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American Problems

American Problems

Theodore Roosevelt

New York

The Outlook Company

Copyright 1910 by The Outlook Company New York All rights reserved

Contents

PAGE

The Management of Small States Which Are Unable to Manage 3 Themselves

A Remedy for Some Forms of Selfish Legislation 11

Rural Life 29

The Progressives, Past and Present 45

The Pioneer Spirit and American Problems 91

The Tariff: A Moral Issue 111

THE CHAPTERS CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK PRESENT MR. ROOSEVELT'S VIEWS ON MANY OF THE GREAT NATIONAL ISSUES OF TODAY. THEY WERE WRITTEN SINCE MR. ROOSEVELT'S RETURN TO AMERICA, AND APPEARED ORIGINALLY IN THE OUTLOOK AS EDITORIALS OR ARTICLES

The Management of Small States Which are Unable to Manage Themselves

In the issue of The Outlook for June 18 there was a quotation from a letter of an Anti-Imperialist correspondent, who, in speaking of Egypt and the Philippines, stated that the proper course to pursue was to protect countries of this nature by international agreement, the writer citing in support of his theory the way in which many small powers had their territories guaranteed by international agreement.

The trouble is in the confusion of ideas which results in trying to apply the same principle to two totally different classes of cases. A State like Switzerland or Holland differs only in size from the greatest of civilized nations, and in everything except size stands at least on a level with them. Such a State is absolutely competent to preserve order within its own bounds, to execute substantial justice, and to secure the rights of foreigners. All that is necessary, therefore, is to guarantee it against aggression; and when the great Powers have thus guaranteed it, all covenanting to protect it from the aggression of any one of their own number, their duty is done and the needs of the situation completely met. In such a State the people themselves guarantee stability, order, liberty, and protection for the rights of others. There is not the slightest need of interfering with them, of seeking to develop them, of protecting them from themselves. The needs of civilization and humanity are sufficiently met by protecting them from outside aggression.

There is no analogy at all with what occurs in a community unable to keep elementary order, or to secure elementary justice within its own borders, and unable or unwilling to do justice to foreign nations. The very worst thing from the standpoint of humanity which can happen to such a community may be to guarantee it against outside aggression. The condition of Algeria under French rule is infinitely better than its condition before the French came to Algeria, or than the condition of Morocco at this moment. The condition of Turkestan under Russia has very greatly improved. The condition of the Sudan at present, as compared with the condition of the Sudan under Mahdist rule, is the most striking example of all. In the same way, Panama has benefited immeasurably from every standpoint by the presence of Americans on the Isthmus. Any arrangement which had guaranteed Algeria against the French, or Turkestan against the Russians, or the Sudan against the English, or Panama against the Americans, would have been an arrangement against the interests of humanity and civilization, and against the interests of the natives of the countries themselves.

Moreover, if there must be interference for the sake of the country itself, to promote its growth in order and civilization, actual experience has shown that such interference can only come efficiently by one nation, and not by many. Untried theorists, or even practical men who are influenced by national jealousy and are untaught by the lessons of history, have a curious fondness for trying a system of joint interference or joint control. Americans forget, for instance, that we have actually tried this system and found it completely wanting, in the case of Samoa. We made an arrangement with England and Germany by which there was a joint protectorate over Samoa. The system worked wretchedly. It resulted badly for the natives; it was a fruitful source of bickering among the three Powers. Then we abandoned the system, each Power took its own sphere, and since then we have gotten along admirably; the only trouble in connection with Samoa which arose during my entire administration as President came because we were not able to grant the earnest request of the natives that we should take real and complete possession of our part of the islands and really regulate the government instead of leaving it so much in the hands of the native chiefs.

In the case of the Philippines, there were just two things that we could do which would have been worse than leaving them under Spanish rule. One of these would have been to turn the islands adrift to manage themselves. The second would have been to try to manage them by a joint arrangement of various Powers. Any such arrangement in the case of as rich and valuable islands as the Philippines would very possibly have led to war between the great Powers. It would have certainly led to jealousy, bickerings, and intrigue among them, would have held the islands back, would have prevented any development along the lines of progress and civilization, and would have insured an endless succession of devastating little civil wars.

When all that is necessary as regards a small State is to protect it from external aggression, then the great Powers can with advantage join to guarantee its integrity. When anything more is necessary to try to develop the people and civilization, to put down disorder, to stop civil war and secure justice, then a combination of Powers offers the worst possible way of securing the object sought to be achieved. Indeed, under such circumstances it is probably better for the State concerned to be under the control of a single Power, even though this Power has not high ideals, rather than under the control of three or four Powers which may possess high ideals but which are put into such an impossible situation that they are certain to be riven asunder by jealousy, distrust, and intrigue, and to do damage rather than good to the people whom they are supposed to protect.

A Remedy for Some Forms of Selfish Legislation

This serious charge against the American people--for which there is unquestionably altogether too much justification--the author proceeds to substantiate by relating some of his own experiences with constituents which, however surprising they may seem to the general reader, will seem almost commonplace to all who know how the average American constituency does in actual practice treat its Congressman.

The writer sets forth the fact that, in the first place, ninety per cent of the letters which a Congressman receives are requests for special favors to be obtained in some way or other, directly or indirectly, from the United States Treasury. For instance, while the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Law was under discussion, this particular Congressman received in May, 1909, the following letter from the secretary of a powerful commercial association in his district:

When the bill was finally passed, the Congressman succeeded in adding half a cent a pound to the duty on two of these products and in preventing any reduction on the others. A year later, when the popular clamor against the bill had become acute, the same association that had asked him to vote for increases wrote to the Congressman denouncing the bill as "the most iniquitous measure ever enacted by Congress" and requesting him to explain by letter why he had voted with "the Reactionaries" to pass the bill. When it was pointed out to the association that it had urged the Congressman to obtain an increase of duty on the products in which it was interested, it dropped its demand for an explanation. An influential newspaper published in his district editorially commended him while the bill was under debate for his "intelligent efforts" to increase the duty on manufactured articles in which the district was interested, and a year later the same newspaper in the same editorial column denounced him as one of "the legislative banditti responsible for the Payne-Aldrich measure."

As with the tariff, so with pensions; the Congressman is urged to obtain local favors without regard to National interests. This is illustrated by the following letter, which the author prints, and which was written by the clergyman of a large and wealthy church:

It may be said that this is a unique instance from which it is unfair to draw a general inference. The confessing Congressman answers, No; that he has "hundreds of such letters filed away. So has every other Congressman."

River and harbor legislation is another field in which local selfishness busies itself, to the exclusion of National needs. In this case requests are not made by letter but by delegations which come to Washington besieging their Senators and Representatives. "There is," says the frank writer of this article, "figuratively speaking, between ,000,000 and ,000,000 on the table to be divided. The Committee divides it so that every one is satisfied, at least to a reasonable extent." Every one, that is, but the people at large, the people who have no special interest to serve, and who feel keenly indignant that the rivers and harbors of the United States are developed in a fashion so inferior to that of Europe.

Nor are all the requests for legislation merely. One constituent desired to have this particular Congressman put his name on the free mailing list for all public documents. That this would be impossible, because it would mean delivering to the applicant several tons of documents every month, does not in the slightest detract from the interest of the fact elicited by an investigation that the applicant was the manufacturer of an article made from waste paper, and the public documents would afford a useful source of raw material.

Is there a remedy for such a state of things? The answer is, yes; and, moreover, it is a remedy which Congress can itself immediately provide.

There is no complete remedy, of course. No scheme can be devised which can prevent such a request as that of the constituent last named who wished public documents to use in his private paper business. Requests like this merely mean that in every district individuals will always be found who will request improper favors. As regards these people, all that can be done is to create a vigorous public opinion--an opinion which shall not only make it uncomfortable for any man to demand such favors, but which shall cordially support the Congressman in refusing them and hold him accountable for granting them. We must trust to individual integrity to resist such individual and sporadic attempts to corrupt it.

The case is entirely different when we come to the other favors mentioned. These favors are those which the Congressman describes as being improperly, habitually, and insistently demanded by large portions of a given constituency, with at least the acquiescence of the constituency as a whole. It is futile to expect to cure this type of evil merely by solemnly saying that each Congressman ought to be good. It is futile to ask the average Congressman to cut his own throat by disregarding the requests of his own constituents for special and improper favors in the matter of tariff legislation, river and harbor legislation, and pension legislation; even though these same constituents adopt the beautifully illogical position of expressing a great--and, curiously enough, often a sincere--indignation that their Congressman, as the only means of securing for them what they insist he shall secure, joins with other Congressmen in granting for all other constituencies the same improper favors which are eagerly demanded by his own individual constituency. Moreover, under the present system, the small man, when he asks for something in which his own district is keenly interested, is told by the big man who represents the big interest that he can't have his little favor granted unless he agrees to stand by those who wish to grant the big favor--and the small man may be remorselessly "held up" in this fashion, even though the small favor he asks is proper, and the big favor he is required to grant entirely improper. When such is the pressure upon the average Representative, there is certain to be more or less yielding on his part, in the great majority of cases. It is idle to hope that reform will come through mere denunciation of the average Congressman, or by merely beseeching him to reach the height of courage, wisdom, and disinterestedness achieved only by the exceptional man; by the man who is so brave and far-seeing and high-minded that he really will think only of the interests of the country as a whole.

