We still continue in a period of unbounded prosperity. This prosperity is not the creature of law, but undoubtedly the laws under which we work have been instrumental in creating the conditions which made it possible, and by unwise legislation it would be easy enough to destroy it. There will undoubtedly be periods of depression. The wave will recede; but the tide will advance. This Nation is seated on a continent flanked by two great oceans. It is composed of men the descendants of pioneers, or, in a sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness, and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts. Such a Nation, so placed, will surely wrest success from fortune. As a people we have played a large part in the world, and we are bent upon making our future even larger than the past. In particular, the events of the last four years have definitely decided that, for woe or for weal, our place must be great among the nations. We may either fall greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come. Even if we would, we can not play a small part. If we should try, all that would follow would be that we should play a large part ignobly and shamefully. But our people, the sons of the men of the Civil War, the sons of the men who had iron in their blood, rejoice in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute of will. Ours is not the creed of the weakling and the coward; ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant endeavor. We do not shrink from the struggle before us. There are many problems for us to face at the outset of the twentieth century--grave problems abroad and still graver at home; but we know that we can solve them and solve them well, provided only that we bring to the solution the qualities of head and heart which were shown by the men who, in the days of Washington, rounded this Government, and, in the days of Lincoln, preserved it. No country has ever occupied a higher plane of material well-being than ours at the present moment. This well-being is due to no sudden or accidental causes, but to the play of the economic forces in this country for over a century; to our laws, our sustained and continuous policies; above all, to the high individual average of our citizenship. Great fortunes have been won by those who have taken the lead in this phenomenal industrial development, and most of these fortunes have been won not by doing evil, but as an incident to action which has benefited the community as a whole. Never before has material well-being been so widely diffused among our people. Great fortunes have been accumulated, and yet in the aggregate these fortunes are small Indeed when compared to the wealth of the people as a whole. The plain people are better off than they have ever been before. The insurance companies, which are practically mutual benefit societies--especially helpful to men of moderate means--represent accumulations of capital which are among the largest in this country. There are more deposits in the savings banks, more owners of farms, more well-paid wage-workers in this country now than ever before in our history. Of course, when the conditions have favored the growth of so much that was good, they have also favored somewhat the growth of what was evil. It is eminently necessary that we should endeavor to cut out this evil, but let us keep a due sense of proportion; let us not in fixing our gaze upon the lesser evil forget the greater good. The evils are real and some of them are menacing, but they are the outgrowth, not of misery or decadence, but of prosperity--of the progress of our gigantic industrial development. This industrial development must not be checked, but side by side with it should go such progressive regulation as will diminish the evils. We should fail in our duty if we did not try to remedy the evils, but we shall succeed only if we proceed patiently, with practical common sense as well as resolution, separating the good from the bad and holding on to the former while endeavoring to get rid of the latter. In my Message to the present Congress at its first session I discussed at length the question of the regulation of those big corporations commonly doing an interstate business, often with some tendency to monopoly, which are popularly known as trusts. The experience of the past year has emphasized, in my opinion, the desirability of the steps I then proposed. A fundamental requisite of social efficiency is a high standard of individual energy and excellence; but this is in no wise inconsistent with power to act in combination for aims which can not so well be achieved by the individual acting alone. A fundamental base of civilization is the inviolability of property; but this is in no wise inconsistent with the right of society to regulate the exercise of the artificial powers which it confers upon the owners of property, under the name of corporate franchises, in such a way as to prevent the misuse of these powers. Corporations, and especially combinations of corporations, should be managed under public regulation. Experience has shown that under our system of government the necessary supervision can not be obtained by State action. It must therefore be achieved by national action. Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who, alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer, not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when he does well. We wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him from doing ill. Publicity can do no harm to the honest corporation; and we need not be over tender about sparing the dishonest corporation. In curbing and regulating the combinations of capital which are, or may become, injurious to the public we must be careful not to stop the great enterprises which have legitimately reduced the cost of production, not to abandon the place which our country has won in the leadership of the international industrial world, not to strike down wealth with the result of closing factories and mines, of turning the wage-worker idle in the streets and leaving the farmer without a market for what he grows. Insistence upon the impossible means delay in achieving the possible, exactly as, on the other hand, the stubborn defense alike of what is good and what is bad in the existing system, the resolute effort to obstruct any attempt at betterment, betrays blindness to the historic truth that wise evolution is the sure safeguard against revolution. No more important subject can come before the Congress than this of the regulation of interstate business. This country can not afford to sit supine on the plea that under our peculiar system of government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them. The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on the statute books. It is evident, therefore, that evils restrictive of commercial freedom and entailing restraint upon national commerce fall within the regulative power of the Congress, and that a wise and reasonable law would be a necessary and proper exercise of Congressional authority to the end that such evils should be eradicated. I believe that monopolies, unjust discriminations, which prevent or cripple competition, fraudulent overcapitalization, and other evils in trust organizations and practices which injuriously affect interstate trade can be prevented under the power of the Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States" through regulations and requirements operating directly upon such commerce, the instrumentalities thereof, and those engaged therein. I earnestly recommend this subject to the consideration of the Congress with a view to the passage of a law reasonable in its provisions and effective in its operations, upon which the questions can be finally adjudicated that now raise doubts as to the necessity of constitutional amendment. If it prove impossible to accomplish the purposes above set forth by such a law, then, assuredly, we should not shrink from amending the Constitution so as to secure beyond peradventure the power sought. The Congress has not heretofore made any appropriation for the better enforcement of the antitrust law as it now stands. Very much has been done by the Department of Justice in securing the enforcement of this law, but much more could be done if the Congress would make a special appropriation for this purpose, to be expended under the direction of the Attorney-General. One proposition advocated has been the reduction of the tariff as a means of reaching the evils of the trusts which fall within the category I have described. Not merely would this be wholly ineffective, but the diversion of our efforts in such a direction would mean the abandonment of all intelligent attempt to do away with these evils. Many of the largest corporations, many of those which should certainly be included in any proper scheme of regulation, would not be affected in the slightest degree by a change in the tariff, save as such change interfered with the general prosperity of the country. The only relation of the tariff to big corporations as a whole is that the tariff makes manufactures profitable, and the tariff remedy proposed would be in effect simply to make manufactures unprofitable. To remove the tariff as a punitive measure directed against trusts would inevitably result in ruin to the weaker competitors who are struggling against them. Our aim should be not by unwise tariff changes to give foreign products the advantage over domestic products, but by proper regulation to give domestic competition a fair chance; and this end can not be reached by any tariff changes which would affect unfavorably all domestic competitors, good and bad alike. The question of regulation of the trusts stands apart from the question of tariff revision. Stability of economic policy must always be the prime economic need of this country. This stability should not be fossilization. The country has acquiesced in the wisdom of the protective-tariff principle. It is exceedingly undesirable that this system should be destroyed or that there should be violent and radical changes therein. Our past experience shows that great prosperity in this country has always come under a protective tariff; and that the country can not prosper under fitful tariff changes at short intervals. Moreover, if the tariff laws as a whole work well, and if business has prospered under them and is prospering, it is better to endure for a time slight inconveniences and inequalities in some schedules than to upset business by too quick and too radical changes. It is most earnestly to be wished that we could treat the tariff from the standpoint solely of our business needs. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that partisanship may be entirely excluded from consideration of the subject, but at least it can be made secondary to the business interests of the country--that is, to the interests of our people as a whole. Unquestionably these business interests will best be served if together with fixity of principle as regards the tariff we combine a system which will permit us from time to time to make the necessary reapplication of the principle to the shifting national needs. We must take scrupulous care that the reapplication shall be made in such a way that it will not amount to a dislocation of our system, the mere threat of which (not to speak of the performance) would produce paralysis in the business energies of the community. The first consideration in making these changes would, of course, be to preserve the principle which underlies our whole tariff system--that is, the principle of putting American business interests at least on a full equality with interests abroad, and of always allowing a sufficient rate of duty to more than cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker, like the well-being of the tiller of the soil, should be treated as an essential in shaping our whole economic policy. There must never be any change which will jeopardize the standard of comfort, the standard of wages of the American wage-worker. One way in which the readjustment sought can be reached is by reciprocity treaties. It is greatly to be desired that such treaties may be adopted. They can be used to widen our markets and to give a greater field for the activities of our producers on the one hand, and on the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering of duties when they are no longer needed for protection among our own people, or when the minimum of damage done may be disregarded for the sake of the maximum of good accomplished. If it prove impossible to ratify the pending treaties, and if there seem to be no warrant for the endeavor to execute others, or to amend the pending treaties so that they can be ratified, then the same end--to secure reciprocity--should be met by direct legislation. Wherever the tariff conditions are such that a needed change can not with advantage be made by the application of the reciprocity idea, then it can be made outright by a lowering of duties on a given product. If possible, such change should be made only after the fullest consideration by practical experts, who should approach the subject from a business standpoint, having in view both the particular interests affected and the commercial well-being of the people as a whole. The machinery for providing such careful investigation can readily be supplied. The executive department has already at its disposal methods of collecting facts and figures; and if the Congress desires additional consideration to that which will be given the subject by its own committees, then a commission of business experts can be appointed whose duty it should be to recommend action by the Congress after a deliberate and scientific examination of the various schedules as they are affected by the changed and changing conditions. The unhurried and unbiased report of this commission would show what changes should be made in the various schedules, and how far these changes could go without also changing the great prosperity which this country is now enjoying, or upsetting its fixed economic policy. The cases in which the tariff can produce a monopoly are so few as to constitute an inconsiderable factor in the question; but of course if in any case it be found that a given rate of duty does promote a monopoly which works ill, no protectionist would object to such reduction of the duty as would equalize competition. In my judgment, the tariff on anthracite coal should be removed, and anthracite put actually, where it now is nominally, on the free list. This would have no effect at all save in crises; but in crises it might be of service to the people. Interest rates are a potent factor in business activity, and in order that these rates may be equalized to meet the varying needs of the seasons and of widely separated communities, and to prevent the recurrence of financial stringencies which injuriously affect legitimate business, it is necessary that there should be an element of elasticity in our monetary system. Banks are the natural servants of commerce, and upon them should be placed, as far as practicable, the burden of furnishing and maintaining a circulation adequate to supply the needs of our diversified industries and of our domestic and foreign commerce; and the issue of this should be so regulated that a sufficient supply should be always available for the business interests of the country. It would be both unwise and unnecessary at this time to attempt to reconstruct our financial system, which has been the growth of a century; but some additional legislation is, I think, desirable. The mere outline of any plan sufficiently comprehensive to meet these requirements would transgress the appropriate limits of this communication. It is suggested, however, that all future legislation on the subject should be with the view of encouraging the use of such instrumentalities as will automatically supply every legitimate demand of productive industries and of commerce, not only in the amount, but in the character of circulation; and of making all kinds of money interchangeable, and, at the will of the holder, convertible into the established gold standard. I again call your attention to the need of passing a proper immigration law, covering the points outlined in my Message to you at the first session of the present Congress; substantially such a bill has already passed the House. How to secure fair treatment alike for labor and for capital, how to hold in check the unscrupulous man, whether employer or employee, without weakening individual initiative, without hampering and cramping the industrial development of the country, is a problem fraught with great difficulties and one which it is of the highest importance to solve on lines of sanity and far-sighted common sense as well as of devotion to the right. This is an era of federation and combination. Exactly as business men find they must often work through corporations, and as it is a constant tendency of these corporations to grow larger, so it is often necessary for laboring men to work in federations, and these have become important factors of modern industrial life. Both kinds of federation, capitalistic and labor, can do much good, and as a necessary corollary they can both do evil. Opposition to each kind of organization should take the form of opposition to whatever is bad in the conduct of any given corporation or union--not of attacks upon corporations as such nor upon unions as such; for some of the most far-reaching beneficent work for our people has been accomplished through both corporations and unions. Each must refrain from arbitrary or tyrannous interference with the rights of others. Organized capital and organized labor alike should remember that in the long run the interest of each must be brought into harmony with the interest of the general public; and the conduct of each must conform to the fundamental rules of obedience to the law, of individual freedom, and of justice and fair dealing toward all. Each should remember that in addition to power it must strive after the realization of healthy, lofty, and generous ideals. Every employer, every wage-worker, must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property or his labor so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. It is of the highest importance that employer and employee alike should endeavor to appreciate each the viewpoint of the other and the sure disaster that will come upon both in the long run if either grows to take as habitual an attitude of sour hostility and distrust toward the other. Few people deserve better of the country than those representatives both of capital and labor--and there are many such--who work continually to bring about a good understanding of this kind, based upon wisdom and upon broad and kindly sympathy between employers and employed. Above all, we need to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity. We can get good government only upon condition that we keep true to the principles upon which this Nation was founded, and judge each man not as a part of a class, but upon his individual merits. All that we have a right to ask of any man, rich or poor, whatever his creed, his occupation, his birthplace, or his residence, is that he shall act well and honorably by his neighbor and by, his country. We are neither for the rich man as such nor for the poor man as such; we are for the upright man, rich or poor. So far as the constitutional powers of the National Government touch these matters of general and vital moment to the Nation, they should be exercised in conformity with the principles above set forth. It is earnestly hoped that a secretary of commerce may be created, with a seat in the Cabinet. The rapid multiplication of questions affecting labor and capital, the growth and complexity of the organizations through which both labor and capital now find expression, the steady tendency toward the employment of capital in huge corporations, and the