William Howard Taft
Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1909

My Fellow-Citizens:

ANYONE who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy 
weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers 
and duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is 
lacking in a proper sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.

The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of the 
main policies of the new administration, so far as they can be 
anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my 
distinguished predecessor, and, as such, to hold up his hands in the 
reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, 
and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected 
to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those 
reforms a most important feature of my administration. They were 
directed to the suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power of 
the great combinations of capital invested in railroads and in 
industrial enterprises carrying on interstate commerce. The steps which 
my predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation 
have accomplished much, have caused a general halt in the vicious 
policies which created popular alarm, and have brought about in the 
business affected a much higher regard for existing law.

To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same time 
freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper and progressive 
business methods, further legislative and executive action are needed. 
Relief of the railroads from certain restrictions of the antitrust law 
have been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me. On the other 
hand, the administration is pledged to legislation looking to a proper 
federal supervision and restriction to prevent excessive issues of 
bonds and stock by companies owning and operating interstate commerce 
railroads.

Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the Bureau 
of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, looking to effective cooperation of 
these agencies, is needed to secure a more rapid and certain 
enforcement of the laws affecting interstate railroads and industrial 
combinations.

I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of the 
incoming Congress, in December next, definite suggestions in respect to 
the needed amendments to the antitrust and the interstate commerce law 
and the changes required in the executive departments concerned in 
their enforcement.

It is believed that with the changes to be recommended American 
business can be assured of that measure of stability and certainty in 
respect to those things that may be done and those that are prohibited 
which is essential to the life and growth of all business. Such a plan 
must include the right of the people to avail themselves of those 
methods of combining capital and effort deemed necessary to reach the 
highest degree of economic efficiency, at the same time differentiating 
between combinations based upon legitimate economic reasons and those 
formed with the intent of creating monopolies and artificially 
controlling prices.

The work of formulating into practical shape such changes is creative 
word of the highest order, and requires all the deliberation possible 
in the interval. I believe that the amendments to be proposed are just 
as necessary in the protection of legitimate business as in the 
clinching of the reforms which properly bear the name of my predecessor.

A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff. In 
accordance with the promises of the platform upon which I was elected, 
I shall call Congress into extra session to meet on the 15th day of 
March, in order that consideration may be at once given to a bill 
revising the Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and 
adjust the duties in such a manner as to afford to labor and to all 
industries in this country, whether of the farm, mine or factory, 
protection by tariff equal to the difference between the cost of 
production abroad and the cost of production here, and have a provision 
which shall put into force, upon executive determination of certain 
facts, a higher or maximum tariff against those countries whose trade 
policy toward us equitably requires such discrimination. It is thought 
that there has been such a change in conditions since the enactment of 
the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly protective principle, that the 
measure of the tariff above stated will permit the reduction of rates 
in certain schedules and will require the advancement of few, if any.

The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way as 
to lead the business community to count upon it necessarily halts all 
those branches of business directly affected; and as these are most 
important, it disturbs the whole business of the country. It is 
imperatively necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in good 
faith in accordance with promises made before the election by the party 
in power, and as promptly passed as due consideration will permit. It 
is not that the tariff is more important in the long run than the 
perfecting of the reforms in respect to antitrust legislation and 
interstate commerce regulation, but the need for action when the 
revision of the tariff has been determined upon is more immediate to 
avoid embarrassment of business. To secure the needed speed in the 
passage of the tariff bill, it would seem wise to attempt no other 
legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a suggestion only, 
for the course to be taken by Congress, upon the call of the Executive, 
is wholly within its discretion.

In the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation and the 
securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the business depression 
which followed the financial panic of 1907, the revenue from customs 
and other sources has decreased to such an extent that the expenditures 
for the current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by $100,000,000. 
It is imperative that such a deficit shall not continue, and the 
framers of the tariff bill must, of course, have in mind the total 
revenues likely to be produced by it and so arrange the duties as to 
secure an adequate income. Should it be impossible to do so by import 
duties, new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and among these I 
recommend a graduated inheritance tax as correct in principle and as 
certain and easy of collection.

The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures 
made to carry on the Government, to be as economical as possible, and 
to make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and 
should be affirmed in every declaration of government policy. This is 
especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But when 
the desire to win the popular approval leads to the cutting off of 
expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to 
enable it to accomplish its proper objects, the result is as much to be 
condemned as the waste of government funds in unnecessary expenditure. 
The scope of a modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish 
for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by 
the old "laissez faire" school of political writers, and this widening 
has met popular approval.

In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on a 
large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the 
improvement of general agriculture must go on.