On the other hand, it is just as idle for Congressmen to seek to excuse themselves as a body by uttering jeremiads as to the improper way in which their constituents press them to do things that ought not to be done. The individual Congressman can be excused only by frankly admitting that the fault lies with the Congressmen taken collectively. The remedy is simple and easy of application.

In the case of the tariff and the river and harbor legislation, what is needed in each case is ample provision for a commission of the highest possible grade, composed of men who thoroughly know the subject, and who possess every attribute required for the performance of the great and difficult task of framing in outline the legislation that the country, as distinguished from special interests, really needs. These men, from the very nature of the case, will be wholly free from the local pressure of special interests so keenly felt by every man who is dependent upon the vote of a particular district every two years for his continuance in public life. Such a river and harbor commission could report, and probably would report, a great and comprehensive National scheme for river and harbor improvements fit to be considered by the people as a whole upon its merits, and not dependent for enactment into law upon a system of log-rolling designed to placate special interests which are powerful in each of many score Congressional districts. Such a tariff commission could get at the facts of labor cost here and abroad by expert inquiry, and not by the acceptance of interested testimony; such a commission could consider dispassionately the probable effect upon the entire social and economic body of all changes in any given branch of the tariff, and its recommendations would represent the exercise of careful judgment from a disinterested standpoint. Such a commission could work in harmony with the Commissioner of Labor, so as to insure that the laborers for whom the tariff is passed get the full benefit of it; for the major part of the benefit of a protective tariff should unquestionably go to the wage-workers.

Even under such conditions of tariff-making errors might be committed, but they would be merely those errors of disinterested judgment incidental to every kind of public or, for the matter of that, private effort, and the work would not be hampered from the beginning by the need of gratifying private selfishness.

It is only in this way that tariff legislation, river and harbor legislation, and pension legislation can be treated from the standpoint of principle and not from the very low standpoint of privilege and preference. The obstacle hitherto to the adoption of such a method of treatment has come from the queer dislike felt by so many Congressional leaders to a course of action which they feel would in some way be a limitation of their powers. I think this feeling is passing. It is simply another instance of the kind of feeling which makes some executives suspicious about delegating their work to any subordinate, and which makes many voters, who have not pondered the matter deeply, desire to elect great numbers of people on a ticket of such length that it is out of the question for any except professional politicians to know much about them.

As soon as business becomes at all complex--and nothing can be more complex than the business of a Nation of a hundred million people--it can only be performed by delegating to experts the duty of dealing with all that can properly be delegated. It is only by such delegation that it is possible to secure the proper consideration of the exceedingly important business which cannot properly be delegated. The voters, as a whole, for instance, must necessarily declare directly upon all really vital issues, and they should do this when the issue is a man just as much as when the issue is one of legislation. Indeed, in my judgment, there are certain matters, as to which the voters do not at present have the chance of thus acting directly, where it is important that the chance be given them. But they can only exercise such choice with wisdom and benefit where it is vitally necessary to exercise it, on condition of not being confused by the requirement of exercising it in the great multitude of cases where there is no such necessity, and where they can with advantage delegate the duty to the man they deem most fit to do the business.

What is true of the voters is equally true of legislators and administrators the moment that their tasks become sufficiently complex. The village constable in a small community can do all his work directly. But the President of the United States can do his work at all only by delegating the enormous mass of it to his appointees, and by confining his own share of the purely administrative work largely to supervision and direction of these employees. When a President appoints a commission to investigate such a vital matter as, for instance, country life, or the conservation of natural resources, he does not abdicate his own authority; he merely faces the fact that by no possibility can he himself do this important piece of work as well as the experts whom he appoints to devote their whole time to that purpose. Now, Congress can with wisdom act in such matters of prime legislative importance as the tariff and river and harbor improvement, in the same way that the President acts in such matters of prime administrative importance as country life and conservation. It no more represents abdication of power on the part of Congress to appoint a first-class Tariff Commission than it represents abdication of power on the part of the President to appoint a first-class Country Life or Conservation Commission, or than it represents abdication of power on the part of voters to elect as Governor a man to whom they give all possible power to do his work well. In each case the body delegating the authority, so far from abdicating the power, has secured its wise use by intrusting it to a man or men especially equipped thus to use it well, and this man, or these men, can in turn be held to the most rigid accountability if it is not well used, in the exclusive service of the people as a whole.