wonderful strides of this country toward leadership in the international business world justify an urgent demand for the creation of such a position. Substantially all the leading commercial bodies in this country have united in requesting its creation. It is desirable that some such measure as that which has already passed the Senate be enacted into law. The creation of such a department would in itself be an advance toward dealing with and exercising supervision over the whole subject of the great corporations doing an interstate business; and with this end in view, the Congress should endow the department with large powers, which could be increased as experience might show the need. I hope soon to submit to the Senate a reciprocity treaty with Cuba. On May 20 last the United States kept its promise to the island by formally vacating Cuban soil and turning Cuba over to those whom her own people had chosen as the first officials of the new Republic. Cuba lies at our doors, and whatever affects her for good or for ill affects us also. So much have our people felt this that in the Platt amendment we definitely took the ground that Cuba must hereafter have closer political relations with us than with any other power. Thus in a sense Cuba has become a part of our international political system. This makes it necessary that in return she should be given some of the benefits of becoming part of our economic system. It is, from our own standpoint, a short-sighted and mischievous policy to fail to recognize this need. Moreover, it is unworthy of a mighty and generous nation, itself the greatest and most successful republic in history, to refuse to stretch out a helping hand to a young and weak sister republic just entering upon its career of independence. We should always fearlessly insist upon our rights in the face of the strong, and we should with ungrudging hand do our generous duty by the weak. I urge the adoption of reciprocity with Cuba not only because it is eminently for our own interests to control the Cuban market and by every means to foster our supremacy in the tropical lands and waters south of us, but also because we, of of the giant republic of the north, should make all our sister nations of the American Continent feel that whenever they will permit it we desire to show ourselves disinterestedly and effectively their friend. A convention with Great Britain has been concluded, which will be at once laid before the Senate for ratification, providing for reciprocal trade arrangements between the United States and Newfoundland on substantially the lines of the convention formerly negotiated by the Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine. I believe reciprocal trade relations will be greatly to the advantage of both countries. As civilization grows warfare becomes less and less the normal condition of foreign relations. The last century has seen a marked diminution of wars between civilized powers; wars with uncivilized powers are largely mere matters of international police duty, essential for, the welfare of the world. Wherever possible, arbitration or some similar method should be employed in lieu of war to settle difficulties between civilized nations, although as yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it possible, or necessarily desirable, to invoke arbitration in every case. The formation of the international tribunal which sits at The Hague is an event of good omen from which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind may flow. It is far better, where possible, to invoke such a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for a given purpose. It is a matter of sincere congratulation to our country that the United States and Mexico should have been the first to use the good offices of The Hague Court. This was done last summer with most satisfactory results in the case of a claim at issue between us and our sister Republic. It is earnestly to be hoped that this first case will serve as a precedent for others, in which not only the United States but foreign nations may take advantage of the machinery already in existence at The Hague. I commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the Hawaiian fire claims, which were the subject of careful investigation during the last session. The Congress has wisely provided that we shall build at once an isthmian canal, if possible at Panama. The Attorney-General reports that we can undoubtedly acquire good title from the French Panama Canal Company. Negotiations are now pending with Colombia to secure her assent to our building the canal. This canal will be one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth century; a greater engineering feat than has yet been accomplished during the history of mankind. The work should be carried out as a continuing policy without regard to change of Administration; and it should be begun under circumstances which will make it a matter of pride for all Administrations to continue the policy. The canal will be of great benefit to America, and of importance to all the world. It will be of advantage to us industrially and also as improving our military position. It will be of advantage to the countries of tropical America. It is earnestly to be hoped that all of these countries will do as some of them have already done with signal success, and will invite to their shores commerce and improve their material conditions by recognizing that stability and order are the prerequisites of successful development. No independent nation in America need have the slightest fear of aggression from the United States. It behoves each one to maintain order within its own borders and to discharge its just obligations to foreigners. When this is done, they can rest assured that, be they strong or weak, they have nothing to dread from outside interference. More and more the increasing interdependence and complexity of international political and economic relations render it incumbent on all civilized and orderly powers to insist on the proper policing of the world. During the fall of 1901 a communication was addressed to the Secretary of State, asking whether permission would be granted by the President to a corporation to lay a cable from a point on the California coast to the Philippine Islands by way of Hawaii. A statement of conditions or terms upon which such corporation would undertake to lay and operate a cable was volunteered. Inasmuch as the Congress was shortly to convene, and Pacific-cable legislation had been the subject of consideration by the Congress for several years, it seemed to me wise to defer action upon the application until the Congress had first an opportunity to act. The Congress adjourned without taking any action, leaving the matter in exactly the same condition in which it stood when the Congress convened. Meanwhile it appears that the Commercial Pacific Cable Company had promptly proceeded with preparations for laying its cable. It also made application to the President for access to and use of soundings taken by the U. S. S. Nero, for the purpose of discovering a practicable route for a trans-Pacific cable, the company urging that with access to these soundings it could complete its cable much sooner than if it were required to take soundings upon its own account. Pending consideration of this subject, it appeared important and desirable to attach certain conditions to the permission to examine and use the soundings, if it should be granted. In consequence of this solicitation of the cable company, certain conditions were formulated, upon which the President was willing to allow access to these soundings and to consent to the landing and laying of the cable, subject to any alterations or additions thereto imposed by the Congress. This was deemed proper, especially as it was clear that a cable connection of some kind with China, a foreign country, was a part of the company's plan. This course was, moreover, in accordance with a line of precedents, including President Grant's action in the case of the first French cable, explained to the Congress in his Annual Message of December, 1875, and the instance occurring in 1879 of the second French cable from Brest to St. Pierre, with a branch to Cape Cod. These conditions prescribed, among other things, a maximum rate for commercial messages and that the company should construct a line from the Philippine Islands to China, there being at present, as is well known, a British line from Manila to Hongkong. The representatives of the cable company kept these conditions long under consideration, continuing, in the meantime, to prepare for laying the cable. They have, however, at length acceded to them, and an all-American line between our Pacific coast and the Chinese Empire, by way of Honolulu and the Philippine Islands, is thus provided for, and is expected within a few months to be ready for business. Among the conditions is one reserving the power of the Congress to modify or repeal any or all of them. A copy of the conditions is herewith transmitted. Of Porto Rico it is only necessary to say that the prosperity of the island and the wisdom with which it has been governed have been such as to make it serve as an example of all that is best in insular administration. On July 4 last, on the one hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of the declaration of our independence, peace and amnesty were promulgated in the Philippine Islands. Some trouble has since from time to time threatened with the Mohammedan Moros, but with the late insurrectionary Filipinos the war has entirely ceased. Civil government has now been introduced. Not only does each Filipino enjoy such rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as he has never before known during the recorded history of the islands, but the people taken as a whole now enjoy a measure of self-government greater than that granted to any other Orientals by any foreign power and greater than that enjoyed by any other Orientals under their own governments, save the Japanese alone. We have not gone too far in granting these rights of liberty and self-government; but we have certainly gone to the limit that in the interests of the Philippine people themselves it was wise or just to go. To hurry matters, to go faster than we are now going, would entail calamity on the people of the islands. No policy ever entered into by the American people has vindicated itself in more signal manner than the policy of holding the Philippines. The triumph of our arms, above all the triumph of our laws and principles, has come sooner than we had any right to expect. Too much praise can not be given to the Army for what it has done in the Philippines both in warfare and from an administrative standpoint in preparing the way for civil government; and similar credit belongs to the civil authorities for the way in which they have planted the seeds of self-government in the ground thus made ready for them. The courage, the unflinching endurance, the high soldierly efficiency; and the general kind-heartedness and humanity of our troops have been strikingly manifested. There now remain only some fifteen thousand troops in the islands. All told, over one hundred thousand have been sent there. Of course, there have been individual instances of wrongdoing among them. They warred under fearful difficulties of climate and surroundings; and under the strain of the terrible provocations which they continually received from their foes, occasional instances of cruel retaliation occurred. Every effort has been made to prevent such cruelties, and finally these efforts have been completely successful. Every effort has also been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers. After making all allowance for these misdeeds, it remains true that few indeed have been the instances in which war has been waged by a civilized power against semicivilized or barbarous forces where there has been so little wrongdoing by the victors as in the Philippine Islands. On the other hand, the amount of difficult, important, and beneficent work which has been done is well-nigh incalculable. Taking the work of the Army and the civil authorities together, it may be questioned whether anywhere else in modern times the world has seen a better example of real constructive statesmanship than our people have given in the Philippine Islands. High praise should also be given those Filipinos, in the aggregate very numerous, who have accepted the new conditions and joined with our representatives to work with hearty good will for the welfare of the islands. The Army has been reduced to the minimum allowed by law. It is very small for the size of the Nation, and most certainly should be kept at the highest point of efficiency. The senior officers are given scant chance under ordinary conditions to exercise commands commensurate with their rank, under circumstances which would fit them to do their duty in time of actual war. A system of maneuvering our Army in bodies of some little size has been begun and should be steadily continued. Without such maneuvers it is folly to expect that in the event of hostilities with any serious foe even a small army corps could be handled to advantage. Both our officers and enlisted men are such that we can take hearty pride in them. No better material can be found. But they must be thoroughly trained, both as individuals and in the mass. The marksmanship of the men must receive special attention. In the circumstances of modern warfare the man must act far more on his own individual responsibility than ever before, and the high individual efficiency of the unit is of the utmost importance. Formerly this unit was the regiment; it is now not the regiment, not even the troop or company; it is the individual soldier. Every effort must be made to develop every workmanlike and soldierly quality in both the officer and the enlisted man. I urgently call your attention to the need of passing a bill providing for a general staff and for the reorganization of the supply departments on the lines of the bill proposed by the Secretary of War last year. When the young officers enter the Army from West Point they probably stand above their compeers in any other military service. Every effort should be made, by training, by reward of merit, by scrutiny into their careers and capacity, to keep them of the same high relative excellence throughout their careers. The measure providing for the reorganization of the militia system and for securing the highest efficiency in the National Guard, which has already passed the House, should receive prompt attention and action. It is of great importance that the relation of the National Guard to the militia and volunteer forces of the United States should be defined, and that in place of our present obsolete laws a practical and efficient system should be adopted. Provision should be made to enable the Secretary of War to keep cavalry and artillery horses, worn-out in long performance of duty. Such horses fetch but a trifle when sold; and rather than turn them out to the misery awaiting them when thus disposed of, it would be better to employ them at light work around the posts, and when necessary to put them painlessly to death. For the first time in our history naval maneuvers on a large scale are being held under the immediate command of the Admiral of the Navy. Constantly increasing attention is being paid to the gunnery of the Navy, but it is yet far from what it should be. I earnestly urge that the increase asked for by the Secretary of the Navy in the appropriation for improving the markmanship be granted. In battle the only shots that count are the shots that hit. It is necessary to provide ample funds for practice with the great guns in time of peace. These funds must provide not only for the purchase of projectiles, but for allowances for prizes to encourage the gun crews, and especially the gun pointers, and for perfecting an intelligent system under which alone it is possible to get good practice. There should be no halt in the work of building up the Navy, providing every year additional fighting craft. We are a very rich country, vast in extent of territory and great in population; a country, moreover, which has an Army diminutive indeed when compared with that of any other first-class power. We have deliberately made our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession of a first-class navy. The isthmian canal will greatly increase the efficiency of our Navy if the Navy is of sufficient size; but if we have an inadequate navy, then the building of the canal would be merely giving a hostage to any power of superior strength. The Monroe Doctrine should be treated as the cardinal feature of American foreign policy; but it would be worse than idle to assert it unless we intended to back it up, and it can be backed up only by a thoroughly good navy. A good navy is not a provocative of war. It is the surest guaranty of peace. Each individual unit of our Navy should be the most efficient of its kind as regards both material and personnel that is to be found in the world. I call your special attention to the need of providing for the manning of the ships. Serious trouble threatens us if we can not do better than we are now doing as regards securing the services of a sufficient number of the highest type of sailormen, of sea mechanics. The veteran seamen of our war ships are of as high a type as can be found in any navy which rides the waters of the world; they are unsurpassed in daring, in resolution, in readiness, in thorough knowledge of their profession. They deserve every consideration that can be shown them. But there are not enough of them. It is no more possible to improvise a crew than it is possible to improvise a war ship. To build the finest ship, with the deadliest battery, and to send it afloat with a raw crew, no matter how brave they were individually, would be to insure disaster if a foe of average capacity were encountered. Neither ships nor men can be improvised when war has begun. We need a thousand additional officers in order to properly man the ships now provided for and under construction. The classes at the Naval School at Annapolis should be greatly enlarged. At the same time that we thus add the officers where we need them, we should facilitate the retirement of those at the head of the list whose usefulness has become impaired. Promotion must be fostered if the service is to be kept efficient. The lamentable scarcity of officers, and the large number of recruits and of unskilled men necessarily put aboard the new vessels as they have been commissioned, has thrown upon our officers, and especially on the lieutenants and junior grades, unusual labor and fatigue and has gravely strained their powers of endurance. Nor is there sign of any immediate let-up in this strain. It must continue for some time longer, until more officers are graduated from Annapolis, and until the recruits become trained and skillful in their duties. In these difficulties incident upon the development of our war fleet the conduct of all our officers has been creditable to the service, and the lieutenants and junior grades in particular have displayed an ability and a steadfast cheerfulness which entitles them to the ungrudging thanks of all who realize the disheartening trials and fatigues to which they are of necessity subjected. There is not a cloud on the horizon at present. There seems not the slightest chance of trouble with a foreign power. We most earnestly hope that this state of things may continue; and the way to insure its continuance is to provide for a thoroughly efficient navy. The refusal to maintain such a navy would invite trouble, and if trouble came would insure disaster. Fatuous self-complacency or vanity, or short-sightedness in refusing to prepare for danger, is both foolish and wicked in such a nation as ours; and past experience has shown that such fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis in advance is usually succeeded