Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 7

of the
public, the Government should have the right to inspect and examine
the workings of the great corporations engaged in interstate business.
Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can now invoke. What
further remedies are needed in the way of governmental regulation, or
taxation, can only be determined after publicity has been obtained, by
process of law, and in the course of administration. The first requisite is
knowledge, full and complete--knowledge which may be made public
to the world.
Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint stock or other
associations, depending upon any statutory law for their existence or
privileges, should be subject to proper governmental supervision, and
full and accurate information as to their operations should be made
public regularly at reasonable intervals.
The large corporations, commonly called trusts, though organized in
one State, always do business in many States, often doing very little
business in the State where they are incorporated. There is utter lack of
uniformity in the State laws about them; and as no State has any
exclusive interest in or power over their acts, it has in practice proved
impossible to get adequate regulation through State action. Therefore,
in the interest of the whole people, the Nation should, without
interfering with the power of the States in the matter itself, also assume
power of supervision and regulation over all corporations doing an
interstate business. This is especially true where the corporation derives
a portion of its wealth from the existence of some monopolistic element

or tendency in its business. There would be no hardship in such
supervision; banks are subject to it, and in their case it is now accepted
as a simple matter of course. Indeed, it is probable that supervision of
corporations by the National Government need not go so far as is now
the case with the supervision exercised over them by so conservative a
State as Massachusetts, in order to produce excellent results.
When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth
century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike
in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the
beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a
matter of course that the several States were the proper authorities to
regulate, so far as was then necessary, the comparatively insignificant
and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are
now wholly different and wholly different action is called for. I believe
that a law can be framed which will enable the National Government to
exercise control along the lines above indicated; profiting by the
experience gained through the passage and administration of the
Interstate-Commerce Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress is
that it lacks the constitutional power to pass such an act, then a
constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer the power.
There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secretary of
Commerce and Industries, as provided in the bill introduced at the last
session of the Congress. It should be his province to deal with
commerce in its broadest sense; including among many other things
whatever concerns labor and all matters affecting the great business
corporations and our merchant marine.
The course proposed is one phase of what should be a comprehensive
and far-reaching scheme of constructive statesmanship for the purpose
of broadening our markets, securing our business interests on a safe
basis, and making firm our new position in the international industrial
world; while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of wage-worker and
capitalist, of investor and private citizen, so as to secure equity as
between man and man in this Republic.
With the sole exception of the farming interest, no one matter is of such
vital moment to our whole people as the welfare of the wage-workers.
If the farmer and the wage-worker are well off, it is absolutely certain
that all others will be well off too. It Is therefore a matter for hearty

congratulation that on the whole wages are higher to-day in the United
States than ever before in our history, and far higher than in any other
country. The standard of living is also higher than ever before. Every
effort of legislator and administrator should be bent to secure the
permanency of this condition of things and its improvement wherever
possible. Not only must our labor be protected by the tariff, but it
should also be protected so far as it is possible from the presence in this
country of any laborers brought over by contract, or of those who,
coming freely, yet represent a standard of living so depressed that they
can undersell our men in the labor market and drag them to a lower
level. I regard it as necessary, with this end in