Our work is a work of restoration.
We have itemized with some degree of particularity the things that
ought to be altered and here are some of the chief items: A tariff
which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the
world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the
Government a facile instrument in the hand of private interests; a
banking and currency system based upon the necessity of the
Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted
to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial
system which, take it on all its sides, financial as well as
administrative, holds capital in leading strings, restricts the
liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits
without renewing or conserving the natural resources of the
country; a body of agricultural activities never yet given the
efficiency of great business undertakings or served as it should
be through the instrumentality of science taken directly to the
farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best suited to its
practical needs; watercourses undeveloped, waste places
unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing without plan or
prospect of renewal, unregarded waste heaps at every mine. We have
studied as perhaps no other nation has the most effective means of
production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we should
either as organizers of industry, as statesmen, or as individuals.
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