Constant - "Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, V7"

Samuel Johnson - "Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies"

David Hume - "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals"

Jeffery Farnol - "Peregrine's Progress"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses

V >> Various >> U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses




This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present federal
jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once. Having assured to
other countries by treaty the protection of our laws for such of their
subjects or citizens as we permit to come within our jurisdiction, we
now leave to a state or a city, not under the control of the Federal
Government, the duty of performing our international obligations in this
respect. By proper legislation we may, and ought to, place in the hands
of the Federal Executive the means of enforcing the treaty rights of
such aliens in the courts of the Federal Government. It puts our
Government in a pusillanimous position to make definite engagements to
protect aliens and then to excuse the failure to perform those
engagements by an explanation that the duty to keep them is in States or
cities, not within our control. If we would promise we must put
ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We cannot permit the
possible failure of justice, due to local prejudice in any State or
municipal government, to expose us to the risk of a war which might be
avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by
Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the
Executive in the courts of the National Government.

One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration
is a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater
elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent
the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a
financial panic. The monetary commission, lately appointed, is giving
full consideration to existing conditions and to all proposed remedies,
and will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements of
business and of public interest.

We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of those
who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be to secure
a large return on banking capital or of those who would have greater
expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its immediate
redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of economic
discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views and
dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in studying the general
influence of currency on business and of business on currency, have
wisely extended their investigations in European banking and monetary
methods. The information that they have derived from such experts as
they have found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful in the solution
of the difficult problem they have in hand.

The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It will
not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the
Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to
withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially increase the
funds available for investment as capital in useful enterprises. It will
furnish absolute security which makes the proposed scheme of government
guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious results.

I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should
be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in
every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the
Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone
who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of free trade
between this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our sales
of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other manufactures. The
necessity of the establishment of direct lines of steamers between North
and South America has been brought to the attention of Congress by my
predecessor and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit to
that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be induced to see
the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such lines by the use of
mail subsidies.

The importance of the part which the Departments of Agriculture and of
Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of
prohibitions and discriminations against the importation of our products
is fully understood, and it is hoped that the use of the maximum and
minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will be effective to
remove many of those restrictions.

The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade
between the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will
greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern
and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will also
have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern
seaboard of the United States and the western coast of South America,
and, indeed, with some of the important ports on the east coast of South
America reached by rail from the west coast.

The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of
the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full
consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority of
the consulting board, and after the recommendation of the War Department
and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that something
had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of the canal less
feasible than it was supposed to be when the reports were made and the
policy determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a board of
competent engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which are the
key of the lock type. The report of that board shows nothing has
occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which should change
the views once formed in the original discussion. The construction will
go on under a most effective organization controlled by Colonel Goethals
and his fellow army engineers associated with him, and will certainly be
completed early in the next administration, if not before.

Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been selected.
We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as possible. We must
not now, therefore, keep up a fire in the rear of the agents whom we
have authorized to do our work on the Isthmus. We must hold up their
hands, and speaking for the incoming administration I wish to say that I
propose to devote all the energy possible and under my control to
pushing of this work on the plans which have been adopted, and to stand
behind the men who are doing faithful, hard work to bring about the
early completion of this, the greatest constructive enterprise of modern
times.

The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines
are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of
Porto Rico continues unabated. The business conditions in the
Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the
passage of the new tariff bill permitting free trade between the United
States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar and tobacco
as shall prevent injury to domestic interests in those products, we can
count on an improvement in business conditions in the Philippines and
the development of a mutually profitable trade between this country and
the islands. Meantime our Government in each dependency is upholding the
traditions of civil liberty and increasing popular control which might
be expected under American auspices. The work which we are doing there
redounds to our credit as a nation.

I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling between
the South and the other sections of the country. My chief purpose is not
to effect a change in the electoral vote of the Southern States. That is
a secondary consideration. What I look forward to is an increase in the
tolerance of political views of all kinds and their advocacy throughout
the South, and the existence of a respectable political opposition in
every State; even more than this, to an increased feeling on the part of
all the people in the South that this Government is their Government,
and that its officers in their states are their officers.

