With that prescience which characterized his political career from his entrance into politics, Mr. Roosevelt foresaw that it was impossible for capitalists in the United States to postpone those milder reforms, such as employers' liability, which had been accepted in the enlightened countries of Europe long before the close of the nineteenth century. In his message of December 3, 1907, he pointed out that "the number of accidents to wage-workers, including those that are preventable and those that are not, has become appalling in the mechanical, manufacturing and transportation operations of the day. It works grim hardship to the ordinary wage-worker and his family to have the effect of such an accident fall solely upon him." Mr. Roosevelt thereupon recommended the strengthening of the employers' liability law which had been recently passed by Congress, and urged upon that body "the enactment of a law which will ... bring federal legislation up to the standard already established by all European countries, and which will serve as a stimulus to the various states to perfect their legislation in this regard."
As has been pointed out above, Mr. Roosevelt, in all of his recommendations, took the ground that the prevailing system of production and distribution of wealth was essentially sound, that substantial justice was now being worked out between man and man, and that only a few painful excrescences needed to be lopped off. Only on one occasion, it seems, did he advise the adoption of any measures affecting directly the distribution of acquired wealth. In his message of December 3, 1907, he declared that when our tax laws were revised, the question of inheritance and income taxes should be carefully considered. He spoke with diffidence of the latter because of the difficulties of evasion involved, and the decision of the Supreme Court in 1895. "Nevertheless," he said, "a graduated income tax of the proper type would be a desirable feature of federal taxation, and it is to be hoped that one may be devised which the Supreme Court will declare constitutional." The inheritance tax was, in his opinion, however, preferable; such a tax had been upheld by the Court and was "far more important for the purpose of having the fortunes of the country bear in proportion to their increase in size a corresponding increase and burden of taxation." He accordingly approved the principle of a progressive inheritance tax, increasing to perhaps 25 per cent in the case of distant relatives.