Rural Life

There are no two public questions of more vital importance to the future of this country than the problem of Conservation and the problem of the betterment of country life. Moreover, these two problems are really interdependent, for neither of them can be successfully solved save on condition that there is at least a measurable success in the effort to solve the other. In any great country the prime physical asset--the physical asset more valuable than any other--is the fertility of the soil. All our industrial and commercial welfare, all our material development of every kind, depends in the last resort upon our preserving and increasing the fertility of the soil. This, of course, means the conservation of the soil as the great natural resource; and equally, of course, it furthermore implies the development of country life, for there cannot be a permanent improvement of the soil if the life of those who live on it, and make their living out of it, is suffered to starve and languish, to become stunted and weazened and inferior to the type of life lived elsewhere. We are now trying to preserve, not for exploitation by individuals, but for the permanent benefit of the whole people, the waters and the forests, and we are doing this primarily as a means of adding to the fertility of the soil; although in each case there is a great secondary use both of the water and of the forests for commercial and industrial purposes. In the same way it is essential for the farmers themselves to try to broaden the life of the man who lives in the open country; to make it more attractive; to give it every adjunct and aid to development which has been given to the life of the man of the cities. Therefore the conservation and rural life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily taken for the future.

In one sense this problem with which we have to deal is very, very old. Wherever civilizations have hitherto sprung up they have always tended to go through certain stages and then to fall. No nation can develop a real civilization without cities. Up to a certain point the city movement is thoroughly healthy; yet it is a strange and lamentable fact that always hitherto after this point has been reached the city has tended to develop at the expense of the country by draining the country of what is best in it, and making an insignificant return for this best. In consequence, in the past, every civilization in its later stages has tended really to witness those conditions under which "the cities prosper and the men decay." There are ugly signs that these tendencies are at work in this nation of ours. But very fortunately we see now what never before was seen in any civilization--an aroused and alert public interest in the problem, a recognition of its gravity and a desire to attempt its solution.

The problem does not consist merely in the growth of the city. Such a growth in itself is a good thing and not a bad thing for the country. The problem consists in the growth of the city at the expense of the country; and, even where this is not the case, in so great an equality of growth in power and interest as to make the city more attractive than the country, and therefore apt to drain the country of the people who ought to live therein.

The human side of the rural life problem is to make the career of the farmer and the career of the farm laborer as attractive and as remunerative as corresponding careers in the city. Now, I am well aware that the farmer must himself take the lead in bringing this about. A century and a quarter ago the wise English farmer, Arthur Young, wrote of the efforts to improve French wool: "A cultivator at the head of a sheep farm of 3,000 or 4,000 acres would in a few years do more for their wools than all the academicians and philosophers will effect in ten centuries." It is absurd to think that any man who has studied the subject only theoretically is fit to direct those who practically work at the matter. But I wish to insist to you here--to you practical men, who own and work your farms--that it is an equally pernicious absurdity for the practical man to refuse to benefit by the work of the student. The English farmer I have quoted, Young, was a practical farmer, but he was also a scientific farmer. One reason why the great business men of to-day--the great industrial leaders--have gone ahead, while the farmer has tended to sag behind the others, is that they are far more willing, and indeed eager, to profit by expert and technical knowledge--the knowledge that can come only as a result of the highest education. From railways to factories no great industrial concern can nowadays be carried on save by the aid of a swarm of men who have received a high technical education in chemistry, in engineering, in electricity, in one or more of scores of special subjects. The big business man, the big railway man, does not ask college-trained experts to tell him how to run his business; but he does ask numbers of them each to give him expert advice and aid on some one point indispensable to his business. He finds this man usually in some graduate of a technical school or college in which he has been trained for his life work.