The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and
full without reference to the negro race, its progress and its present
condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth
amendment due process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit of
happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure the negro
against any deprivation of the privilege to vote because he was a negro.
The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally enforced
and have secured the objects for which they are intended. While the
fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed in the past, it
ought to be observed, and the tendency of Southern legislation today is
toward the enactment of electoral qualifications which shall square with
that amendment. Of course, the mere adoption of a constitutional law is
only one step in the right direction. It must be fairly and justly
enforced as well. In time both will come. Hence it is clear to all that
the domination of an ignorant, irresponsible element can be prevented by
constitutional laws which shall exclude from voting both negroes and
whites not having education or other qualifications thought to be
necessary for a proper electorate. The danger of the control of an
ignorant electorate has therefore passed. With this change, the interest
which many of the Southern white citizens take in the welfare of the
negroes has increased. The colored men must base their hope on the
results of their own industry, self-restraint, thrift, and business
success, as well as upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may
receive from their white neighbors of the South.

There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the negro in his
necessary struggle for better conditions sought to give him the suffrage
as a protection to enforce its exercise against the prevailing sentiment
of the South. The movement proved to be a failure. What remains is the
fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the right to have statutes
of States specifying qualifications for electors subjected to the test
of compliance with that amendment. This is a great protection to the
negro. It never will be repealed, and it never ought to be repealed. If
it had not passed, it might be difficult now to adopt it; but with it in
our fundamental law, the policy of Southern legislation must and will
tend to obey it, and so long as the statutes of the States meet the test
of this amendment and are not otherwise in conflict with the
Constitution and laws of the United States, it is not the disposition or
within the province of the Federal Government to interfere with the
regulation by Southern States of their domestic affairs. There is in the
South a stronger feeling than ever among the intelligent well-to-do, and
influential element in favor of the industrial education of the negro
and the encouragement of the race to make themselves useful members of
the community. The progress which the negro has made in the last fifty
years, from slavery, when its statistics are reviewed, is marvelous, and
it furnishes every reason to hope that in the next twenty-five years a
still greater improvement in his condition as a productive member of
society, on the farm, and in the shop, and in other occupations may
come.

The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago
against their will, and this is their only country and their only flag.
They have shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die for it.
Encountering the race feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel
injustice growing out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy
and aid in the struggle they are making. We are charged with the sacred
duty of making their path as smooth and easy as we can. Any recognition
of their distinguished men, any appointment to office from among their
number, is properly taken as an encouragement and an appreciation of
their progress, and this just policy should be pursued when suitable
occasion offers.

But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race, an
appointment of one of their number to a local office in a community in
which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere with
the ease and facility with which the local government business can be
done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement
to the race to outweigh the recurrence and increase of race feeling
which such an appointment is likely to engender. Therefore the
Executive, in recognizing the negro race by appointments, must exercise
a careful discretion not thereby to do it more harm than good. On the
other hand, we must be careful not to encourage the mere pretense of
race feeling manufactured in the interest of individual political
ambition.

Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and
recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a deeper sympathy
for those who have to bear it or suffer from it, and I question the
wisdom of a policy which is likely to increase it. Meantime, if nothing
is done to prevent it, a better feeling between the negroes and the
whites in the South will continue to grow, and more and more of the
white people will come to realize that the future of the South is to be
much benefited by the industrial and intellectual progress of the negro.
The exercise of political franchises by those of this race who are
intelligent and well to do will be acquiesced in, and the right to vote
will be withheld only from the ignorant and irresponsible of both races.

