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