The law must not only be correct in the abstract; it must work well in the concrete.

Some kinds of taxes are so fertile in tempting to perjury and sharp dealing that they amount to taxes on honesty—the last quality on which we should impose a needless burden.

This calls for legislation which shall provide, in a broad and fair spirit, for taxing foreign capital in this State, whether in corporate or individual form, exactly as we tax domestic capital doing business along the same lines.

On certain points the failure of the tax laws has become so evident that it is possible to provide more or less complete remedies without waiting for a general scheme of reorganization.

Again and again in recent years this has been recognized, and through legislative enactment certain species of property which had escaped taxation have been made to pay their proper share of the public burdens.

In all these matters of taxation, however, it is necessary to proceed with extreme caution, the path never being so simple and clear as the advocates of any particular measure invariably believe.

Our laws should be so drawn as to protect and encourage corporations which do their honest duty by the public; and to discriminate sharply against those organized in a spirit of mere greed, or for improper speculative purposes.

There is plenty of misconduct, plenty of selfish disregard of the rights of others, and especially of the weak.

There is also plenty of honorable and disinterested effort to prevent such misconduct or to minimize its effects.

It is infinitely better when needed social and civic changes can be brought about as the result of natural and healthy growth than when they come with the violent dislocation and widespread wreck and damage inevitably attendant upon any…

There is not one of you who is not derelict in his duty to the whole Nation if he fails to prepare himself with all the strength that in him lies to do his duty should the occasion arise; and one of your great duties is to see that shots…

No other body of men of your age in our country owes so much to the United States, to the flag that symbolizes this Nation, as you do.

No other body of young men has on the average as great a chance as each of you has to lead a life of honor to himself and of benefit to the country at large.

Among the most important of these was the lesson that for weal or woe we are indissolubly bound together, in whatever part of the country we live, whatever our social standing, whatever our wealth or our poverty, whatever form of mental or…

Lincoln, who was, more emphatically than any other President we have ever had, the President of the plain people, was yet as far removed as Washington himself from the slightest taint of demagogy.

The principles which Lincoln applied to the solution of the problems of his day are those which we must apply if we expect successfully to solve the different problems of our own day—problems which are so largely industrial.

Exactly as it is impossible to develop a high morality unless we have as a foundation those qualities which give at least a certain minimum of material prosperity, so it is impossible permanently to keep material prosperity unless there is…

In the last analysis, of course, the dominant factor in obtaining this good conduct must be the individual character of the average citizen.

If there is not this condition of individual character in the average citizenship of the country, all effort to supply its place by the wisest legislation and administration will in the end prove futile.

But given this average of individual character, then wise laws and the honest administration of the laws can do much to supplement it.

Unquestionably, however, the great development of industrialism means that there must be an increase in the supervision exercised by the Government over business enterprises.

All great business concerns are engaged in interstate commerce, and it was beyond question the intention of the founders of our Government that interstate commerce in all its branches and aspects should be under national and not State…

Meanwhile the men in public life and the men who direct the great business interests of the country should work not in antagonism but in harmony toward this given end.

At the present moment the greatest need is for an increase in the power of the National Government to keep the great highways of commerce open alike to all on reasonable and equitable terms.

The railroad, which was utterly unknown when our Government was formed and when the great principles of our jurisprudence were laid down, has now become almost everywhere the most important, and, in many large regions, the only form of…