298 Presidential Addresses 



our own labor. This country has and this country 

 needs better-paid, better-educated, better-fed, and 

 better-clothed workingmen, of a higher type, than 

 are to be found in any foreign country. It has 

 and it needs a higher, more vigorous, and more 

 prosperous type of tillers of the soil than is pos 

 sessed by any other country. The business men, 

 the merchants and manufacturers, and the man 

 agers of the transportation interests show the same 

 superiority when compared with men of their type 

 abroad. The events of the last few years have 

 shown how skilfully the leaders of American in 

 dustry use in international business competition the 

 mighty industrial weapons forged for them by the 

 resources of our country, the wisdom of our laws, 

 and the skill, the inventive genius, and the admin 

 istrative capacity of our people. 



It is, of course, a mere truism to say that we want 

 to use everything in our power to foster the wel 

 fare of our entire body politic. In other words, 

 we need to treat the tariff as a business proposition, 

 from the standpoint of the interests of the country 

 as a whole, and not with reference to the tempo 

 rary needs of any political party. It is almost as 

 necessary that our policy should be stable as that it 

 should be wise. A nation like ours could not long 

 stand the ruinous policy of readjusting its business 

 to radical changes in the tariff at short intervals, 

 especially when, as now, owing to the immense ex 

 tent and variety of our products, the tariff schedules 

 carry rates of duty on thousands of different ar- 