by a mad panic of hysterical fear once the crisis has actually arrived. The striking increase in the revenues of the Post-Office Department shows clearly the prosperity of our people and the increasing activity of the business of the country. The receipts of the Post-Office Department for the fiscal year ending June 30 last amounted to $121,848,047.26, an increase of $10,216,853.87 over the preceding year, the largest increase known in the history of the postal service. The magnitude of this increase will best appear from the fact that the entire postal receipts for the year 1860 amounted to but $8,518,067. Rural free-delivery service is no longer in the experimental stage; it has become a fixed policy. The results following its introduction have fully justified the Congress in the large appropriations made for its establishment and extension. The average yearly increase in post-office receipts in the rural districts of the country is about two per cent. We are now able, by actual results, to show that where rural free-delivery service has been established to such an extent as to enable us to make comparisons the yearly increase has been upward of ten per cent. On November 1, 1902, 11,650 rural free-delivery routes had been established and were in operation, covering about one-third of the territory of the United States available for rural free-delivery service. There are now awaiting the action of the Department petitions and applications for the establishment of 10,748 additional routes. This shows conclusively the want which the establishment of the service has met and the need of further extending it as rapidly as possible. It is justified both by the financial results and by the practical benefits to our rural population; it brings the men who live on the soil into close relations with the active business world; it keeps the farmer in daily touch with the markets; it is a potential educational force; it enhances the value of farm property, makes farm life far pleasanter and less isolated, and will do much to check the undesirable current from country to city. It is to be hoped that the Congress will make liberal appropriations for the continuance of the service already established and for its further extension. Few subjects of more importance have been taken up by the Congress in recent years than the inauguration of the system of nationally-aided irrigation for the arid regions of the far West. A good beginning therein has been made. Now that this policy of national irrigation has been adopted, the need of thorough and scientific forest protection will grow more rapidly than ever throughout the public-land States. Legislation should be provided for the protection of the game, and the wild creatures generally, on the forest reserves. The senseless slaughter of game, which can by judicious protection be permanently preserved on our national reserves for the people as a whole, should be stopped at once. It is, for instance, a serious count against our national good sense to permit the present practice of butchering off such a stately and beautiful creature as the elk for its antlers or tusks. So far as they are available for agriculture, and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the national irrigation law, the remaining public lands should be held rigidly for the home builder, the settler who lives on his land, and for no one else. In their actual use the desert-land law, the timber and stone law, and the commutation clause of the homestead law have been so perverted from the intention with which they were enacted as to permit the acquisition of large areas of the public domain for other than actual settlers and the consequent prevention of settlement. Moreover, the approaching exhaustion of the public ranges has of late led to much discussion as to the best manner of using these public lands in the West which are suitable chiefly or only for grazing. The sound and steady development of the West depends upon the building up of homes therein. Much of our prosperity as a nation has been due to the operation of the homestead law. On the other hand, we should recognize the fact that in the grazing region the man who corresponds to the homesteader may be unable to settle permanently if only allowed to use the same amount of pasture land that his brother, the homesteader, is allowed to use of arable land. One hundred and sixty acres of fairly rich and well-watered soil, or a much smaller amount of irrigated land, may keep a family in plenty, whereas no one could get a living from one hundred and sixty acres of dry pasture land capable of supporting at the outside only one head of cattle to every ten acres. In the past great tracts of the public domain have been fenced in by persons having no title thereto, in direct defiance of the law forbidding the maintenance or construction of any such unlawful inclosure of public land. For various reasons there has been little interference with such inclosures in the past, but ample notice has now been given the trespassers, and all the resources at the command of the Government will hereafter be used to put a stop to such trespassing. In view of the capital importance of these matters, I commend them to the earnest consideration of the Congress, and if the Congress finds difficulty in dealing with them from lack of thorough knowledge of the subject, I recommend that provision be made for a commission of experts specially to investigate and report upon the complicated questions involved. I especially urge upon the Congress the need of wise legislation for Alaska. It is not to our credit as a nation that Alaska, which has been ours for thirty-five years, should still have as poor a system Of laws as is the case. No country has a more valuable possession-- in mineral wealth, in fisheries, furs, forests, and also in land available for certain kinds of farming and stockgrowing. It is a territory of great size and varied resources, well fitted to support a large permanent population. Alaska needs a good land law and such provisions for homesteads and pre-emptions as will encourage permanent settlement. We should shape legislation with a view not to the exploiting and abandoning of the territory, but to the building up of homes therein. The land laws should be liberal in type, so as to hold out inducements to the actual settler whom we most desire to see take possession of the country. The forests of Alaska should be protected, and, as a secondary but still important matter, the game also, and at the same time it is imperative that the settlers should be allowed to cut timber, under proper regulations, for their own use. Laws should be enacted to protect the Alaskan salmon fisheries against the greed which would destroy them. They should be preserved as a permanent industry and food supply. Their management and control should be turned over to the Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress. It would be well if a Congressional committee could visit Alaska and investigate its needs on the ground. In dealing with the Indians our aim should be their ultimate absorption into the body of our people. But in many cases this absorption must and should be very slow. In portions of the Indian Territory the mixture of blood has gone on at the same time with progress in wealth and education, so that there are plenty of men with varying degrees of purity of Indian blood who are absolutely indistinguishable in point of social, political, and economic ability from their white associates. There are other tribes which have as yet made no perceptible advance toward such equality. To try to force such tribes too fast is to prevent their going forward at all. Moreover, the tribes live under widely different conditions. Where a tribe has made considerable advance and lives on fertile farming soil it is possible to allot the members lands in severalty much as is the case with white settlers. There are other tribes where such a course is not desirable. On the arid prairie lands the effort should be to induce the Indians to lead pastoral rather than agricultural lives, and to permit them to settle in villages rather than to force them into isolation. The large Indian schools situated remote from any Indian reservation do a special and peculiar work of great importance. But, excellent though these are, an immense amount of additional work must be done on the reservations themselves among the old, and above all among the young, Indians. The first and most important step toward the absorption of the Indian is to teach him to earn his living; yet it is not necessarily to be assumed that in each community all Indians must become either tillers of the soil or stock raisers. Their industries may properly be diversified, and those who show special desire or adaptability for industrial or even commercial pursuits should be encouraged so far as practicable to follow out each his own bent. Every effort should be made to develop the Indian along the lines of natural aptitude, and to encourage the existing native industries peculiar to certain tribes, such as the various kinds of basket weaving, canoe building, smith work, and blanket work. Above all, the Indian boys and girls should be given confident command of colloquial English, and should ordinarily be prepared for a vigorous struggle with the conditions under which their people live, rather than for immediate absorption into some more highly developed community. The officials who represent the Government in dealing with the Indians work under hard conditions, and also under conditions which render it easy to do wrong and very difficult to detect wrong. Consequently they should be amply paid on the one hand, and on the other hand a particularly high standard of conduct should be demanded from them, and where misconduct can be proved the punishment should be exemplary. In no department of governmental work in recent years has there been greater success than in that of giving scientific aid to the farming population, thereby showing them how most efficiently to help themselves. There is no need of insisting upon its importance, for the welfare of the farmer is fundamentally necessary to the welfare of the Republic as a whole. In addition to such work as quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues, and warring against them when here introduced, much efficient help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the country. New cereals have been established in the semi-arid West. For instance, the practicability of producing the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively demonstrated. Through the introduction of new rices in Louisiana and Texas the production of rice in this country has been made to about equal the home demand. In the South-west the possibility of regrassing overstocked range lands has been demonstrated; in the North many new forage crops have been introduced, while in the East it has been shown that some of our choicest fruits can be stored and shipped in such a way as to find a profitable market abroad. I again recommend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the plans of the Smithsonian Institution for making the Museum under its charge worthy of the Nation, and for preserving at the National Capital not only records of the vanishing races of men but of the animals of this continent which, like the buffalo, will soon become extinct unless specimens from which their representatives may be renewed are sought in their native regions and maintained there in safety. The District of Columbia is the only part of our territory in which the National Government exercises local or municipal functions, and where in consequence the Government has a free hand in reference to certain types of social and economic legislation which must be essentially local or municipal in their character. The Government should see to it, for instance, that the hygienic and sanitary legislation affecting Washington is of a high character. The evils of slum dwellings, whether in the shape of crowded and congested tenement-house districts or of the back-alley type, should never be permitted to grow up in Washington. The city should be a model in every respect for all the cities of the country. The charitable and correctional systems of the District should receive consideration at the hands of the Congress to the end that they may embody the results of the most advanced thought in these fields. Moreover, while Washington is not a great industrial city, there is some industrialism here, and our labor legislation, while it would not be important in itself, might be made a model for the rest of the Nation. We should pass, for instance, a wise employer's-liability act for the District of Columbia, and we need such an act in our navy-yards. Railroad companies in the District ought to be required by law to block their frogs. The safety-appliance law, for the better protection of the lives and limbs of railway employees, which was passed in 1893, went into full effect on August 1, 1901. It has resulted in averting thousands of casualties. Experience shows, however, the necessity of additional legislation to perfect this law. A bill to provide for this passed the Senate at the last session. It is to be hoped that some such measure may now be enacted into law. There is a growing tendency to provide for the publication of masses of documents for which there is no public demand and for the printing of which there is no real necessity. Large numbers of volumes are turned out by the Government printing presses for which there is no justification. Nothing should be printed by any of the Departments unless it contains something of permanent value, and the Congress could with advantage cut down very materially on all the printing which it has now become customary to provide. The excessive cost of Government printing is a strong argument against the position of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate the Government's doing any work which can with propriety be left in private hands. Gratifying progress has been made during the year in the extension of the merit system of making appointments in the Government service. It should be extended by law to the District of Columbia. It is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness. Through a wise provision of the Congress at its last session the White House, which had become disfigured by incongruous additions and changes, has now been restored to what it was planned to be by Washington. In making the restorations the utmost care has been exercised to come as near as possible to the early plans and to supplement these plans by a careful study of such buildings as that of the University of Virginia, which was built by Jefferson. The White House is the property of the Nation, and so far as is compatible with living therein it should be kept as it originally was, for the same. reasons that we keep Mount Vernon as it originally was. The stately simplicity of its architecture is an expression of the character of the period in which it was built, and is in accord with the purposes it was designed to serve. It is a good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuity with the Nation's past. 
The reports of the several Executive Departments are submitted to the Congress with this communication.
We still continue in a period of unbounded prosperity. This prosperity is not the creature of law, but undoubtedly the laws under which we work have been instrumental in creating the conditions which made it possible, and by unwise legislation it would be easy enough to destroy it. There will undoubtedly be periods of depression. The wave will recede; but the tide will advance. This Nation is seated on a continent flanked by two great oceans. It is composed of men the descendants of pioneers, or, in a sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness, and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts. Such a Nation, so placed, will surely wrest success from fortune. As a people we have played a large part in the world, and we are bent upon making our future even larger than the past. In particular, the events of the last four years have definitely decided that, for woe or for weal, our place must be great among the nations. We may either fall greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come. Even if we would, we can not play a small part. If we should try, all that would follow would be that we should play a large part ignobly and shamefully. But our people, the sons of the men of the Civil War, the sons of the men who had iron in their blood, rejoice in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute of will. Ours is not the creed of the weakling and the coward; ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant endeavor. We do not shrink from the struggle before us. There are many problems for us to face at the outset of the twentieth century--grave problems abroad and still graver at home; but we know that we can solve them and solve them well, provided only that we bring to the solution the qualities of head and heart which were shown by the men who, in the days of Washington, rounded this Government, and, in the days of Lincoln, preserved it. No country has ever occupied a higher plane of material well-being than ours at the present moment. This well-being is due to no sudden or accidental causes, but to the play of the economic forces in this country for over a century; to our laws, our sustained and continuous policies; above all, to the high individual average of our citizenship. Great fortunes have been won by those who have taken the lead in this phenomenal industrial development, and most of these fortunes have been won not by doing evil, but as an incident to action which has benefited the community as a whole. Never before has material well-being been so widely diffused among our people. Great fortunes have been accumulated, and yet in the aggregate these fortunes are small Indeed when compared to the wealth of the people as a whole. The plain people are better off than they have ever been before. The insurance companies, which are practically mutual benefit societies--especially helpful to men of moderate means--represent accumulations of capital which are among the largest in this country. There are more deposits in the savings banks, more owners of farms, more well-paid wage-workers in this country now than ever before in our history. Of course, when the conditions have favored the growth of so much that was good, they have also favored somewhat the growth of what was evil. It is eminently necessary that we should endeavor to cut out this evil, but let us keep a due sense of proportion; let us not in fixing our gaze upon the lesser evil forget the greater good. The evils are real and some of them are menacing, but they are the outgrowth, not of misery or decadence, but of prosperity--of the progress of our gigantic industrial development. This industrial development must not be checked, but side by side with it should go such progressive regulation as will diminish the evils. We should fail in our duty if we did not try to remedy the evils, but we shall succeed only if we proceed patiently, with practical common sense as well as resolution, separating the good from the bad and holding on to the former while endeavoring to get rid of the latter. In my Message to the present Congress at its first session I discussed at length the question of the regulation of those big corporations commonly doing an interstate business, often with some tendency to monopoly, which are popularly known as trusts. The experience of the past year has emphasized, in my opinion, the desirability of the steps I then proposed. A fundamental requisite of social efficiency is a high standard of individual energy and excellence; but this is in no wise inconsistent with power to act in combination for aims which can not so well be achieved by the individual acting alone. A fundamental base of civilization is the inviolability of property; but this is in no wise inconsistent with the right of society to regulate the exercise of the artificial powers which it confers upon the owners of property, under the name of corporate franchises, in such a way as to prevent the misuse of these powers. Corporations, and especially combinations of corporations, should be managed under public regulation. Experience has shown that under our system of government the necessary supervision can not be obtained by State action. It must therefore be achieved by national action. Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who, alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer, not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when he does well. We wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him from doing ill. Publicity can do no harm to the honest corporation; and we need not be over tender about sparing the dishonest corporation. In curbing and regulating the combinations of capital which are, or may become, injurious to the public we must be careful not to stop the great enterprises which have legitimately reduced the cost of production, not to abandon the place which our country has won in the leadership of the international industrial world, not to strike down wealth with the result of closing factories and mines, of turning the wage-worker idle in the streets and leaving the farmer without a market for what he grows. Insistence upon the impossible means delay in achieving the possible, exactly as, on the other hand, the stubborn defense alike of what is good and what is bad in the existing system, the resolute effort to obstruct any attempt at betterment, betrays blindness to the historic truth that wise evolution is the sure safeguard against revolution. No more important subject can come before the Congress than this of the regulation of interstate business. This country can not afford to sit supine on the plea that under our peculiar system of government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them. The power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant, and without limitations other than those prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on the statute books. It is evident, therefore, that evils restrictive of commercial freedom and entailing restraint upon national commerce fall within the regulative power of the Congress, and that a wise and reasonable law would be a necessary and proper exercise of Congressional authority to the end that such evils should be eradicated. I believe that monopolies, unjust discriminations, which prevent or cripple competition, fraudulent overcapitalization, and other evils in trust organizations and practices which injuriously affect interstate trade can be prevented under the power of the Congress to "regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States" through regulations and requirements operating directly upon such commerce, the instrumentalities thereof, and those engaged therein. I earnestly recommend this subject to the consideration of the Congress with a view to the passage of a law reasonable in its provisions and effective in its operations, upon which the questions can be finally adjudicated that now raise doubts as to the necessity of constitutional amendment. If it prove impossible to accomplish the purposes above set forth by such a law, then, assuredly, we should not shrink from amending the Constitution so as to secure beyond peradventure the power sought. The Congress has not heretofore made any appropriation for the better enforcement of the antitrust law as it now stands. Very much has been done by the Department of Justice in securing the enforcement of this law, but much more could be done if the Congress would make a special appropriation for this purpose, to be expended under the direction of the Attorney-General. One proposition advocated has been the reduction of the tariff as a means of reaching the evils of the trusts which fall within the category I have described. Not merely would this be wholly ineffective, but the diversion of our efforts in such a direction would mean the abandonment of all intelligent attempt to do away with these evils. Many of the largest corporations, many of those which should certainly be included in any proper scheme of regulation, would not be affected in the slightest degree by a change in the tariff, save as such change interfered with the general prosperity of the country. The only relation of the tariff to big corporations as a whole is that the tariff makes manufactures profitable, and the tariff remedy proposed would be in effect simply to make manufactures unprofitable. To remove the tariff as a punitive measure directed against trusts would inevitably result in ruin to the weaker competitors who are struggling against them. Our aim should be not by unwise tariff changes to give foreign products the advantage over domestic products, but by proper regulation to give domestic competition a fair chance; and this end can not be reached by any tariff changes which would affect unfavorably all domestic competitors, good and bad alike. The question of regulation of the trusts stands apart from the question of tariff revision. Stability of economic policy must always be the prime economic need of this country. This stability should not be fossilization. The country has acquiesced in the wisdom of the protective-tariff principle. It is exceedingly undesirable that this system should be destroyed or that there should be violent and radical changes therein. Our past experience shows that great prosperity in this country has always come under a protective tariff; and that the country can not prosper under fitful tariff changes at short intervals. Moreover, if the tariff laws as a whole work well, and if business has prospered under them and is prospering, it is better to endure for a time slight inconveniences and inequalities in some schedules than to upset business by too quick and too radical changes. It is most earnestly to be wished that we could treat the tariff from the standpoint solely of our business needs. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that partisanship may be entirely excluded from consideration of the subject, but at least it can be made secondary to the business interests of the country--that is, to the interests of our people as a whole. Unquestionably these business interests will best be served if together with fixity of principle as regards the tariff we combine a system which will permit us from time to time to make the necessary reapplication of the principle to the shifting national needs. We must take scrupulous care that the reapplication shall be made in such a way that it will not amount to a dislocation of our system, the mere threat of which (not to speak of the performance) would produce paralysis in the business energies of the community. The first consideration in making these changes would, of course, be to preserve the principle which underlies our whole tariff system--that is, the principle of putting American business interests at least on a full equality with interests abroad, and of always allowing a sufficient rate of duty to more than cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker, like the well-being of the tiller of the soil, should be treated as an essential in shaping our whole economic policy. There must never be any change which will jeopardize the standard of comfort, the standard of wages of the American wage-worker. One way in which the readjustment sought can be reached is by reciprocity treaties. It is greatly to be desired that such treaties may be adopted. They can be used to widen our markets and to give a greater field for the activities of our producers on the one hand, and on the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering of duties when they are no longer needed for protection among our own people, or when the minimum of damage done may be disregarded for the sake of the maximum of good accomplished. If it prove impossible to ratify the pending treaties, and if there seem to be no warrant for the endeavor to execute others, or to amend the pending treaties so that they can be ratified, then the same end--to secure reciprocity--should be met by direct legislation. Wherever the tariff conditions are such that a needed change can not with advantage be made by the application of the reciprocity idea, then it can be made outright by a lowering of duties on a given product. If possible, such change should be made only after the fullest consideration by practical experts, who should approach the subject from a business standpoint, having in view both the particular interests affected and the commercial well-being of the people as a whole. The machinery for providing such careful investigation can readily be supplied. The executive department has already at its disposal methods of collecting facts and figures; and if the Congress desires additional consideration to that which will be given the subject by its own committees, then a commission of business experts can be appointed whose duty it should be to recommend action by the Congress after a deliberate and scientific examination of the various schedules as they are affected by the changed and changing conditions. The unhurried and unbiased report of this commission would show what changes should be made in the various schedules, and how far these changes could go without also changing the great prosperity which this country is now enjoying, or upsetting its fixed economic policy. The cases in which the tariff can produce a monopoly are so few as to constitute an inconsiderable factor in the question; but of course if in any case it be found that a given rate of duty does promote a monopoly which works ill, no protectionist would object to such reduction of the duty as would equalize competition. In my judgment, the tariff on anthracite coal should be removed, and anthracite put actually, where it now is nominally, on the free list. This would have no effect at all save in crises; but in crises it might be of service to the people. Interest rates are a potent factor in business activity, and in order that these rates may be equalized to meet the varying needs of the seasons and of widely separated communities, and to prevent the recurrence of financial stringencies which injuriously affect legitimate business, it is necessary that there should be an element of elasticity in our monetary system. Banks are the natural servants of commerce, and upon them should be placed, as far as practicable, the burden of furnishing and maintaining a circulation adequate to supply the needs of our diversified industries and of our domestic and foreign commerce; and the issue of this should be so regulated that a sufficient supply should be always available for the business interests of the country. It would be both unwise and unnecessary at this time to attempt to reconstruct our financial system, which has been the growth of a century; but some additional legislation is, I think, desirable. The mere outline of any plan sufficiently comprehensive to meet these requirements would transgress the appropriate limits of this communication. It is suggested, however, that all future legislation on the subject should be with the view of encouraging the use of such instrumentalities as will automatically supply every legitimate demand of productive industries and of commerce, not only in the amount, but in the character of circulation; and of making all kinds of money interchangeable, and, at the will of the holder, convertible into the established gold standard. I again call your attention to the need of passing a proper immigration law, covering the points outlined in my Message to you at the first session of the present Congress; substantially such a bill has already passed the House. How to secure fair treatment alike for labor and for capital, how to hold in check the unscrupulous man, whether employer or employee, without weakening individual initiative, without hampering and cramping the industrial development of the country, is a problem fraught with great difficulties and one which it is of the highest importance to solve on lines of sanity and far-sighted common sense as well as of devotion to the right. This is an era of federation and combination. Exactly as business men find they must often work through corporations, and as it is a constant tendency of these corporations to grow larger, so it is often necessary for laboring men to work in federations, and these have become important factors of modern industrial life. Both kinds of federation, capitalistic and labor, can do much good, and as a necessary corollary they can both do evil. Opposition to each kind of organization should take the form of opposition to whatever is bad in the conduct of any given corporation or union--not of attacks upon corporations as such nor upon unions as such; for some of the most far-reaching beneficent work for our people has been accomplished through both corporations and unions. Each must refrain from arbitrary or tyrannous interference with the rights of others. Organized capital and organized labor alike should remember that in the long run the interest of each must be brought into harmony with the interest of the general public; and the conduct of each must conform to the fundamental rules of obedience to the law, of individual freedom, and of justice and fair dealing toward all. Each should remember that in addition to power it must strive after the realization of healthy, lofty, and generous ideals. Every employer, every wage-worker, must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property or his labor so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. It is of the highest importance that employer and employee alike should endeavor to appreciate each the viewpoint of the other and the sure disaster that will come upon both in the long run if either grows to take as habitual an attitude of sour hostility and distrust toward the other. Few people deserve better of the country than those representatives both of capital and labor--and there are many such--who work continually to bring about a good understanding of this kind, based upon wisdom and upon broad and kindly sympathy between employers and employed. Above all, we need to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity. We can get good government only upon condition that we keep true to the principles upon which this Nation was founded, and judge each man not as a part of a class, but upon his individual merits. All that we have a right to ask of any man, rich or poor, whatever his creed, his occupation, his birthplace, or his residence, is that he shall act well and honorably by his neighbor and by, his country. We are neither for the rich man as such nor for the poor man as such; we are for the upright man, rich or poor. So far as the constitutional powers of the National Government touch these matters of general and vital moment to the Nation, they should be exercised in conformity with the principles above set forth. It is earnestly hoped that a secretary of commerce may be created, with a seat in the Cabinet. The rapid multiplication of questions affecting labor and capital, the growth and complexity of the organizations through which both labor and capital now find expression, the steady tendency toward the employment of capital in huge corporations, and the wonderful strides of this country toward leadership in the international business world justify an urgent demand for the creation of such a position. Substantially all the leading commercial bodies in this country have united in requesting its creation. It is desirable that some such measure as that which has already passed the Senate be enacted into law. The creation of such a department would in itself be an advance toward dealing with and exercising supervision over the whole subject of the great corporations doing an interstate business; and with this end in view, the Congress should endow the department with large powers, which could be increased as experience might show the need. I hope soon to submit to the Senate a reciprocity treaty with Cuba. On May 20 last the United States kept its promise to the island by formally vacating Cuban soil and turning Cuba over to those whom her own people had chosen as the first officials of the new Republic. Cuba lies at our doors, and whatever affects her for good or for ill affects us also. So much have our people felt this that in the Platt amendment we definitely took the ground that Cuba must hereafter have closer political relations with us than with any other power. Thus in a sense Cuba has become a part of our international political system. This makes it necessary that in return she should be given some of the benefits of becoming part of our economic system. It is, from our own standpoint, a short-sighted and mischievous policy to fail to recognize this need. Moreover, it is unworthy of a mighty and generous nation, itself the greatest and most successful republic in history, to refuse to stretch out a helping hand to a young and weak sister republic just entering upon its career of independence. We should always fearlessly insist upon our rights in the face of the strong, and we should with ungrudging hand do our generous duty by the weak. I urge the adoption of reciprocity with Cuba not only because it is eminently for our own interests to control the Cuban market and by every means to foster our supremacy in the tropical lands and waters south of us, but also because we, of of the giant republic of the north, should make all our sister nations of the American Continent feel that whenever they will permit it we desire to show ourselves disinterestedly and effectively their friend. A convention with Great Britain has been concluded, which will be at once laid before the Senate for ratification, providing for reciprocal trade arrangements between the United States and Newfoundland on substantially the lines of the convention formerly negotiated by the Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine. I believe reciprocal trade relations will be greatly to the advantage of both countries. As civilization grows warfare becomes less and less the normal condition of foreign relations. The last century has seen a marked diminution of wars between civilized powers; wars with uncivilized powers are largely mere matters of international police duty, essential for, the welfare of the world. Wherever possible, arbitration or some similar method should be employed in lieu of war to settle difficulties between civilized nations, although as yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it possible, or necessarily desirable, to invoke arbitration in every case. The formation of the international tribunal which sits at The Hague is an event of good omen from which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind may flow. It is far better, where possible, to invoke such a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for a given purpose. It is a matter of sincere congratulation to our country that the United States and Mexico should have been the first to use the good offices of The Hague Court. This was done last summer with most satisfactory results in the case of a claim at issue between us and our sister Republic. It is earnestly to be hoped that this first case will serve as a precedent for others, in which not only the United States but foreign nations may take advantage of the machinery already in existence at The Hague. I commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the Hawaiian fire claims, which were the subject of careful investigation during the last session. The Congress has wisely provided that we shall build at once an isthmian canal, if possible at Panama. The Attorney-General reports that we can undoubtedly acquire good title from the French Panama Canal Company. Negotiations are now pending with Colombia to secure her assent to our building the