The importance of supervising business of great railways and industrial 
combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of 
unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government 
which did not exist half a century ago.

The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of 
our resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the 
Federal Government, including the most important work of saving and 
restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all 
proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if 
properly performed. While some of them, like the reclamation of arid 
lands, are made to pay for themselves, others are of such an indirect 
benefit that this cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement, 
like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and 
should be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will 
distribute its cost between the present and future generations in 
accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the 
serious consideration of Congress whether the deepening and control of 
the channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or of the 
Mississippi, when definite and practical plans for the enterprise have 
been approved and determined upon, should not be provided for in the 
same way.

Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if 
our country is to maintain its proper place among the nations of the 
world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its own 
trade interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy 
against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and 
in the promotion of peace and international morality. I refer to the 
cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable 
fortifications upon the mainland of the United States and in its 
dependencies.

We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable 
in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia and 
under the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to 
expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from 
abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in 
the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name 
of President Monroe.

Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and 
the number of men to man them is insufficient. In a few years however, 
the usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the 
mainland and in the dependencies, will make them sufficient to resist 
all direct attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man 
them will be provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our 
shores from Europe and Asia of course reduces the necessity for 
maintaining under arms a great army, but it does not take away the 
requirement of mere prudence - that we should have an army sufficiently 
large and so constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable 
force can quickly grow.

What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more emphatic 
way of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised. It must be built 
and in existence when the emergency arises which calls for its use and 
operation. My distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and 
messages set out with great force and striking language the necessity 
for maintaining a strong navy commensurate with the coast line, the 
governmental resources, and the foreign trade of our Nation; and I wish 
to reiterate all the reasons which he has presented in favor of the 
policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our 
peace with other nations, and the best means of securing respect for 
the assertion of our rights, the defense of our interests, and the 
exercise of our influence in international matters.

Our international policy is always to promote peace. We shall enter 
into any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences that 
it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall 
make every effort consistent with national honor and the highest 
national interest to avoid a resort to arms. We favor every 
instrumentality, like that of the Hague Tribunal and arbitration 
treaties made with a view to its use in all international 
controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war. But we 
should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to 
become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the 
nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves 
in a similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking 
advantage of us and of our inability to defend our interests and assert 
our rights with a strong hand.

In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the 
Orient growing out of the question of the open door and other issues 
the United States can maintain her interests intact and can secure 
respect for her just demands. She will not be able to do so, however, 
if it is understood that she never intends to back up her assertion of 
right and her defense of her interest by anything but mere verbal 
protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons the expenses of the army 
and navy and of coast defenses should always be considered as something 
which the Government must pay for, and they should not be cut off 
through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is able to afford 
a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them without the 
slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and 
fear of additional taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this 
regard.

The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since has given 
it a position of influence among the nations that it never had before, 
and should be constantly exerted to securing to its bona fide citizens, 
whether native or naturalized, respect for them as such in foreign 
countries. We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and 
degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily 
to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.

The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our 
population has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in 
our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulation 
secured by diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may 
continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration 
without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between 
self-respecting governments. Meantime we must take every precaution to 
prevent, or failing that, to punish outbursts of race feeling among our 
people against foreigners of whatever nationality who have by our grant 
a treaty right to pursue lawful business here and to be protected 
against lawless assault or injury.

This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present federal 
jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once. Having assured to 
other countries by treaty the protection of our laws for such of their 
subjects or citizens as we permit to come within our jurisdiction, we 
now leave to a state or a city, not under the control of the Federal 
Government, the duty of performing our international obligations in 
this respect. By proper legislation we may, and ought to, place in the 
hands of the Federal Executive the means of enforcing the treaty rights 
of such aliens in the courts of the Federal Government. It puts our 
Government in a pusillanimous position to make definite engagements to 
protect aliens and then to excuse the failure to perform those 
engagements by an explanation that the duty to keep them is in States 
or cities, not within our control. If we would promise we must put 
ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We cannot permit the 
possible failure of justice, due to local prejudice in any State or 
municipal government, to expose us to the risk of a war which might be 
avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by 
Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the 
Executive in the courts of the National Government.

One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration 
is a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater 
elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent 
the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of 
a financial panic. The monetary commission, lately appointed, is giving 
full consideration to existing conditions and to all proposed remedies, 
and will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements of 
business and of public interest.

We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of those 
who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be to secure 
a large return on banking capital or of those who would have greater 
expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its 
immediate redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of 
economic discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views 
and dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in studying the 
general influence of currency on business and of business on currency, 
have wisely extended their investigations in European banking and 
monetary methods. The information that they have derived from such 
experts as they have found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful in 
the solution of the difficult problem they have in hand.

