seemed to me futile, and something more than futile, because it involved
incalculable distress to the country and consequences in some respects
worse than those of war, and that in the midst of peace.

I yield to no man in firm adherence, alike of conviction and of purpose,
to the principle of arbitration in industrial disputes; but matters have
come to a sudden crisis in this particular dispute and the country had
been caught unprovided with any practicable means of enforcing that
conviction in practice (by whose fault we will not now stop to inquire).
A situation had to be met whose elements and fixed conditions were
indisputable. The practical and patriotic course to pursue, as it seemed
to me, was to secure immediate peace by conceding the one thing in the
demands of the men which society itself and any arbitrators who
represented public sentiment were most likely to approve, and
immediately lay the foundations for securing arbitration with regard to
everything else involved. The event has confirmed that judgment.

I was seeking to compose the present in order to safeguard the future;
for I wished an atmosphere of peace and friendly cooeperation in which to
take counsel with the representatives of the nation with regard to the
best means for providing, so far as it might prove possible to provide,
against the recurrence of such unhappy situations in the future,--the
best and most practicable means of securing calm and fair arbitration of
all industrial disputes in the days to come. This is assuredly the best
way of vindicating a principle, namely, having failed to make certain of
its observance in the present, to make certain of its observance in the
future.

But I could only propose. I could not govern the will of others who took
an entirely different view of the circumstances of the case, who even
refused to admit the circumstances to be what they have turned out to
be.

Having failed to bring the parties to this critical controversy to an
accommodation, therefore, I turn to you, deeming it clearly our duty as
public servants to leave nothing undone that we can do to safeguard the
life and interests of the nation. In the spirit of such a purpose, I
earnestly recommend the following legislation:

First, immediate provision for the enlargement and administrative
reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission along the lines
embodied in the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and
now awa