Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-05-21

" 4Hx(4N 4It04<AA u AN4OAsAN A AS : difficulties and mistaken policies of the present management of industry and by setting up and developing new federal agencies of advice and 1n- formation which may serve as clear ing house for the best experiments and the best thought on this great matter, upon which every thinking man must be aware that the future development of society directly de- pends. Agencies of international coun- sel and suggestion are presently to be created in connection with the league of nations in this very field; but it is national action and the en- frightened policy of individuals, cor porations and societies within each nation that must bring about the act ual reforms. The members of the committees 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 is pointing out, and, if need be, guiding the pro- cess of reorganization and reform.
 l am sure that it is not necessary for me to remind you that there is one immediate and very practical 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 practicable way to find the places for which they are fitted in the daily work of the coun- try. This can be done by, developing and maintaining upon an adequate scale, the admirable organization created by the department of labor for placing men seeking work; and it can also be done, in at least one very great field, by creating new op- portunities for individual enterprise. The secretary of the interior has pointed out the way by which return ing soldiers may be helped to find and take up land in the hitherto unde veloped regions of the country which the federal government has prepared or can readily prepare for cultivation and for many of the cut-over or neg lected areas areas which lie within the limits of the older states; and I once more take the liberty of recom- mending very urgently that his plans shall receive the immediate and sub- stantial support of the congress.
 New Conditions Peculiar.
 Peculiar and very stimulating con- ditions await our commerce and indus trial enterprise in the immediate fu- ture. Unusual opportunities will pres ently present themselves to our mer- chants and producers in foreign mar kets and large fields for profitable in- vestment will be opened to our free capital. But it is not only of that l am thinking; it is not chiefly of that that I am thinking. Many great in- dustries protrated by the war, wait to be rehabilitated, in many parts of the world where what will be lack ing is not brains or willing hands or organizing capacity or experienced skill, but machinery and raw mater ials and capital.
 1 believe that our business men, our merchants, our manufacturers and our capitalists will have the wis., ion to see that prosperity in one part of the world ministers to prosperity everywhere; that there is in very true sense a solidarity of interest throughout the world of enterprise and that our dealings with the coun- tries that have need of our products and our money will teach them to deem us more than ever friends whose nec- essities we seek in the right way to serve.
 Merchant Ships Are Aid.
 Our new merchant ships, which have in some quarters been feared as destructive rivals, may prove help full rivals, rather, and common ser wants, 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 immensely serviceable to every mari time people in restoring much more rapidly than would otherwise have been possible the tonnage wantonly destroyed in the war. l have only to suggest that there are many points at which we can facilitate American en- terprise in foreign trade by oppor- tune legislation and make it easy 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 undertakings 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.
 And credit and enterprise alike will be quickened by timely and helpful legislation with regard to taxation. 1 hope that the congress will find it possible to undertake an early re- consideration of federal taxes in or der to make our system of taxation more simple and easy of administra- tion and the taxes themselves as little burdensome as they can be. made and vet sllffice tn sunnnrt the pnvarnment]