There is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was made the
subject of great controversy during the election and calls for at least
a passing reference now. My distinguished predecessor has given much
attention to the cause of labor, with whose struggle for better things
he has shown the sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress has passed
the bill fixing the liability of interstate carriers to their employees
for injury sustained in the course of employment, abolishing the rule of
fellow-servant and the common-law rule as to contributory negligence,
and substituting therefor the so-called rule of "comparative
negligence." It has also passed a law fixing the compensation of
government employees for injuries sustained in the employ of the
Government through the negligence of the superior. It has also passed a
model child-labor law for the District of Columbia. In previous
administrations an arbitration law for interstate commerce railroads and
their employees, and laws for the application of safety devices to save
the lives and limbs of employees of interstate railroads had been
passed. Additional legislation of this kind was passed by the outgoing
Congress.

I wish to say that insofar as I can I hope to promote the enactment of
further legislation of this character. I am strongly convinced that the
Government should make itself as responsible to employees injured in its
employ as an interstate-railway corporation is made responsible by
federal law to its employees; and I shall be glad, whenever any
additional reasonable safety device can be invented to reduce the loss
of life and limb among railway employees, to urge Congress to require
its adoption by interstate railways.

Another labor question has arisen which has awakened the most excited
discussion. That is in respect to the power of the federal courts to
issue injunctions in industrial disputes. As to that, my convictions are
fixed. Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power
to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged
class among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a
most needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their
business against lawless invasion. The proposition that business is not
a property or pecuniary right which can be protected by equitable
injunction is utterly without foundation in precedent or reason. The
proposition is usually linked with one to make the secondary boycott
lawful. Such a proposition is at variance with the American instinct,
and will find no support, in my judgment, when submitted to the American
people. The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not
to be made legitimate.

The issue of a temporary restraining order without notice has in several
instances been abused by its inconsiderate exercise, and to remedy this
the platform upon which I was elected recommends the formulation in a
statute of the conditions under which such a temporary restraining order
ought to issue. A statute can and ought to be framed to embody the best
modern practice, and can bring the subject so closely to the attention
of the court as to make abuses of the process unlikely in the future.
The American people, if I understand them, insist that the authority of
the courts shall be sustained, and are opposed to any change in the
procedure by which the powers of a court may be weakened and the
fearless and effective administration of justice be interfered with.

Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my
administration, and having expressed in a summary way the position which
I expect to take in recommendations to Congress and in my conduct as an
Executive, I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my
fellow-citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of my
responsible duties.


***

Woodrow Wilson
First Inaugural Address
Tuesday, March 4, 1913

THERE has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the
House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It
has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be
Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put
into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the
question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I
am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the
occasion.

It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a
party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a
large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the
Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks to use it to
interpret a change in its own plans and point of view. Some old things
with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the
very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as
we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes;
have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister.
Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend
their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long
believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been
refreshed by a new insight into our own life.

We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably
great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity
and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and
built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of
groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral force.
Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more
striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and
counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set
the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a
great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in
many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations
that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident.
Our life contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.

But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been
corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. We have squandered a
great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve
the exceeding bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise
would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful,
shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient. We have been proud
of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped
thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed
out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and
spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead
weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through. The
groans and agony of it all had not yet reached our ears, the solemn,
moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and factories,
and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar
seat. With the great Government went many deep secret things which we
too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes.
The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private
and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.

At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see
the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and
vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse,
to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the
good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without
weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been something crude and
heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our
thought has been "Let every man look out for himself, let every
generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which
made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control
should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had not forgotten
our morals. We remembered well enough that we had set up a policy which
was meant to serve the humblest as well as the most powerful, with an
eye single to the standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it
with pride. But we were very heedless and in a hurry to be great.

We have come now to the sober second thought. The scales of heedlessness
have fallen from our eyes. We have made up our minds to square every
process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set
up at the beginning and have always carried at our hearts. 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.

Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which government may be
put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding the health of the
Nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as
their rights in the struggle for existence. This is no sentimental duty.
The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of
justice. There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of
justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not
shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of
great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control,
or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself
crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of
law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food
laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are
powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very
business of justice and legal efficiency.