canal. This canal will be one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth century; a greater engineering feat than has yet been accomplished during the history of mankind. The work should be carried out as a continuing policy without regard to change of Administration; and it should be begun under circumstances which will make it a matter of pride for all Administrations to continue the policy. The canal will be of great benefit to America, and of importance to all the world. It will be of advantage to us industrially and also as improving our military position. It will be of advantage to the countries of tropical America. It is earnestly to be hoped that all of these countries will do as some of them have already done with signal success, and will invite to their shores commerce and improve their material conditions by recognizing that stability and order are the prerequisites of successful development. No independent nation in America need have the slightest fear of aggression from the United States. It behoves each one to maintain order within its own borders and to discharge its just obligations to foreigners. When this is done, they can rest assured that, be they strong or weak, they have nothing to dread from outside interference. More and more the increasing interdependence and complexity of international political and economic relations render it incumbent on all civilized and orderly powers to insist on the proper policing of the world. During the fall of 1901 a communication was addressed to the Secretary of State, asking whether permission would be granted by the President to a corporation to lay a cable from a point on the California coast to the Philippine Islands by way of Hawaii. A statement of conditions or terms upon which such corporation would undertake to lay and operate a cable was volunteered. Inasmuch as the Congress was shortly to convene, and Pacific-cable legislation had been the subject of consideration by the Congress for several years, it seemed to me wise to defer action upon the application until the Congress had first an opportunity to act. The Congress adjourned without taking any action, leaving the matter in exactly the same condition in which it stood when the Congress convened. Meanwhile it appears that the Commercial Pacific Cable Company had promptly proceeded with preparations for laying its cable. It also made application to the President for access to and use of soundings taken by the YOU. S. S. Nero, for the purpose of discovering a practicable route for a trans-Pacific cable, the company urging that with access to these soundings it could complete its cable much sooner than if it were required to take soundings upon its own account. Pending consideration of this subject, it appeared important and desirable to attach certain conditions to the permission to examine and use the soundings, if it should be granted. In consequence of this solicitation of the cable company, certain conditions were formulated, upon which the President was willing to allow access to these soundings and to consent to the landing and laying of the cable, subject to any alterations or additions thereto imposed by the Congress. This was deemed proper, especially as it was clear that a cable connection of some kind with China, a foreign country, was a part of the company's plan. This course was, moreover, in accordance with a line of precedents, including President Grant's action in the case of the first French cable, explained to the Congress in his Annual Message of December, 1875, and the instance occurring in 1879 of the second French cable from Brest to St. Pierre, with a branch to Cape Cod. These conditions prescribed, among other things, a maximum rate for commercial messages and that the company should construct a line from the Philippine Islands to China, there being at present, as is well known, a British line from Manila to Hongkong. The representatives of the cable company kept these conditions long under consideration, continuing, in the meantime, to prepare for laying the cable. They have, however, at length acceded to them, and an all-American line between our Pacific coast and the Chinese Empire, by way of Honolulu and the Philippine Islands, is thus provided for, and is expected within a few months to be ready for business. Among the conditions is one reserving the power of the Congress to modify or repeal any or all of them. A copy of the conditions is herewith transmitted. Of Porto Rico it is only necessary to say that the prosperity of the island and the wisdom with which it has been governed have been such as to make it serve as an example of all that is best in insular administration. On July 4 last, on the one hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of the declaration of our independence, peace and amnesty were promulgated in the Philippine Islands. Some trouble has since from time to time threatened with the Mohammedan Moros, but with the late insurrectionary Filipinos the war has entirely ceased. Civil government has now been introduced. Not only does each Filipino enjoy such rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as he has never before known during the recorded history of the islands, but the people taken as a whole now enjoy a measure of self-government greater than that granted to any other Orientals by any foreign power and greater than that enjoyed by any other Orientals under their own governments, save the Japanese alone. We have not gone too far in granting these rights of liberty and self-government; but we have certainly gone to the limit that in the interests of the Philippine people themselves it was wise or just to go. To hurry matters, to go faster than we are now going, would entail calamity on the people of the islands. No policy ever entered into by the American people has vindicated itself in more signal manner than the policy of holding the Philippines. The triumph of our arms, above all the triumph of our laws and principles, has come sooner than we had any right to expect. Too much praise can not be given to the Army for what it has done in the Philippines both in warfare and from an administrative standpoint in preparing the way for civil government; and similar credit belongs to the civil authorities for the way in which they have planted the seeds of self-government in the ground thus made ready for them. The courage, the unflinching endurance, the high soldierly efficiency; and the general kind-heartedness and humanity of our troops have been strikingly manifested. There now remain only some fifteen thousand troops in the islands. All told, over one hundred thousand have been sent there. Of course, there have been individual instances of wrongdoing among them. They warred under fearful difficulties of climate and surroundings; and under the strain of the terrible provocations which they continually received from their foes, occasional instances of cruel retaliation occurred. Every effort has been made to prevent such cruelties, and finally these efforts have been completely successful. Every effort has also been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers. After making all allowance for these misdeeds, it remains true that few indeed have been the instances in which war has been waged by a civilized power against semicivilized or barbarous forces where there has been so little wrongdoing by the victors as in the Philippine Islands. On the other hand, the amount of difficult, important, and beneficent work which has been done is well-nigh incalculable. Taking the work of the Army and the civil authorities together, it may be questioned whether anywhere else in modern times the world has seen a better example of real constructive statesmanship than our people have given in the Philippine Islands. High praise should also be given those Filipinos, in the aggregate very numerous, who have accepted the new conditions and joined with our representatives to work with hearty good will for the welfare of the islands. The Army has been reduced to the minimum allowed by law. It is very small for the size of the Nation, and most certainly should be kept at the highest point of efficiency. The senior officers are given scant chance under ordinary conditions to exercise commands commensurate with their rank, under circumstances which would fit them to do their duty in time of actual war. A system of maneuvering our Army in bodies of some little size has been begun and should be steadily continued. Without such maneuvers it is folly to expect that in the event of hostilities with any serious foe even a small army corps could be handled to advantage. Both our officers and enlisted men are such that we can take hearty pride in them. No better material can be found. But they must be thoroughly trained, both as individuals and in the mass. The marksmanship of the men must receive special attention. In the circumstances of modern warfare the man must act far more on his own individual responsibility than ever before, and the high individual efficiency of the unit is of the utmost importance. Formerly this unit was the regiment; it is now not the regiment, not even the troop or company; it is the individual soldier. Every effort must be made to develop every workmanlike and soldierly quality in both the officer and the enlisted man. I urgently call your attention to the need of passing a bill providing for a general staff and for the reorganization of the supply departments on the lines of the bill proposed by the Secretary of War last year. When the young officers enter the Army from West Point they probably stand above their compeers in any other military service. Every effort should be made, by training, by reward of merit, by scrutiny into their careers and capacity, to keep them of the same high relative excellence throughout their careers. The measure providing for the reorganization of the militia system and for securing the highest efficiency in the National Guard, which has already passed the House, should receive prompt attention and action. It is of great importance that the relation of the National Guard to the militia and volunteer forces of the United States should be defined, and that in place of our present obsolete laws a practical and efficient system should be adopted. Provision should be made to enable the Secretary of War to keep cavalry and artillery horses, worn-out in long performance of duty. Such horses fetch but a trifle when sold; and rather than turn them out to the misery awaiting them when thus disposed of, it would be better to employ them at light work around the posts, and when necessary to put them painlessly to death. For the first time in our history naval maneuvers on a large scale are being held under the immediate command of the Admiral of the Navy. Constantly increasing attention is being paid to the gunnery of the Navy, but it is yet far from what it should be. I earnestly urge that the increase asked for by the Secretary of the Navy in the appropriation for improving the markmanship be granted. In battle the only shots that count are the shots that hit. It is necessary to provide ample funds for practice with the great guns in time of peace. These funds must provide not only for the purchase of projectiles, but for allowances for prizes to encourage the gun crews, and especially the gun pointers, and for perfecting an intelligent system under which alone it is possible to get good practice. There should be no halt in the work of building up the Navy, providing every year additional fighting craft. We are a very rich country, vast in extent of territory and great in population; a country, moreover, which has an Army diminutive indeed when compared with that of any other first-class power. We have deliberately made our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession of a first-class navy. The isthmian canal will greatly increase the efficiency of our Navy if the Navy is of sufficient size; but if we have an inadequate navy, then the building of the canal would be merely giving a hostage to any power of superior strength. The Monroe Doctrine should be treated as the cardinal feature of American foreign policy; but it would be worse than idle to assert it unless we intended to back it up, and it can be backed up only by a thoroughly good navy. A good navy is not a provocative of war. It is the surest guaranty of peace. Each individual unit of our Navy should be the most efficient of its kind as regards both material and personnel that is to be found in the world. I call your special attention to the need of providing for the manning of the ships. Serious trouble threatens us if we can not do better than we are now doing as regards securing the services of a sufficient number of the highest type of sailormen, of sea mechanics. The veteran seamen of our war ships are of as high a type as can be found in any navy which rides the waters of the world; they are unsurpassed in daring, in resolution, in readiness, in thorough knowledge of their profession. They deserve every consideration that can be shown them. But there are not enough of them. It is no more possible to improvise a crew than it is possible to improvise a war ship. To build the finest ship, with the deadliest battery, and to send it afloat with a raw crew, no matter how brave they were individually, would be to insure disaster if a foe of average capacity were encountered. Neither ships nor men can be improvised when war has begun. We need a thousand additional officers in order to properly man the ships now provided for and under construction. The classes at the Naval School at Annapolis should be greatly enlarged. At the same time that we thus add the officers where we need them, we should facilitate the retirement of those at the head of the list whose usefulness has become impaired. Promotion must be fostered if the service is to be kept efficient. The lamentable scarcity of officers, and the large number of recruits and of unskilled men necessarily put aboard the new vessels as they have been commissioned, has thrown upon our officers, and especially on the lieutenants and junior grades, unusual labor and fatigue and has gravely strained their powers of endurance. Nor is there sign of any immediate let-up in this strain. It must continue for some time longer, until more officers are graduated from Annapolis, and until the recruits become trained and skillful in their duties. In these difficulties incident upon the development of our war fleet the conduct of all our officers has been creditable to the service, and the lieutenants and junior grades in particular have displayed an ability and a steadfast cheerfulness which entitles them to the ungrudging thanks of all who realize the disheartening trials and fatigues to which they are of necessity subjected. There is not a cloud on the horizon at present. There seems not the slightest chance of trouble with a foreign power. We most earnestly hope that this state of things may continue; and the way to insure its continuance is to provide for a thoroughly efficient navy. The refusal to maintain such a navy would invite trouble, and if trouble came would insure disaster. Fatuous self-complacency or vanity, or short-sightedness in refusing to prepare for danger, is both foolish and wicked in such a nation as ours; and past experience has shown that such fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis in advance is usually succeeded by a mad panic of hysterical fear once the crisis has actually arrived. The striking increase in the revenues of the Post-Office Department shows clearly the prosperity of our people and the increasing activity of the business of the country. The receipts of the Post-Office Department for the fiscal year ending June 30 last amounted to $121,848,047.26, an increase of $10,216,853.87 over the preceding year, the largest increase known in the history of the postal service. The magnitude of this increase will best appear from the fact that the entire postal receipts for the year 1860 amounted to but $8,518,067. Rural free-delivery service is no longer in the experimental stage; it has become a fixed policy. The results following its introduction have fully justified the Congress in the large appropriations made for its establishment and extension. The average yearly increase in post-office receipts in the rural districts of the country is about two per cent. We are now able, by actual results, to show that where rural free-delivery service has been established to such an extent as to enable us to make comparisons the yearly increase has been upward of ten per cent. On November 1, 1902, 11,650 rural free-delivery routes had been established and were in operation, covering about one-third of the territory of the United States available for rural free-delivery service. There are now awaiting the action of the Department petitions and applications for the establishment of 10,748 additional routes. This shows conclusively the want which the establishment of the service has met and the need of further extending it as rapidly as possible. It is justified both by the financial results and by the practical benefits to our rural population; it brings the men who live on the soil into close relations with the active business world; it keeps the farmer in daily touch with the markets; it is a potential educational force; it enhances the value of farm property, makes farm life far pleasanter and less isolated, and will do much to check the undesirable current from country to city. It is to be hoped that the Congress will make liberal appropriations for the continuance of the service already established and for its further extension. Few subjects of more importance have been taken up by the Congress in recent years than the inauguration of the system of nationally-aided irrigation for the arid regions of the far West. A good beginning therein has been made. Now that this policy of national irrigation has been adopted, the need of thorough and scientific forest protection will grow more rapidly than ever throughout the public-land States. Legislation should be provided for the protection of the game, and the wild creatures generally, on the forest reserves. The senseless slaughter of game, which can by judicious protection be permanently preserved on our national reserves for the people as a whole, should be stopped at once. It is, for instance, a serious count against our national good sense to permit the present practice of butchering off such a stately and beautiful creature as the elk for its antlers or tusks. So far as they are available for agriculture, and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the national irrigation law, the remaining public lands should be held rigidly for the home builder, the settler who lives on his land, and for no one else. In their actual use the desert-land law, the timber and stone law, and the commutation clause of the homestead law have been so perverted from the intention with which they were enacted as to permit the acquisition of large areas of the public domain for other than actual settlers and the consequent prevention of settlement. Moreover, the approaching exhaustion of the public ranges has of late led to much discussion as to the best manner of using these public lands in the West which are suitable chiefly or only for grazing. The sound and steady development of the West depends upon the building up of homes therein. Much of our prosperity as a nation has been due to the operation of the homestead law. On the other hand, we should recognize the fact that in the grazing region the man who corresponds to the homesteader may be unable to settle permanently if only allowed to use the same amount of pasture land that his brother, the homesteader, is allowed to use of arable land. One hundred and sixty acres of fairly rich and well-watered soil, or a much smaller amount of irrigated land, may keep a family in plenty, whereas no one could get a living from one hundred and sixty acres of dry pasture land