I had rather submit our industrial controversies to the conference table in advance than to a settlement table after conflict and suffering.  The earth is thirsting for the cup of good will, understanding is its fountain source.  I would like to acclaim an era of good feeling amid dependable prosperity and all the blessings which attend.

It has been proved again and again that we cannot, while throwing our markets open to the world, maintain American standards of living and opportunity, and hold our industrial eminence in such unequal competition.  There is a luring fallacy in the theory of banished barriers of trade, but preserved American standards require our higher production costs to be reflected in our tariffs on imports.  Today, as never before, when peoples are seeking trade restoration and expansion, we must adjust our tariffs to the new order.  We seek participation in the world’s exchanges, because therein lies our way to widened influence and the triumphs of peace.  We know full well we cannot sell where we do not buy, and we cannot sell successfully where we do not carry.  Opportunity is calling not alone for the restoration, but for a new era in production, transportation and trade.  We shall answer it best by meeting the demand of a surpassing home market, by promoting self-reliance in production, and by bidding enterprise, genius, and efficiency to carry our cargoes in American bottoms to the marts of the world.

We would not have an America living within and for herself alone, but we would have her self-reliant, independent, and ever nobler, stronger, and richer.  Believing in our higher standards, reared through constitutional liberty and maintained opportunity, we invite the world to the same heights.  But pride in things wrought is no reflex of a completed task.  Common welfare is the goal of our national endeavor.  Wealth is not inimical to welfare; it ought to be its friendliest agency.  There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.  We ought to find a way to guard against the perils and penalties of unemployment.  We want an America of homes, illumined with hope and happiness, where mothers, freed from the necessity for long hours of toil beyond their own doors, may preside as befits the hearthstone of American citizenship.  We want the cradle of American childhood rocked under conditions so wholesome and so hopeful that no blight may touch it in its development, and we want to provide that no selfish interest, no material necessity, no lack of opportunity shall prevent the gaining of that education so essential to best citizenship.

There is no short cut to the making of these ideals into glad realities.  The world has witnessed again and again the futility and the mischief of ill-considered remedies for social and economic disorders.  But we are mindful today as never before of the friction of modern industrialism, and we must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences by sober and tested methods.  Where genius has made for great possibilities, justice and happiness must be reflected in a greater common welfare.