing again, and putting
a solid structure of credit under
them. All our legislation should be
friendly to such plans and purposes.
Revised Taxes
And credit and enterprise alike
will be quickened by timely and help
full legislation with regard to taxa
ton. I hope that the Congress will
md 1t possible to undertake an early
reconsideration of Federal taxes, in
order to make our system of taxa
ton more simple and easy of admin
istration and the taxes themselves as
little burdensome as they can be
made and yet suffice to support the
government and meet all its obliga-
tions. The figures to which those
obligations have arisen are very great
indeed, but they are not so great as
to make it difficult for the nation to
meet them, and meet them, perhaps,
IN a single generation, by taxes
which will neither crush nor dis
courage. These are not so great as
they seem, not so great as the i'm
mense sums we have had to borrow
added to the immense sums we have
had to raise by taxation, would seem
to indicate; for very large proper
ton of those sums were raised in
order that they might be loaned the
governments with which we were
associated in the war, and those loans
Will. of course, constitute assets, not
liabilities, and will not have to be
taken care of by our taxpayers.
The main thing we shall have to
care for Is that our taxation shall
rest as lightly as possible on the
productive resources of the country,
that its rate shall be stable and that
1t shall be constant in it's revenue
power. We have found the
main sources from which 1t must be
drawn. take it for granted that its
will henceforth be the in
come tax, the excess profits tax and
the estate tax. All these can SO be
adjusted to yield constant and ade-