Our dealings with Cuba illustrate this, and should be forever a subject of just national pride.

We speak in no spirit of arrogance when we state as a simple historic fact that never in recent times has any great nation acted with such disinterestedness as we have shown in Cuba.

In the Philippines we have brought peace, and we are at this moment giving them such freedom and self-government as they could never under any conceivable conditions have obtained had we turned them loose to sink into a welter of blood and…

All honor to the missionary, all honor to the soldier, all honor to the merchant who now in our own day have done so much to bring light into the world’s dark places.

Let me insist again, for fear of possible misconstruction, upon the fact that our duty is twofold, and that we must raise others while we are benefiting ourselves.

We committed plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than blunders, in our dealings with the Indians.

In short, in the work we have done we are but carrying out the true principles of our democracy.

By far the greatest problem, the most far-reaching in its stupendous importance, is that problem, or rather that group of problems, which we have grown to speak of as the labor question.

This is doubly the case now; for, in addition to each man’s individual action, you have learned the great lesson of acting in combination.

It is just as unwise to forget the one fact as it is to forget the other.

In the country districts the surroundings are such that a man can usually work out his own fate by himself to the best advantage.

In my own State during the last half-dozen years we have made a number of notable strides in labor legislation, and, with very few exceptions, the laws have worked well.

Accordingly, we have adopted an eight-hour law for the State employees and for all contractors who do State work, and we have also adopted a law requiring that the fair market rate of wages shall be given.

The practical experiment of working men for eight hours has been advantageous to the State.

Not only have they succeeded in settling many strikes after they were started, but they have succeeded in preventing a much larger number of strikes before they got fairly under way.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done more than merely gather the statistics, for by keeping in close touch with all the leading labor interests it has kept them informed on countless matters that were really of vital concern to them.

No other man has benefited so much as the wage-worker by the growth in prosperity during these years.

Much remains to be done, but the condition of the dwellers in the congested districts has been markedly improved, to the great benefit not only of themselves, but of the whole community.

It is not as yet possible to say what shall be the exact limit of influence allowed the State, or what limit shall be set to that right of individual initiative so dear to the hearts of the American people.

No small part of our troubles in dealing with many of the gravest social questions, such as the so-called labor question, the trust question, and others like them, arises from these two attitudes.

The success of this effort, made in a resolute but also a temperate and reasonable spirit, shows what can be done when such a problem is approached in a sound and healthy manner.

Certain of us will suffer more, and others less, but all will suffer somewhat.

More and more we are getting to recognize the law of combination.

More and more this is recognized as true not only in charitable work proper, but in that best form of philanthropic endeavor where we all do good to ourselves by all joining together to do good to one another.

They do not try merely to carry them, to benefit them for the moment at the cost of their future undoing.