capable of supporting at the outside only one head of cattle to every ten acres. In the past great tracts of the public domain have been fenced in by persons having no title thereto, in direct defiance of the law forbidding the maintenance or construction of any such unlawful inclosure of public land. For various reasons there has been little interference with such inclosures in the past, but ample notice has now been given the trespassers, and all the resources at the command of the Government will hereafter be used to put a stop to such trespassing. In view of the capital importance of these matters, I commend them to the earnest consideration of the Congress, and if the Congress finds difficulty in dealing with them from lack of thorough knowledge of the subject, I recommend that provision be made for a commission of experts specially to investigate and report upon the complicated questions involved. I especially urge upon the Congress the need of wise legislation for Alaska. It is not to our credit as a nation that Alaska, which has been ours for thirty-five years, should still have as poor a system Of laws as is the case. No country has a more valuable possession-- in mineral wealth, in fisheries, furs, forests, and also in land available for certain kinds of farming and stockgrowing. It is a territory of great size and varied resources, well fitted to support a large permanent population. Alaska needs a good land law and such provisions for homesteads and pre-emptions as will encourage permanent settlement. We should shape legislation with a view not to the exploiting and abandoning of the territory, but to the building up of homes therein. The land laws should be liberal in type, so as to hold out inducements to the actual settler whom we most desire to see take possession of the country. The forests of Alaska should be protected, and, as a secondary but still important matter, the game also, and at the same time it is imperative that the settlers should be allowed to cut timber, under proper regulations, for their own use. Laws should be enacted to protect the Alaskan salmon fisheries against the greed which would destroy them. They should be preserved as a permanent industry and food supply. Their management and control should be turned over to the Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress. It would be well if a Congressional committee could visit Alaska and investigate its needs on the ground. In dealing with the Indians our aim should be their ultimate absorption into the body of our people. But in many cases this absorption must and should be very slow. In portions of the Indian Territory the mixture of blood has gone on at the same time with progress in wealth and education, so that there are plenty of men with varying degrees of purity of Indian blood who are absolutely indistinguishable in point of social, political, and economic ability from their white associates. There are other tribes which have as yet made no perceptible advance toward such equality. To try to force such tribes too fast is to prevent their going forward at all. Moreover, the tribes live under widely different conditions. Where a tribe has made considerable advance and lives on fertile farming soil it is possible to allot the members lands in severalty much as is the case with white settlers. There are other tribes where such a course is not desirable. On the arid prairie lands the effort should be to induce the Indians to lead pastoral rather than agricultural lives, and to permit them to settle in villages rather than to force them into isolation. The large Indian schools situated remote from any Indian reservation do a special and peculiar work of great importance. But, excellent though these are, an immense amount of additional work must be done on the reservations themselves among the old, and above all among the young, Indians. The first and most important step toward the absorption of the Indian is to teach him to earn his living; yet it is not necessarily to be assumed that in each community all Indians must become either tillers of the soil or stock raisers. Their industries may properly be diversified, and those who show special desire or adaptability for industrial or even commercial pursuits should be encouraged so far as practicable to follow out each his own bent. Every effort should be made to develop the Indian along the lines of natural aptitude, and to encourage the existing native industries peculiar to certain tribes, such as the various kinds of basket weaving, canoe building, smith work, and blanket work. Above all, the Indian boys and girls should be given confident command of colloquial English, and should ordinarily be prepared for a vigorous struggle with the conditions under which their people live, rather than for immediate absorption into some more highly developed community. The officials who represent the Government in dealing with the Indians work under hard conditions, and also under conditions which render it easy to do wrong and very difficult to detect wrong. Consequently they should be amply paid on the one hand, and on the other hand a particularly high standard of conduct should be demanded from them, and where misconduct can be proved the punishment should be exemplary. In no department of governmental work in recent years has there been greater success than in that of giving scientific aid to the farming population, thereby showing them how most efficiently to help themselves. There is no need of insisting upon its importance, for the welfare of the farmer is fundamentally necessary to the welfare of the Republic as a whole. In addition to such work as quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues, and warring against them when here introduced, much efficient help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the country. New cereals have been established in the semi-arid West. For instance, the practicability of producing the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively demonstrated. Through the introduction of new rices in Louisiana and Texas the production of rice in this country has been made to about equal the home demand. In the South-west the possibility of regrassing overstocked range lands has been demonstrated; in the North many new forage crops have been introduced, while in the East it has been shown that some of our choicest fruits can be stored and shipped in such a way as to find a profitable market abroad. I again recommend to the favorable consideration of the Congress the plans of the Smithsonian Institution for making the Museum under its charge worthy of the Nation, and for preserving at the National Capital not only records of the vanishing races of men but of the animals of this continent which, like the buffalo, will soon become extinct unless specimens from which their representatives may be renewed are sought in their native regions and maintained there in safety. The District of Columbia is the only part of our territory in which the National Government exercises local or municipal functions, and where in consequence the Government has a free hand in reference to certain types of social and economic legislation which must be essentially local or municipal in their character. The Government should see to it, for instance, that the hygienic and sanitary legislation affecting Washington is of a high character. The evils of slum dwellings, whether in the shape of crowded and congested tenement-house districts or of the back-alley type, should never be permitted to grow up in Washington. The city should be a model in every respect for all the cities of the country. The charitable and correctional systems of the District should receive consideration at the hands of the Congress to the end that they may embody the results of the most advanced thought in these fields. Moreover, while Washington is not a great industrial city, there is some industrialism here, and our labor legislation, while it would not be important in itself, might be made a model for the rest of the Nation. We should pass, for instance, a wise employer's-liability act for the District of Columbia, and we need such an act in our navy-yards. Railroad companies in the District ought to be required by law to block their frogs. The safety-appliance law, for the better protection of the lives and limbs of railway employees, which was passed in 1893, went into full effect on August 1, 1901. It has resulted in averting thousands of casualties. Experience shows, however, the necessity of additional legislation to perfect this law. A bill to provide for this passed the Senate at the last session. It is to be hoped that some such measure may now be enacted into law. There is a growing tendency to provide for the publication of masses of documents for which there is no public demand and for the printing of which there is no real necessity. Large numbers of volumes are turned out by the Government printing presses for which there is no justification. Nothing should be printed by any of the Departments unless it contains something of permanent value, and the Congress could with advantage cut down very materially on all the printing which it has now become customary to provide. The excessive cost of Government printing is a strong argument against the position of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate the Government's doing any work which can with propriety be left in private hands. Gratifying progress has been made during the year in the extension of the merit system of making appointments in the Government service. It should be extended by law to the District of Columbia. It is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness. Through a wise provision of the Congress at its last session the White House, which had become disfigured by incongruous additions and changes, has now been restored to what it was planned to be by Washington. In making the restorations the utmost care has been exercised to come as near as possible to the early plans and to supplement these plans by a careful study of such buildings as that of the University of Virginia, which was built by Jefferson. The White House is the property of the Nation, and so far as is compatible with living therein it should be kept as it originally was, for the same. reasons that we keep Mount Vernon as it originally was. The stately simplicity of its architecture is an expression of the character of the period in which it was built, and is in accord with the purposes it was designed to serve. It is a good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuity with the Nation's past. The reports of the several Executive Departments are submitted to the Congress with this communication.
we still continue in a period of unbounded prosperity this prosperity is not the creature of law but undoubtedly the laws under which we work have been instrumental in creating the conditions which made it possible and by unwise legislation it would be easy enough to destroy it there will undoubtedly be periods of depression the wave will recede but the tide will advance this nation is seated on a continent flanked by two great oceans it is composed of men the descendants of pioneers or in a sense pioneers themselves of men winnowed out from among the nations of the old world by the energy boldness and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts such a nation so placed will surely wrest success from fortune as a people we have played a large part in the world and we are bent upon making our future even larger than the past in particular the events of the last four years have definitely decided that for woe or for weal our place must be great among the nations we may either fall greatly or succeed greatly but we can not avoid the endeavor from which either great failure or great success must come even if we would we can not play a small part if we should try all that would follow would be that we should play a large part ignobly and shamefully but our people the sons of the men of the civil war the sons of the men who had iron in their blood rejoice in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute of will ours is not the creed of the weakling and the coward ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant endeavor we do not shrink from the struggle before us there are many problems for us to face at the outset of the twentieth century grave problems abroad and still graver at home but we know that we can solve them and solve them well provided only that we bring to the solution the qualities of head and heart which were shown by the men who in the days of washington rounded this government and in the days of lincoln preserved it no country has ever occupied a higher plane of material than ours at the present moment this is due to no sudden or accidental causes but to the play of the economic forces in this country for over a century to our laws our sustained and continuous policies above all to the high individual average of our citizenship great fortunes have been won by those who have taken the lead in this phenomenal industrial development and most of these fortunes have been won not by doing evil but as an incident to action which has benefited the community as a whole never before has material been so widely diffused among our people great fortunes have been accumulated and yet in the aggregate these fortunes are small indeed when compared to the wealth of the people as a whole the plain people are better off than they have ever been before the insurance companies which are practically mutual benefit societies especially helpful to men of moderate means represent accumulations of capital which are among the largest in this country there are more deposits in the savings banks more owners of farms more in this country now than ever before in our history of course when the conditions have favored the growth of so much that was good they have also favored somewhat the growth of what was evil it is eminently necessary that we should endeavor to cut out this evil but let us keep a due sense of proportion let us not in fixing our gaze upon the lesser evil forget the greater good the evils are real and some of them are menacing but they are the outgrowth not of misery or decadence but of prosperity of the progress of our gigantic industrial development this industrial development must not be checked but side by side with it should go such progressive regulation as will diminish the evils we should fail in our duty if we did not try to remedy the evils but we shall succeed only if we proceed patiently with practical common sense as well as resolution separating the good from the bad and holding on to the former while endeavoring to get rid of the latter in my message to the present congress at its first session i discussed at length the question of the regulation of those big corporations commonly doing an interstate business often with some tendency to monopoly which are popularly known as trusts the experience of the past year has emphasized in my opinion the desirability of the steps i then proposed a fundamental requisite of social efficiency is a high standard of individual energy and excellence but this is in no wise inconsistent with power to act in combination for aims which can not so well be achieved by the individual acting alone a fundamental base of civilization is the inviolability of property but this is in no wise inconsistent with the right of society to regulate the exercise of the artificial powers which it confers upon the owners of property under the name of corporate franchises in such a way as to prevent the misuse of these powers corporations and especially combinations of corporations should be managed under public regulation experience has shown that under our system of government the necessary supervision can not be obtained by state action it must therefore be achieved by national action our aim is not to do away with corporations on the contrary these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic we can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them we are not hostile to them we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good we draw the line against misconduct not against wealth the capitalist who alone or in conjunction with his fellows performs some great industrial feat by which he wins money is a welldoer not a wrongdoer provided only he works in proper and legitimate lines we wish to favor such a man when he does well we wish to supervise and control his actions only to prevent him from doing ill publicity can do no harm to the honest corporation and we need not be over tender about sparing the dishonest corporation in curbing and regulating the combinations of capital which are or may become injurious to the public we must be careful not to stop the great enterprises which have legitimately reduced the cost of production not to abandon the place which our country has won in the leadership of the international industrial world not to strike down wealth with the result of closing factories and mines of turning the idle in the streets and leaving the farmer without a market for what he grows insistence upon the impossible means delay in achieving the possible exactly as on the other hand the stubborn defense alike of what is good and what is bad in the existing system the resolute effort to obstruct any attempt at betterment betrays blindness to the historic truth that wise evolution is the sure safeguard against revolution no more important subject can come before the congress than this of the regulation of interstate business this country can not afford to sit supine on the plea that under our peculiar system of government we are helpless in the presence of the new conditions and unable to grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen in connection with them the power of the congress to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified grant and without limitations other than those prescribed by the constitution the congress has constitutional authority to make all laws necessary and proper for executing this power and i am satisfied that this power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on the statute books it is evident therefore that evils restrictive of commercial freedom and entailing restraint upon national commerce fall within the regulative power of the congress and that a wise and reasonable law would be a necessary and proper exercise of congressional authority to the end that such evils should be eradicated i believe that monopolies unjust discriminations which prevent or cripple competition fraudulent overcapitalization and other evils in trust organizations and practices which injuriously affect interstate trade can be prevented under the power of the congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states through regulations and requirements operating directly upon such commerce the instrumentalities thereof and those engaged therein i earnestly recommend this subject to the consideration of the congress with a view to the passage of a law reasonable in its provisions and effective in its operations upon which the questions can be finally adjudicated that now raise doubts as to the necessity of constitutional amendment if it prove impossible to accomplish the purposes above set forth by such a law then assuredly we should not shrink from amending the constitution so as to secure beyond peradventure the power sought the congress has not heretofore made any appropriation for the better enforcement of the antitrust law as it now stands very much has been done by the department of justice in securing the enforcement of this law but much more could be done if the congress would make a special appropriation for this purpose to be expended under the direction of the one proposition advocated has been the reduction of the tariff as a means of reaching the evils of the trusts which fall within the category i have described not merely would this be wholly ineffective but the diversion of our efforts in such a direction would mean the abandonment of all intelligent attempt to do away with these evils many of the largest corporations many of those which should certainly be included in any proper scheme of regulation would not be affected in the slightest degree by a change in the tariff save as such change interfered with the general prosperity of the country the only relation of the tariff to big corporations as a whole is that the tariff makes manufactures profitable and the tariff remedy proposed would be in effect simply to make manufactures unprofitable to remove the tariff as a punitive measure directed against trusts would inevitably result in ruin to the weaker competitors who are struggling against them our aim should be not by unwise tariff changes to give foreign products the advantage over domestic products but by proper regulation to give domestic competition a fair chance and this end can not be reached by any tariff changes which would affect unfavorably all domestic competitors good and bad alike the question of regulation of the trusts stands apart from the question of tariff revision stability of economic policy must always be the prime economic need of this country this stability should not be fossilization the country has acquiesced in the wisdom of the principle it is exceedingly undesirable that this system should be destroyed or that there should be violent and radical changes therein our past experience shows that great prosperity in this country has always come under a protective tariff and that the country can not prosper under fitful tariff changes at short intervals moreover if the tariff laws as a whole work well and if business has prospered under them and is prospering it is better to endure for a time slight inconveniences and inequalities in some schedules than to upset business by too quick and too radical changes it is most earnestly to be wished that we could treat the tariff from the standpoint solely of our business needs it is perhaps too much to hope that partisanship may be entirely excluded from consideration of the subject but at least it can be made secondary to the business interests of the country that is to the interests of our people as a whole unquestionably these business interests will best be served if together with fixity of principle as regards the tariff we combine a system which will permit us from time to time to make the necessary reapplication of the principle to the shifting national needs we must take scrupulous care that the reapplication shall be made in such a way that it will not amount to a dislocation of our system the mere threat of which not to speak of the performance would produce paralysis in the business energies of the community the first consideration in making these changes would of course be to preserve the principle which underlies our whole tariff system that is the principle of putting american business interests at least on a full equality with interests abroad and of always allowing a sufficient rate of duty to more than cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad the of the like the of the tiller of the soil should be treated as an essential in shaping our whole economic policy there must never be any change which will jeopardize the standard of comfort the standard of wages of the american one way in which the readjustment sought can be reached is by reciprocity treaties it is greatly to be desired that such treaties may be adopted they can be used to widen our markets and to give a greater field for the activities of our producers on the one hand and on the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering of duties when they are no longer needed for protection among our own people or when the minimum of damage done may be disregarded for the sake of the maximum of good accomplished if it prove impossible to ratify the pending treaties and if there seem to be no warrant for the endeavor to execute others or to amend the pending treaties so that they can be ratified then the same end to secure reciprocity should be met by direct legislation wherever the tariff conditions are such that a needed change can not with advantage be made by the application of the reciprocity idea then it can be made outright by a lowering of duties on a given product if possible such change should be made only after the fullest consideration by practical experts who should approach the subject from a business standpoint having in view both the particular interests affected and the commercial of the people as a whole the machinery for providing such careful investigation can readily be supplied the executive department has already at its disposal methods of collecting facts and figures and if the congress desires additional consideration to that which will be given the subject by its own committees then a commission of business experts can be appointed whose duty it should be to recommend action by the congress after a deliberate and scientific examination of the various schedules as they are affected by the changed and changing conditions the unhurried and unbiased report of this commission would show what changes should be made in the various schedules and how far these changes could go without also changing the great prosperity which this country is now enjoying or upsetting its fixed economic policy the cases in which the tariff can produce a monopoly are so few as to constitute an inconsiderable factor in the question but of course if in any case it be found that a given rate of duty does promote a monopoly which works ill no protectionist would object to such reduction of the duty as would equalize competition in my judgment the tariff on anthracite coal should be removed and anthracite put actually where it now is nominally on the free list this would have no effect at all save in crises but in crises it might be of service to the people interest rates are a potent factor in business activity and in order that these rates may be equalized to meet the varying needs of the seasons and of widely separated communities and to prevent the recurrence of financial stringencies which injuriously affect legitimate business it is necessary that there should be an element of elasticity in our monetary system banks are the natural servants of commerce and upon them should be placed as far as practicable the burden of furnishing and maintaining a circulation adequate to supply the needs of our diversified industries and of our domestic and foreign commerce and the issue of this should be so regulated that a sufficient supply should be always available for the business interests of the country it would be both unwise and unnecessary at this time to attempt to reconstruct our financial system which has been the growth of a century but some additional legislation is i think desirable the mere outline of any plan sufficiently comprehensive to meet these requirements would transgress the appropriate limits of this communication it is suggested however that all future legislation on the subject should be with the view of encouraging the use of such instrumentalities as will automatically supply every legitimate demand of productive industries and of commerce not only in the amount but in the character of circulation and of making all kinds of money interchangeable and at the will of the holder convertible into the established gold standard i again call your attention to the need of passing a proper immigration law covering the points outlined in my message to you at the first session of the present congress substantially such a bill has already passed the house how to secure fair treatment alike for labor and for capital how to hold in check the unscrupulous man whether employer or employee without weakening individual initiative without hampering and cramping the industrial development of the country is a problem fraught with great difficulties and one which it is of the highest importance to solve on lines of sanity and common sense as well as of devotion to the right this is an era of federation and combination exactly as business men find they must often work through corporations and as it is a constant tendency of these corporations to grow larger so it is often necessary for laboring men to work in federations and these have become important factors of modern industrial life both kinds of federation capitalistic and labor can do much good and as a necessary corollary they can both do evil opposition to each kind of organization should take the form of opposition to whatever is bad in the conduct of any given corporation or union not of attacks upon corporations as such nor upon unions as such for some of the most beneficent work for our people has been accomplished through both corporations and unions each must refrain from arbitrary or tyrannous interference with the rights of others organized capital and organized labor alike should remember that in the long run the interest of each must be brought into harmony with the interest of the general public and the conduct of each must conform to the fundamental rules of obedience to the law of individual freedom and of justice and fair dealing toward all each should remember that in addition to power it must strive after the realization of healthy lofty and generous ideals every employer every must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property or his labor so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others it is of the highest importance that employer and employee alike should endeavor to appreciate each the viewpoint of the other and the sure disaster that will come upon both in the long run if either grows to take as habitual an attitude of sour hostility and distrust toward the other few people deserve better of the country than those representatives both of capital and labor and there are many such who work continually to bring about a good understanding of this kind based upon wisdom and upon broad and kindly sympathy between employers and employed above all we need to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is if possible even more wicked even more destructive to national welfare than sectional race or religious animosity we can get good government only upon condition that we keep true to the principles upon which this nation was founded and judge each man not as a part of a class but upon his individual merits all that we have a right to ask of any man rich or poor whatever his creed his occupation his birthplace or his residence is that he shall act well and honorably by his neighbor and by his country we are neither for the rich man as such nor for the poor man as such we are for the upright man rich or poor so far as the constitutional powers of the national government touch these matters of general and vital moment to the nation they should be exercised in conformity with the principles above set forth it is earnestly hoped that a secretary of commerce may be created with a seat in the cabinet the rapid multiplication of questions affecting labor and capital the growth and complexity of the organizations through which both labor and capital now find expression the steady tendency toward the employment of capital in huge corporations and the wonderful strides of this country toward leadership in the international business world justify an urgent demand for the creation of such a position substantially all the leading commercial bodies in this country have united in requesting its creation it is desirable that some such measure as that which has already passed the senate be enacted into law the creation of such a department would in itself be an advance toward dealing with and exercising supervision over the whole subject of the great corporations doing an interstate business and with this end in view the congress should endow the department with large powers which could be increased as experience might show the need i hope soon to submit to the senate a reciprocity treaty with cuba on may 20 last the united states kept its promise to the island by formally vacating cuban soil and turning cuba over to those whom her own people had chosen as the first officials of the new republic cuba lies at our doors and whatever affects her for good or for ill affects us also so much have our people felt this that in the platt amendment we definitely took the ground that cuba must hereafter have closer political relations with us than with any other power thus in a sense cuba has become a part of our international political system this makes it necessary that in return she should be given some of the benefits of becoming part of our economic system it is from our own standpoint a and mischievous policy to fail to recognize this need moreover it is unworthy of a mighty and generous nation itself the greatest and most successful republic in history to refuse to stretch out a helping hand to a young and weak sister republic just entering upon its career of independence we should always fearlessly insist upon our rights in the face of the strong and we should with ungrudging hand do our generous duty by the weak i urge the adoption of reciprocity with cuba not only because it is eminently for our own interests to control the cuban market and by every means to foster our supremacy in the tropical lands and waters south of us but also because we of of the giant republic of the north should make all our sister nations of the american continent feel that whenever they will permit it we desire to show ourselves disinterestedly and effectively their friend a convention with great britain has been concluded which will be at once laid before the senate for ratification providing for reciprocal trade arrangements between the united states and newfoundland on substantially the lines of the convention formerly negotiated by the secretary of state blaine i believe reciprocal trade relations will be greatly to the advantage of both countries as civilization grows warfare becomes less and less the normal condition of foreign relations the last century has seen a marked diminution of wars between civilized powers wars with uncivilized powers are largely mere matters of international police duty essential for the welfare of the world wherever possible arbitration or some similar method should be employed in lieu of war to settle difficulties between civilized nations although as yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it possible or necessarily desirable to invoke arbitration in every case the formation of the international tribunal which sits at the hague is an event of good omen from which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind may flow it is far better where possible to invoke such a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for a given purpose it is a matter of sincere congratulation to our country that the united states and mexico should have been the first to use the good offices of the hague court this was done last summer with most satisfactory results in the case of a claim at issue between us and our sister republic it is earnestly to be hoped that this first case will serve as a precedent for others in which not only the united states but foreign nations may take advantage of the machinery already in existence at the hague i commend to the favorable consideration of the congress the hawaiian fire claims which were the subject of careful investigation during the last session the congress has wisely provided that we shall build at once an isthmian canal if possible at panama the reports that we can undoubtedly acquire good title from the french panama canal company negotiations are now pending with colombia to secure her assent to our building the canal this canal will be one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth century a greater engineering feat than has yet been accomplished during the history of mankind the work should be carried out as a continuing policy without regard to change of administration and it should be begun under circumstances which will make it a matter of pride for all administrations to continue the policy the canal will be of great benefit to america and of importance to all the world it will be of advantage to us industrially and also as improving our military position it will be of advantage to the countries of tropical america it is earnestly to be hoped that all of these countries will do as some of them have already done with signal success and will invite to their shores commerce and improve their material conditions by recognizing that stability and order are the prerequisites of successful development no independent nation in america need have the slightest fear of aggression from the united states it behoves each one to maintain order within its own borders and to discharge its just obligations to foreigners when this is done they can rest assured that be they strong or weak they have nothing to dread from outside interference more and more the increasing interdependence and complexity of international political and economic relations render it incumbent on all civilized and orderly powers to insist on the proper policing of the world during the fall of 1901 a communication was addressed to the secretary of state asking whether permission would be granted by the president to a corporation to lay a cable from a point on the california coast to the philippine islands by way of hawaii a statement of conditions or terms upon which such corporation would undertake to lay and operate a cable was volunteered inasmuch as the congress was shortly to convene and legislation had been the subject of consideration by the congress for several years it seemed to me wise to defer action upon the application until the congress had first an opportunity to act the congress adjourned without taking any action leaving the matter in exactly the same condition in which it stood when the congress convened meanwhile it appears that the commercial pacific cable company had promptly proceeded with preparations for laying its cable it also made application to the president for access to and use of soundings taken by the you nero for the purpose of discovering a practicable route for a cable the company urging that with access to these soundings it could complete its cable much sooner than if it were required to take soundings upon its own account pending consideration of this subject it appeared important and desirable to attach certain conditions to the permission to examine and use the soundings if it should be granted in consequence of this solicitation of the cable company certain conditions were formulated upon which the president was willing to allow access to these soundings and to consent to the landing and laying of the cable subject to any alterations or additions thereto imposed by the congress this was deemed proper especially as it was clear that a cable connection of some kind with china a foreign country was a part of the company plan this course was moreover in accordance with a line of precedents including president grant action in the case of the first french cable explained to the congress in his annual message of december 1875 and the instance occurring in 1879 of the second french cable from brest to pierre with a branch to cape cod these conditions prescribed among other things a maximum rate for commercial messages and that the company should construct a line from the philippine islands to china there being at present as is well known a british line from manila to hongkong the representatives of the cable company kept these conditions long under consideration continuing in the meantime to prepare for laying the cable they have however at length acceded to them and an line between our pacific coast and the chinese empire by way of honolulu and the philippine islands is thus provided for and is expected within a few months to be ready for business among the conditions is one reserving the power of the congress to modify or repeal any or all of them a copy of the conditions