We are engaged in a war, an “irrepressible conflict,” a most just and righteous war for a cause as high and noble as ever inspired a people to put forth its utmost of sacrifice and valor. To attain the end for which this peace-loving nation unsheathed its sword, to lay low and make powerless the accursed spirit which brought all this unspeakable misery, sorrow and ruin upon the world, is our one and supreme and unshakeable purpose. That is the purpose of the people of Wisconsin as it is the purp

One element only there is in our population which does deliberately challenge our national unity. I mean the militant Bolsheviki in our midst, the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who would place a visionary class interest above patriotism and who in ignorant fanaticism would substitute for the tyranny of autocracy the still more intolerable tyranny of mob-rule, as for the time being they have done in Russia. If it were not for the disablement of Russia, the battle against autocracy

Under the system of wisely ordered liberty, combined with incentive to individual effort whereof the foundation was laid by the far-sighted and enlightened men who created this nation and endowed it with the most sagacious instrument of government that the wit of man has devised, America has grown and prospered beyond all other nations. It has stood as a republic for nearly a century and a half, which is far longer than any other genuine republic has endured amongst the great nations of the worl

We will not have it so, we who are Americans by birth or adoption. We reject these impudent pretensions. Changes the American people will make as their need becomes apparent, improvements they welcome, the greatest attainable well-being for all those under our national roof-tree is their aim; but they will do all that in the American way of sane and orderly progress—and in none other. Against foes within no less than against enemies without they will know how to preserve and protect the splendid

Business must not deal grudgingly with labor. We business men must not look upon labor unrest and aspirations as temporary “troubles,” as a passing phase, but we must give to labor willing and liberal recognition as partner with capital. We must under all circumstances pay as a minimum a decent living wage to everyone who works for a living. We must devise means to cope with the problem of unemployment and to meet the dread advent of sickness, incapacity and old age in the case of those whose me

Now as to the allegations concerning taxation: 1. The largest incomes are taxed far more heavily here than anywhere else in the world. The maximum rate of income taxation here is 67%. In England it is 42½%. Ours is therefore 50% higher than England’s and the rate in England is the highest prevailing anywhere in Europe. Neither republican France nor democratic England—containing in their cabinets Socialists and representatives of labor—nor autocratic Germany have an income tax rate anywhere near

Much is being said about the plausible sounding contention that because a portion of the young manhood of the Nation has been conscripted, therefore money also must be conscripted. Why, that is the very thing the Government has been doing. It has conscripted a portion, a relatively small portion, of the men of the Nation. It has conscripted a portion, a large portion, of the incomes of the Nation. If it went too far in conscripting men, the country would be crippled. If it went too far in conscr

Reverting now to the subject of the conscription of men, I know I speak the sentiment of all those beyond the years of young manhood when I say that there is not one of us worthy of the name of a man who would not willingly go to fight if the country needed or wanted us to fight. But the country does not want or call its entire manhood to fight. It does not even call anywhere near its entire young manhood. It has called, or intends to call in the immediate future, perhaps 25% of its men between

The question of the individual is not the one that counts. The question is not what sacrifices capital should and would be willing to bear if called upon, but what taxes it is to the public advantage to impose. Taxation must be sound and wise and scientific, and cannot be laid in a haphazard way or on impulse or according to considerations of politics. Otherwise, the whole country will suffer. History has shown over and over again that the laws of economics cannot be defied with impunity and tha