Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 5

law alone, although
it is easy enough to destroy it by mischievous laws. If the hand of the
Lord is heavy upon any country, if flood or drought comes, human
wisdom is powerless to avert the calamity. Moreover, no law can guard
us against the consequences of our own folly. The men who are idle or
credulous, the men who seek gains not by genuine work with head or
hand but by gambling in any form, are always a source of menace not
only to themselves but to others. If the business world loses its head, it
loses what legislation cannot supply. Fundamentally the welfare of
each citizen, and therefore the welfare of the aggregate of citizens
which makes the nation, must rest upon individual thrift and energy,
resolution, and intelligence. Nothing can take the place of this
individual capacity; but wise legislation and honest and intelligent
administration can give it the fullest scope, the largest opportunity to
work to good effect.
The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which
went on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the
nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the
twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old
customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once quite
sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Since

the industrial changes which have so enormously increased the
productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient.
The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the
growth of the country, and the upbuilding of the great industrial centers
has meant a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of wealth,
but in the number of very large individual, and especially of very large
corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great corporate fortunes has
not been due to the tariff nor to any other governmental action, but to
natural causes in the business world, operating in other countries as
they operate in our own.
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is
wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer
the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the
average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so
well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been
abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true
that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated
by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring
immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise, of the
type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the conditions are
such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success.
The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across
this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed
our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people.
Without them the material development of which we are so justly
proud could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize
the immense importance of this material development of leaving as
unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and
forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably
rests. The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone
capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most
important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the
man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the
factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and hopeless
failure.
An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations is to be
found in the international commercial conditions of today. The same

business conditions which have produced the great aggregations of
corporate and individual wealth have made them very potent factors in
international commercial competition. Business concerns which have
the largest means at their disposal and are managed by the ablest men
are naturally those which take the lead in the strife for commercial
supremacy among the nations of the world. America has only just
begun to assume that commanding position in the international
business world which we believe will more and more be hers. It is of
the utmost importance that this position be not jeoparded, especially at
a time when the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources
and the skill, business energy, and mechanical aptitude of our people
make foreign markets essential. Under such conditions it would be
most unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful strength of our Nation.
Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with ignorant
violence at the interests of one set of men almost inevitably endangers
the interests of all. The fundamental rule