With the development of our industries the foreign commerce of the United States must rapidly become a still more essential factor in its economic welfare.
Bill Taft
The Public Record
William Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913. A member of the Republican Party, he was known for his trust-busting policies and efforts to promote international trade. After his presidency, Taft continued to serve the nation as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1930, making him the only person to have held both the presidency and the chief justiceship. His tenure as Chief Justice was marked by a commitment to judicial restraint and the rule of law.
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The tremendous growth of the export trade of the United States has already made that trade a very real factor in the industrial and commercial prosperity of the country.
The national prosperity and power impose upon us duties which we can not shirk if we are to be true to our ideals.
The position of the United States in the moral, intellectual, and material relations of the family of nations should be a matter of vital interest to every patriotic citizen.
The foreign relations of the United States actually and potentially affect the state of the Union to a degree not widely realized and hardly surpassed by any other factor in the welfare of the whole Nation.
I am confident that such a change would greatly reduce the cost of administering the Government, and that it would add greatly to its efficiency.
Nothing will so much promote the economy and efficiency of the Government as such a system.
I think the experience of other governments justifies this view; but the crying necessity for some such contributory system, with possibly a preliminary governmental outlay, in order to cover the initial cost and to set the system going at…
After considerable reflection, I am very much opposed to a pension system that involves no contribution from the employees.
I urge again upon Congress the desirability of establishing the council of national defense.
Concentration of the necessary work for naval vessels in a few navy yards on each coast is a vital necessity if proper economy in Government expenditures is to be attained.
The measure of economy contained in a proper handling of this subject is so great and so important to the interests of the Nation that I shall present it to Congress as a separate subject apart from my annual message.
I urge upon Congress the necessity for an immediate increase of 2,000 men in the enlisted strength of the Navy, provided for in the estimates.
The reduction in the cost of living it will bring about ought to make its coming certain.
Instead of doing this, I think the change will greatly increase business for the benefit of all.
Steps should be taken immediately for the establishment of a rural parcel post.
In promotion of the movement for the prevention of delay and unnecessary cost, in litigation, I am glad to say that the Supreme Court has taken steps to reform the present equity rules of the Federal courts, and that we may in the near…
The amount of the awards ought, as a matter of good faith on the part of the Government, to be paid.
The project for a navigable waterway from Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Illinois River, and thence via the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, is one of national importance.
It seems to me that an increase in the amount of money now being annually expended in the improvement of the Ohio River which has been formally adopted by Congress would be in the interest of the public.
I wish to urge that whenever a project has been adopted by Congress as one to be completed, the more money which can be economically expended in its construction in each year, the greater the ultimate economy.
I also join in the recommendation that the legislature of the Philippine Islands be authorized to provide for the naturalization of Filipinos and others who by the present law are treated as aliens, so as to enable them to become citizens…
I do not think this is the best principle, because I believe that the cost of such a Government work as the Panama Canal ought to be imposed gradually but certainly upon the trade which it creates and makes possible.
One of the chief reasons for building the canal was to set up this competition and to bring the two shores closer together as a practical trade problem.
The experiment in tolls to be made by the President would doubtless disclose how great a burden of tolls the coastwise trade between the Atlantic and the Pacific coast could bear without preventing its usefulness in competition with the…
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