The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the 
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It will 
not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the 
Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private 
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to 
withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially increase the 
funds available for investment as capital in useful enterprises. It 
will furnish absolute security which makes the proposed scheme of 
government guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious 
results.

I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should 
be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in 
every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the 
Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone 
who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of free trade 
between this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our sales 
of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other manufactures. The 
necessity of the establishment of direct lines of steamers between 
North and South America has been brought to the attention of Congress 
by my predecessor and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit 
to that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be induced to 
see the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such lines by the use 
of mail subsidies.

The importance of the part which the Departments of Agriculture and of 
Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of 
prohibitions and discriminations against the importation of our 
products is fully understood, and it is hoped that the use of the 
maximum and minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will be 
effective to remove many of those restrictions.

The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade 
between the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will 
greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern 
and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the 
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will also 
have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern 
seaboard of the United States and the western coast of South America, 
and, indeed, with some of the important ports on the east coast of 
South America reached by rail from the west coast.

The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of 
the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full 
consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority 
of the consulting board, and after the recommendation of the War 
Department and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that 
something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of the 
canal less feasible than it was supposed to be when the reports were 
made and the policy determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a 
board of competent engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which 
are the key of the lock type. The report of that board shows nothing 
has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which should 
change the views once formed in the original discussion. The 
construction will go on under a most effective organization controlled 
by Colonel Goethals and his fellow army engineers associated with him, 
and will certainly be completed early in the next administration, if 
not before.

Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been 
selected. We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as 
possible. We must not now, therefore, keep up a fire in the rear of the 
agents whom we have authorized to do our work on the Isthmus. We must 
hold up their hands, and speaking for the incoming administration I 
wish to say that I propose to devote all the energy possible and under 
my control to pushing of this work on the plans which have been 
adopted, and to stand behind the men who are doing faithful, hard work 
to bring about the early completion of this, the greatest constructive 
enterprise of modern times.

The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines 
are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of 
Porto Rico continues unabated. The business conditions in the 
Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the 
passage of the new tariff bill permitting free trade between the United 
States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar and tobacco 
as shall prevent injury to domestic interests in those products, we can 
count on an improvement in business conditions in the Philippines and 
the development of a mutually profitable trade between this country and 
the islands. Meantime our Government in each dependency is upholding 
the traditions of civil liberty and increasing popular control which 
might be expected under American auspices. The work which we are doing 
there redounds to our credit as a nation.

I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling between 
the South and the other sections of the country. My chief purpose is 
not to effect a change in the electoral vote of the Southern States. 
That is a secondary consideration. What I look forward to is an 
increase in the tolerance of political views of all kinds and their 
advocacy throughout the South, and the existence of a respectable 
political opposition in every State; even more than this, to an 
increased feeling on the part of all the people in the South that this 
Government is their Government, and that its officers in their states 
are their officers.

The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and 
full without reference to the negro race, its progress and its present 
condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the 
fourteenth amendment due process of law, protection of property, and 
the pursuit of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to 
secure the negro against any deprivation of the privilege to vote 
because he was a negro. The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have 
been generally enforced and have secured the objects for which they are 
intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed 
in the past, it ought to be observed, and the tendency of Southern 
legislation today is toward the enactment of electoral qualifications 
which shall square with that amendment. Of course, the mere adoption of 
a constitutional law is only one step in the right direction. It must 
be fairly and justly enforced as well. In time both will come. Hence it 
is clear to all that the domination of an ignorant, irresponsible 
element can be prevented by constitutional laws which shall exclude 
from voting both negroes and whites not having education or other 
qualifications thought to be necessary for a proper electorate. The 
danger of the control of an ignorant electorate has therefore passed. 
With this change, the interest which many of the Southern white 
citizens take in the welfare of the negroes has increased. The colored 
men must base their hope on the results of their own industry, 
self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as well as upon the aid 
and comfort and sympathy which they may receive from their white 
neighbors of the South.

There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the negro in his 
necessary struggle for better conditions sought to give him the 
suffrage as a protection to enforce its exercise against the prevailing 
sentiment of the South. The movement proved to be a failure. What 
remains is the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the right to 
have statutes of States specifying qualifications for electors 
subjected to the test of compliance with that amendment. This is a 
great protection to the negro. It never will be repealed, and it never 
ought to be repealed. If it had not passed, it might be difficult now 
to adopt it; but with it in our fundamental law, the policy of Southern 
legislation must and will tend to obey it, and so long as the statutes 
of the States meet the test of this amendment and are not otherwise in 
conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States, it is not 
the disposition or within the province of the Federal Government to 
interfere with the regulation by Southern States of their domestic 
affairs. There is in the South a stronger feeling than ever among the 
intelligent well-to-do, and influential element in favor of the 
industrial education of the negro and the encouragement of the race to 
make themselves useful members of the community. The progress which the 
negro has made in the last fifty years, from slavery, when its 
statistics are reviewed, is marvelous, and it furnishes every reason to 
hope that in the next twenty-five years a still greater improvement in 
his condition as a productive member of society, on the farm, and in 
the shop, and in other occupations may come.

