It would be unwise to move toward this end headlong, with reckless haste, or with strokes that cut at the very roots of what has grown up amongst us by long process and at our own invitation.  It does not alter a thing to upset it and break it and deprive it of a chance to change.  It destroys it.  We must make changes in our fiscal laws, in our fiscal system, whose object is development, a more free and wholesome development, not revolution or upset or confusion.  We must build up trade, especially foreign trade.  We need the outlet and the enlarged field of energy more than we ever did before.  We must build up industry as well, and must adopt freedom in the place of artificial stimulation only so far as it will build, not pull down.  In dealing with the tariff the method by which this may be done will be a matter of judgment, exercised item by item.  To some not accustomed to the excitements and responsibilities of greater freedom our methods may in some respects and at some points seem heroic, but remedies may be heroic and yet be remedies.  It is our business to make sure that they are genuine remedies.  Our object is clear.  If our motive is above just challenge and only an occasional error of judgment is chargeable against us, we shall be fortunate.

We are called upon to render the country a great service in more matters than one.  Our responsibility should be met and our methods should be thorough, as thorough as moderate and well considered, based upon the facts as they are, and not worked out as if we were beginners.  We are to deal with the facts of our own day, with the facts of no other, and to make laws which square with those facts.  It is best, indeed it is necessary, to begin with the tariff.  I will urge nothing upon you now at the opening of your session which can obscure that first object or divert our energies from that clearly defined duty.  At a later time I may take the liberty of calling your attention to reforms which should press close upon the heels of the tariff changes, if not accompany them, of which the chief is the reform of our banking and currency laws; but just now I refrain.  For the present, I put these matters on one side and think only of this one thing—­of the changes in our fiscal system which may best serve to open once more the free channels of prosperity to a great people whom we would serve to the utmost and throughout both rank and file.

I thank you for your courtesy.

[B] It had been the practice of our Presidents to send their Messages to Congress and not to read them in person.

ADDRESS ON THE BANKING SYSTEM

[Delivered at a joint session of the two Houses of Congress, June 23, 1913.]

MR. SPEAKER, MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: