Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 8

view, to re-enact
immediately the law excluding Chinese laborers and to strengthen it
wherever necessary in order to make its enforcement entirely effective.
The National Government should demand the highest quality of service
from its employees; and in return it should be a good employer. If
possible legislation should be passed, in connection with the Interstate
Commerce Law, which will render effective the efforts of different
States to do away with the competition of convict contract labor in the
open labor market. So far as practicable under the conditions of
Government work, provision should be made to render the enforcement
of the eight-hour law easy and certain. In all industries carried on
directly or indirectly for the United States Government women and
children should be protected from excessive hours of labor, from night
work, and from work under unsanitary conditions. The Government
should provide in its contracts that all work should be done under "fair"
conditions, and in addition to setting a high standard should uphold it
by proper inspection, extending if necessary to the subcontractors. The
Government should forbid all night work for women and children, as
well as excessive overtime. For the District of Columbia a good factory
law should be passed; and, as a powerful indirect aid to such laws,
provision should be made to turn the inhabited alleys, the existence of
which is a reproach to our Capital city, into minor streets, where the
inhabitants can live under conditions favorable to health and morals.
American wage-workers work with their heads as well as their hands.
Moreover, they take a keen pride in what they are doing; so that,
independent of the reward, they wish to turn out a perfect job. This is
the great secret of our success in competition with the labor of foreign

countries.
The most vital problem with which this country, and for that matter the
whole civilized world, has to deal, is the problem which has for one
side the betterment of social conditions, moral and physical, in large
cities, and for another side the effort to deal with that tangle of
far-reaching questions which we group together when we speak of
"labor." The chief factor in the success of each man--wage-worker,
farmer, and capitalist alike--must ever be the sum total of his own
individual qualities and abilities. Second only to this comes the power
of acting in combination or association with others. Very great good
has been and will be accomplished by associations or unions of
wage-workers, when managed with forethought, and when they
combine insistence upon their own rights with law-abiding respect for
the rights of others. The display of these qualities in such bodies is a
duty to the nation no less than to the associations themselves. Finally,
there must also in many cases be action by the Government in order to
safeguard the rights and interests of all. Under our Constitution there is
much more scope for such action by the State and the municipality than
by the nation. But on points such as those touched on above the
National Government can act.
When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood remains as the
indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for
which we strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so
works no outside help can avail him; but each man must remember also
that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that while no man who
refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or anyone else,
yet that each at times stumbles or halts, that each at times needs to have
the helping hand outstretched to him. To be permanently effective, aid
must always take the form of helping a man to help himself; and we
can all best help ourselves by joining together in the work that is of
common interest to all.
Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest
and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every
immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a
stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in
every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-fearing
members of the community. But there should be a comprehensive law

enacted with the object of working a threefold improvement over our
present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely not only all
persons who are known to be believers in anarchistic principles or
members of anarchistic societies, but also all persons who are of a low
moral tendency or of unsavory reputation. This means that we should
require a more thorough system of inspection abroad and a more rigid
system of examination at our immigration ports, the former being
especially necessary.