The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago 
against their will, and this is their only country and their only flag. 
They have shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die for it. 
Encountering the race feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel 
injustice growing out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy 
and aid in the struggle they are making. We are charged with the sacred 
duty of making their path as smooth and easy as we can. Any recognition 
of their distinguished men, any appointment to office from among their 
number, is properly taken as an encouragement and an appreciation of 
their progress, and this just policy should be pursued when suitable 
occasion offers.

But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race, an 
appointment of one of their number to a local office in a community in 
which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere with 
the ease and facility with which the local government business can be 
done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement 
to the race to outweigh the recurrence and increase of race feeling 
which such an appointment is likely to engender. Therefore the 
Executive, in recognizing the negro race by appointments, must exercise 
a careful discretion not thereby to do it more harm than good. On the 
other hand, we must be careful not to encourage the mere pretense of 
race feeling manufactured in the interest of individual political 
ambition.

Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and 
recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a deeper sympathy 
for those who have to bear it or suffer from it, and I question the 
wisdom of a policy which is likely to increase it. Meantime, if nothing 
is done to prevent it, a better feeling between the negroes and the 
whites in the South will continue to grow, and more and more of the 
white people will come to realize that the future of the South is to be 
much benefited by the industrial and intellectual progress of the 
negro. The exercise of political franchises by those of this race who 
are intelligent and well to do will be acquiesced in, and the right to 
vote will be withheld only from the ignorant and irresponsible of both 
races.

There is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was made the 
subject of great controversy during the election and calls for at least 
a passing reference now. My distinguished predecessor has given much 
attention to the cause of labor, with whose struggle for better things 
he has shown the sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress has 
passed the bill fixing the liability of interstate carriers to their 
employees for injury sustained in the course of employment, abolishing 
the rule of fellow-servant and the common-law rule as to contributory 
negligence, and substituting therefor the so-called rule of 
"comparative negligence." It has also passed a law fixing the 
compensation of government employees for injuries sustained in the 
employ of the Government through the negligence of the superior. It has 
also passed a model child-labor law for the District of Columbia. In 
previous administrations an arbitration law for interstate commerce 
railroads and their employees, and laws for the application of safety 
devices to save the lives and limbs of employees of interstate 
railroads had been passed. Additional legislation of this kind was 
passed by the outgoing Congress.

I wish to say that insofar as I can I hope to promote the enactment of 
further legislation of this character. I am strongly convinced that the 
Government should make itself as responsible to employees injured in 
its employ as an interstate-railway corporation is made responsible by 
federal law to its employees; and I shall be glad, whenever any 
additional reasonable safety device can be invented to reduce the loss 
of life and limb among railway employees, to urge Congress to require 
its adoption by interstate railways.

Another labor question has arisen which has awakened the most excited 
discussion. That is in respect to the power of the federal courts to 
issue injunctions in industrial disputes. As to that, my convictions 
are fixed. Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the 
power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a 
privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their 
number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the 
protection of their business against lawless invasion. The proposition 
that business is not a property or pecuniary right which can be 
protected by equitable injunction is utterly without foundation in 
precedent or reason. The proposition is usually linked with one to make 
the secondary boycott lawful. Such a proposition is at variance with 
the American instinct, and will find no support, in my judgment, when 
submitted to the American people. The secondary boycott is an 
instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made legitimate.

The issue of a temporary restraining order without notice has in 
several instances been abused by its inconsiderate exercise, and to 
remedy this the platform upon which I was elected recommends the 
formulation in a statute of the conditions under which such a temporary 
restraining order ought to issue. A statute can and ought to be framed 
to embody the best modern practice, and can bring the subject so 
closely to the attention of the court as to make abuses of the process 
unlikely in the future. The American people, if I understand them, 
insist that the authority of the courts shall be sustained, and are 
opposed to any change in the procedure by which the powers of a court 
may be weakened and the fearless and effective administration of 
justice be interfered with.

Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my 
administration, and having expressed in a summary way the position 
which I expect to take in recommendations to Congress and in my conduct 
as an Executive, I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my 
fellow-citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of my 
responsible duties.