In just the same way the farmers should benefit by the advice of the technical men who have been trained in phases of the very work the farmer does. I am not now speaking of the man who has had an ordinary general training, whether in school or college. While there should undoubtedly be such a training as a foundation , it is nevertheless true that our educational system should more and more be turned in the direction of educating men towards, and not away from, the farm and the shop. During the last half-century we have begun to develop a system of agricultural education at once practical and scientific, and we must go on developing it. But, after developing it, it must be used. The rich man who spends a fortune upon a fancy farm, with entire indifference to cost, does not do much good to farming; but, on the other hand, just as little is done by the working farmer who stolidly refuses to profit by the knowledge of the day; who treats any effort at improvement as absurd on its face, refuses to countenance what he regards as new-fangled ideas and contrivances, and jeers at all "book farming." I wish I could take representatives of this type of farmer down to Long Island, where I live, to have them see what has been done, not as philanthropy but as a plain business proposition, by men connected with the Long Island Railroad, who believe it pays to encourage the development of farms along the line of that railway. They have put practical men in charge of experimental farms, cultivating them intensively, and using the best modern methods, not only in raising crops, but in securing the best market for the crops when raised. The growth has been astounding, and land only fifty miles from New York, which during our entire National lifetime has been treated as worthless, has within the last three or four years been proved to possess a really high value.

The farmer, however, must not only make his land pay, but he must make country life interesting for himself and for his wife and his sons and daughters. Our people as a whole should realize the infinite possibilities of life in the country; and every effort should be made to make these possibilities more possible. From the beginning of time it has been the man raised in the country--and usually the man born in the country--who has been most apt to render the services which every nation most needs. Turning to the list of American statesmen, it is extraordinary to see how large a proportion started as farm boys. But it is rather sad to see that in recent years most of these same boys have ended their lives as men living in cities.

It often happens that the good conditions of the past can be regained, not by going back, but by going forward. We cannot re-create what is dead; we cannot stop the march of events; but we can direct this march, and out of the new conditions develop something better than the past knew. Henry Clay was a farmer who lived all his life in the country; Washington was a farmer who lived and died in the country; and we of this Nation ought to make it our business to see that the conditions are made such that farm life in the future shall not only develop men of the stamp of Washington and Henry Clay, but shall be so attractive that these men may continue as farmers; for remember that Washington and Henry Clay were successful farmers. I hope that things will so shape themselves that the farmer can have a great career and yet end his life as a farmer; so that the city man will look forward to living in the country rather than the country man to living in the city.

Farmers should learn how to combine effectively, as has been done in industry. I heartily believe in farmers' organizations; and we should all welcome every step taken towards an increasing co-operation among farmers. The importance of such movements cannot be over-estimated; and through such intelligent joint action it will be possible to improve the market just as much as the farm.

Country life should be as attractive as city life, and the country people should insist upon having their full representation when it comes to dealing with all great public questions. In other words, country folks should demand that they work on equal terms with city folks in all such matters. They should have their share in the memberships of commissions and councils; in short, of all the organized bodies for laying plans for great enterprises affecting all the people. I am glad to see on such bodies the names that represent financial interests, but those interests should not have the right-of-way, and in all enterprises and movements in which the social condition of the country is involved, the agricultural country--the open country--should be as well represented as the city. The man of the open country is apt to have certain qualities which the city man has lost. These qualities offset those which the city man has and he himself has not. The two should be put on equal terms, and the country talent be given the same opportunity as the city talent to express itself and to contribute to the welfare of the world in which we live.

The country church should be made a true social center, alive to every need of the community, standing for a broad individual outlook and development, taking the lead in work and in recreation, caring more for conduct than for dogma, more for ethical, spiritual, practical betterment than for merely formal piety. The country fair offers far greater possibilities for continuous and healthy usefulness than it at present affords. The country school should be made a vital center for economic, social, and educational co-operation; it is naturally fitted to be such a center for those engaged in commercial farming, and still more for those engaged in domestic farming, for those who live on and by the small farms they themselves own. The problem of the farm is really the problem of the family that lives on the farm. On all these questions there is need of intelligent study, such as marks the books of Professor Bailey, of Cornell, and of Sir Horace Plunkett's book on the "Rural Life Problems of the United States."

One feature of the problem should be recognized by the farmer at once, and an effort made to deal with it. It is our duty and our business to consider the farm laborer exactly as we consider the farmer. No country life can be satisfactory when the owners of farms tend, for whatever reason, to go away to live in cities instead of working their farms; and, moreover, it cannot be really satisfactory when the labor system is so managed that there is for part of the year a demand for labor which cannot be met, and during another part of the year no demand for labor at all, so that the farmers tend to rely on migratory laborers who come out to work in the country with no permanent interest in it and with no prospect of steady employment. It is exceedingly difficult to make a good citizen out of a man who cannot count upon some steadiness and continuity in the work which means to him his livelihood. Economic conditions on the farm--in variety and kind of crop-growing, especially as distributed in time, and in housing for the men--must be so shaped as to render it possible for the man who labors for the farmer to be steadily employed under conditions which foster his self-respect and tend for his development.

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