198 Presidential Addresses 



desire for self-respecting friendship with our neigh 

 bors. The voice of the weakling or the craven 

 counts for nothing when he clamors for peace; but 

 the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need 

 to keep in a condition of preparedness, especially as 

 regards our navy, not because we want war, but be 

 cause we desire to stand with those' whose plea for 

 peace is listened to with respectful attention. 



Important though it is that we should have peace 

 abroad, it is even more important that we should 

 have peace at home. You, men of the Chamber 

 of Commerce, to whose efforts we owe so much of 

 our industrial well-being, can, and I believe surely 

 will, be influential in helping toward that industrial 

 peace which can obtain in society only when in their 

 various relations employer and employed alike show 

 not merely insistence each upon his own rights, but 

 ,also regard for the rights of others, and a full ac 

 knowledgment of the interests of the third party 

 the public. It is no easy matter to work out a sys 

 tem or rule of conduct, whether with or without the 

 help of the lawgiver, which shall minimize that jar 

 ring and clashing of interests in the industrial world 

 which causes so much individual irritation and 

 suffering at the present day, and which at times 

 threatens baleful consequences to large portions of 

 the body politic. But the importance of the problem 

 can not be overestimated, and it deserves to receive 

 the careful thought of all men such as those whom 

 I am addressing to-night. There should be no yield 

 ing to wrong ; but there should most certainly be not 



