Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the restraints which will
bring to our people the happiness and the great and lasting influence
for peace we covet for them?
APPEAL FOR ADDITIONAL REVENUE
[Address delivered at a joint session of the two Houses of Congress,
September 4, 1914.]
GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:
I come to you to-day to discharge a duty which I wish with all my heart
I might have been spared; but it is a very clear duty, and therefore I
perform it without hesitation or apology. I come to ask very earnestly
that additional revenue be provided for the Government.
During the month of August there was, as compared with the corresponding
month of last year, a falling off of $10,629,538 in the revenues
collected from customs. A continuation of this decrease in the same
proportion throughout the current fiscal year would probably mean a loss
of customs revenues of from sixty to one hundred millions. I need not
tell you to what this falling off is due. It is due, in chief part, not
to the reductions recently made in the customs duties, but to the great
decrease in importations; and that is due to the extraordinary extent of
the industrial area affected by the present war in Europe.
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