ssible to get adequate regulation through State action.
Therefore, in the interest of the whole people, the Nation should,
without interfering with the power of the States in the matter itself,
also assume power of supervision and regulation over all corporations
doing an interstate business. This is especially true where the
corporation derives a portion of its wealth from the existence of some
monopolistic element or tendency in its business. There would be no
hardship in such supervision; banks are subject to it, and in their case
it is now accepted as a simple matter of course. Indeed, it is probable
that supervision of corporations by the National Government need not go
so far as is now the case with the supervision exercised over them by
so conservative a State as Massachusetts, in order to produce excellent
results.

When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth
century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in
industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by the
beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a
matter of course that the several States were the proper authorities to
regulate, so far as was then necessary, the comparatively insignificant
and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are
now wholly different and wholly different action is called for. I believe
that a law can be framed which will enable the National Government
to exercise control along the lines above indicated; profiting by
the experience gained through the passage and administration of the
Interstate-Commerce Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress
is that it lacks the constitutional power to pass such an act, then
a constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer the power.

There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secretary of
Commerce and Industries, as provided in the bill introduced at the last
session of the Congress. It should be his province to deal with commerce
in its broadest sense; including among many other things whatever
concerns labor and all matters affecting the great business corporations
and our merchant marine.

The course proposed is one phase of what should be a comprehensive
and far-reaching scheme of constructive statesmanship for the purpose
of broadening our markets, securing our business interests on a safe
basis, and making firm our new position in the international industria