trict to see the result, the handicap and embarrassment which have
been put upon those who produce our food.

Conscious of this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress
recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the
various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in
Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report. Its report
ought to make it easier for us to determine what methods will be best
suited to our own farmers. I hope and believe that the committees of the
Senate and House will address themselves selves to this matter with the
most fruitful results, and I believe that the studies and recently
formed plans of the Department of Agriculture may be made to serve them
very greatly in their work of framing appropriate and adequate
legislation. It would be indiscreet and presumptuous in anyone to
dogmatize upon so great and many-sided a question, but I feel confident
that common counsel will produce the results we must all desire.

Turn from the farm to the world of business which centers in the city
and in the factory, and I think that all thoughtful observers will agree
that the immediate service we owe the business communities of the
country is to prevent private monopoly more effectually than it has yet
been prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that we should let the
Sherman antitrust law stand, unaltered, as it is, with its debatable
ground about it, but that we should as much as possible reduce the area
of that debatable ground by further and more explicit legislation; and
should also supplement that great act by legislation which will not
only clarify it but also facilitate its administration and make it
fairer to all concerned. No doubt we shall all wish, and the country
will expect, this to be the central subject of our deliberations during
the present session; but it is a subject so many-sided and so deserving
of careful and discriminating discussion that I shall take the liberty
of addressing you upon it in a special message at a later date than
this. It is of capital importance that the business men of this country
should be relieved of all uncertainties of law with regard to their
enterprises and investments and a clear path indicated which they can
travel without anxiety. It is as important that they should be relieved
of embarrassment and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should
be destroyed. The ways of action should be thr