impossible to do so by import duties, new kinds
of taxation must be adopted, and among these I recommend a graduated
inheritance tax as correct in principle and as certain and easy of
collection.

The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures
made to carry on the Government, to be as economical as possible, and to
make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and
should be affirmed in every declaration of government policy. This is
especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But
when the desire to win the popular approval leads to the cutting off
of expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to
enable it to accomplish its proper objects, the result is as much to be
condemned as the waste of government funds in unnecessary expenditure.
The scope of a modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish
for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by
the old "laissez faire" school of political writers, and this widening
has met popular approval.

In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on
a large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the
improvement of general agriculture must go on.

The importance of supervising business of great railways and industrial
combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful
business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not
exist half a century ago.

The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of
our resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the
Federal Government, including the most important work of saving and
restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all
proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if
properly performed. While some of them, like the reclamation of arid
lands, are made to pay for themselves, others are of such an indirect
benefit that this cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement,
like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and
should be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will
distribute its cost between the present and future generations in
accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the
serious consideration of Congress whether the deepening and control of
the channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or