is herewith transmitted of porto rico it is only necessary to say that the prosperity of the island and the wisdom with which it has been governed have been such as to make it serve as an example of all that is best in insular administration on july 4 last on the one hundred and anniversary of the declaration of our independence peace and amnesty were promulgated in the philippine islands some trouble has since from time to time threatened with the mohammedan moros but with the late insurrectionary filipinos the war has entirely ceased civil government has now been introduced not only does each filipino enjoy such rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as he has never before known during the recorded history of the islands but the people taken as a whole now enjoy a measure of greater than that granted to any other orientals by any foreign power and greater than that enjoyed by any other orientals under their own governments save the japanese alone we have not gone too far in granting these rights of liberty and but we have certainly gone to the limit that in the interests of the philippine people themselves it was wise or just to go to hurry matters to go faster than we are now going would entail calamity on the people of the islands no policy ever entered into by the american people has vindicated itself in more signal manner than the policy of holding the philippines the triumph of our arms above all the triumph of our laws and principles has come sooner than we had any right to expect too much praise can not be given to the army for what it has done in the philippines both in warfare and from an administrative standpoint in preparing the way for civil government and similar credit belongs to the civil authorities for the way in which they have planted the seeds of in the ground thus made ready for them the courage the unflinching endurance the high soldierly efficiency and the general and humanity of our troops have been strikingly manifested there now remain only some fifteen thousand troops in the islands all told over one hundred thousand have been sent there of course there have been individual instances of wrongdoing among them they warred under fearful difficulties of climate and surroundings and under the strain of the terrible provocations which they continually received from their foes occasional instances of cruel retaliation occurred every effort has been made to prevent such cruelties and finally these efforts have been completely successful every effort has also been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers after making all allowance for these misdeeds it remains true that few indeed have been the instances in which war has been waged by a civilized power against semicivilized or barbarous forces where there has been so little wrongdoing by the victors as in the philippine islands on the other hand the amount of difficult important and beneficent work which has been done is incalculable taking the work of the army and the civil authorities together it may be questioned whether anywhere else in modern times the world has seen a better example of real constructive statesmanship than our people have given in the philippine islands high praise should also be given those filipinos in the aggregate very numerous who have accepted the new conditions and joined with our representatives to work with hearty good will for the welfare of the islands the army has been reduced to the minimum allowed by law it is very small for the size of the nation and most certainly should be kept at the highest point of efficiency the senior officers are given scant chance under ordinary conditions to exercise commands commensurate with their rank under circumstances which would fit them to do their duty in time of actual war a system of maneuvering our army in bodies of some little size has been begun and should be steadily continued without such maneuvers it is folly to expect that in the event of hostilities with any serious foe even a small army corps could be handled to advantage both our officers and enlisted men are such that we can take hearty pride in them no better material can be found but they must be thoroughly trained both as individuals and in the mass the marksmanship of the men must receive special attention in the circumstances of modern warfare the man must act far more on his own individual responsibility than ever before and the high individual efficiency of the unit is of the utmost importance formerly this unit was the regiment it is now not the regiment not even the troop or company it is the individual soldier every effort must be made to develop every workmanlike and soldierly quality in both the officer and the enlisted man i urgently call your attention to the need of passing a bill providing for a general staff and for the reorganization of the supply departments on the lines of the bill proposed by the secretary of war last year when the young officers enter the army from west point they probably stand above their compeers in any other military service every effort should be made by training by reward of merit by scrutiny into their careers and capacity to keep them of the same high relative excellence throughout their careers the measure providing for the reorganization of the militia system and for securing the highest efficiency in the national guard which has already passed the house should receive prompt attention and action it is of great importance that the relation of the national guard to the militia and volunteer forces of the united states should be defined and that in place of our present obsolete laws a practical and efficient system should be adopted provision should be made to enable the secretary of war to keep cavalry and artillery horses in long performance of duty such horses fetch but a trifle when sold and rather than turn them out to the misery awaiting them when thus disposed of it would be better to employ them at light work around the posts and when necessary to put them painlessly to death for the first time in our history naval maneuvers on a large scale are being held under the immediate command of the admiral of the navy constantly increasing attention is being paid to the gunnery of the navy but it is yet far from what it should be i earnestly urge that the increase asked for by the secretary of the navy in the appropriation for improving the markmanship be granted in battle the only shots that count are the shots that hit it is necessary to provide ample funds for practice with the great guns in time of peace these funds must provide not only for the purchase of projectiles but for allowances for prizes to encourage the gun crews and especially the gun pointers and for perfecting an intelligent system under which alone it is possible to get good practice there should be no halt in the work of building up the navy providing every year additional fighting craft we are a very rich country vast in extent of territory and great in population a country moreover which has an army diminutive indeed when compared with that of any other power we have deliberately made our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession of a navy the isthmian canal will greatly increase the efficiency of our navy if the navy is of sufficient size but if we have an inadequate navy then the building of the canal would be merely giving a hostage to any power of superior strength the monroe doctrine should be treated as the cardinal feature of american foreign policy but it would be worse than idle to assert it unless we intended to back it up and it can be backed up only by a thoroughly good navy a good navy is not a provocative of war it is the surest guaranty of peace each individual unit of our navy should be the most efficient of its kind as regards both material and personnel that is to be found in the world i call your special attention to the need of providing for the manning of the ships serious trouble threatens us if we can not do better than we are now doing as regards securing the services of a sufficient number of the highest type of sailormen of sea mechanics the veteran seamen of our war ships are of as high a type as can be found in any navy which rides the waters of the world they are unsurpassed in daring in resolution in readiness in thorough knowledge of their profession they deserve every consideration that can be shown them but there are not enough of them it is no more possible to improvise a crew than it is possible to improvise a war ship to build the finest ship with the deadliest battery and to send it afloat with a raw crew no matter how brave they were individually would be to insure disaster if a foe of average capacity were encountered neither ships nor men can be improvised when war has begun we need a thousand additional officers in order to properly man the ships now provided for and under construction the classes at the naval school at annapolis should be greatly enlarged at the same time that we thus add the officers where we need them we should facilitate the retirement of those at the head of the list whose usefulness has become impaired promotion must be fostered if the service is to be kept efficient the lamentable scarcity of officers and the large number of recruits and of unskilled men necessarily put aboard the new vessels as they have been commissioned has thrown upon our officers and especially on the lieutenants and junior grades unusual labor and fatigue and has gravely strained their powers of endurance nor is there sign of any immediate in this strain it must continue for some time longer until more officers are graduated from annapolis and until the recruits become trained and skillful in their duties in these difficulties incident upon the development of our war fleet the conduct of all our officers has been creditable to the service and the lieutenants and junior grades in particular have displayed an ability and a steadfast cheerfulness which entitles them to the ungrudging thanks of all who realize the disheartening trials and fatigues to which they are of necessity subjected there is not a cloud on the horizon at present there seems not the slightest chance of trouble with a foreign power we most earnestly hope that this state of things may continue and the way to insure its continuance is to provide for a thoroughly efficient navy the refusal to maintain such a navy would invite trouble and if trouble came would insure disaster fatuous or vanity or in refusing to prepare for danger is both foolish and wicked in such a nation as ours and past experience has shown that such fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis in advance is usually succeeded by a mad panic of hysterical fear once the crisis has actually arrived the striking increase in the revenues of the department shows clearly the prosperity of our people and the increasing activity of the business of the country the receipts of the department for the fiscal year ending june 30 last amounted to an increase of over the preceding year the largest increase known in the history of the postal service the magnitude of this increase will best appear from the fact that the entire postal receipts for the year 1860 amounted to but rural service is no longer in the experimental stage it has become a fixed policy the results following its introduction have fully justified the congress in the large appropriations made for its establishment and extension the average yearly increase in receipts in the rural districts of the country is about two per cent we are now able by actual results to show that where rural service has been established to such an extent as to enable us to make comparisons the yearly increase has been upward of ten per cent on november 1 1902 rural routes had been established and were in operation covering about of the territory of the united states available for rural service there are now awaiting the action of the department petitions and applications for the establishment of additional routes this shows conclusively the want which the establishment of the service has met and the need of further extending it as rapidly as possible it is justified both by the financial results and by the practical benefits to our rural population it brings the men who live on the soil into close relations with the active business world it keeps the farmer in daily touch with the markets it is a potential educational force it enhances the value of farm property makes farm life far pleasanter and less isolated and will do much to check the undesirable current from country to city it is to be hoped that the congress will make liberal appropriations for the continuance of the service already established and for its further extension few subjects of more importance have been taken up by the congress in recent years than the inauguration of the system of irrigation for the arid regions of the far west a good beginning therein has been made now that this policy of national irrigation has been adopted the need of thorough and scientific forest protection will grow more rapidly than ever throughout the states legislation should be provided for the protection of the game and the wild creatures generally on the forest reserves the senseless slaughter of game which can by judicious protection be permanently preserved on our national reserves for the people as a whole should be stopped at once it is for instance a serious count against our national good sense to permit the present practice of butchering off such a stately and beautiful creature as the elk for its antlers or tusks so far as they are available for agriculture and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the national irrigation law the remaining public lands should be held rigidly for the home builder the settler who lives on his land and for no one else in their actual use the law the timber and stone law and the commutation clause of the homestead law have been so perverted from the intention with which they were enacted as to permit the acquisition of large areas of the public domain for other than actual settlers and the consequent prevention of settlement moreover the approaching exhaustion of the public ranges has of late led to much discussion as to the best manner of using these public lands in the west which are suitable chiefly or only for grazing the sound and steady development of the west depends upon the building up of homes therein much of our prosperity as a nation has been due to the operation of the homestead law on the other hand we should recognize the fact that in the grazing region the man who corresponds to the homesteader may be unable to settle permanently if only allowed to use the same amount of pasture land that his brother the homesteader is allowed to use of arable land one hundred and sixty acres of fairly rich and soil or a much smaller amount of irrigated land may keep a family in plenty whereas no one could get a living from one hundred and sixty acres of dry pasture land capable of supporting at the outside only one head of cattle to every ten acres in the past great tracts of the public domain have been fenced in by persons having no title thereto in direct defiance of the law forbidding the maintenance or construction of any such unlawful inclosure of public land for various reasons there has been little interference with such inclosures in the past but ample notice has now been given the trespassers and all the resources at the command of the government will hereafter be used to put a stop to such trespassing in view of the capital importance of these matters i commend them to the earnest consideration of the congress and if the congress finds difficulty in dealing with them from lack of thorough knowledge of the subject i recommend that provision be made for a commission of experts specially to investigate and report upon the complicated questions involved i especially urge upon the congress the need of wise legislation for alaska it is not to our credit as a nation that alaska which has been ours for years should still have as poor a system of laws as is the case no country has a more valuable possession in mineral wealth in fisheries furs forests and also in land available for certain kinds of farming and stockgrowing it is a territory of great size and varied resources well fitted to support a large permanent population alaska needs a good land law and such provisions for homesteads and as will encourage permanent settlement we should shape legislation with a view not to the exploiting and abandoning of the territory but to the building up of homes therein the land laws should be liberal in type so as to hold out inducements to the actual settler whom we most desire to see take possession of the country the forests of alaska should be protected and as a secondary but still important matter the game also and at the same time it is imperative that the settlers should be allowed to cut timber under proper regulations for their own use laws should be enacted to protect the alaskan salmon fisheries against the greed which would destroy them they should be preserved as a permanent industry and food supply their management and control should be turned over to the commission of fish and fisheries alaska should have a delegate in the congress it would be well if a congressional committee could visit alaska and investigate its needs on the ground in dealing with the indians our aim should be their ultimate absorption into the body of our people but in many cases this absorption must and should be very slow in portions of the indian territory the mixture of blood has gone on at the same time with progress in wealth and education so that there are plenty of men with varying degrees of purity of indian blood who are absolutely indistinguishable in point of social political and economic ability from their white associates there are other tribes which have as yet made no perceptible advance toward such equality to try to force such tribes too fast is to prevent their going forward at all moreover the tribes live under widely different conditions where a tribe has made considerable advance and lives on fertile farming soil it is possible to allot the members lands in severalty much as is the case with white settlers there are other tribes where such a course is not desirable on the arid prairie lands the effort should be to induce the indians to lead pastoral rather than agricultural lives and to permit them to settle in villages rather than to force them into isolation the large indian schools situated remote from any indian reservation do a special and peculiar work of great importance but excellent though these are an immense amount of additional work must be done on the reservations themselves among the old and above all among the young indians the first and most important step toward the absorption of the indian is to teach him to earn his living yet it is not necessarily to be assumed that in each community all indians must become either tillers of the soil or stock raisers their industries may properly be diversified and those who show special desire or adaptability for industrial or even commercial pursuits should be encouraged so far as practicable to follow out each his own bent every effort should be made to develop the indian along the lines of natural aptitude and to encourage the existing native industries peculiar to certain tribes such as the various kinds of basket weaving canoe building smith work and blanket work above all the indian boys and girls should be given confident command of colloquial english and should ordinarily be prepared for a vigorous struggle with the conditions under which their people live rather than for immediate absorption into some more highly developed community the officials who represent the government in dealing with the indians work under hard conditions and also under conditions which render it easy to do wrong and very difficult to detect wrong consequently they should be amply paid on the one hand and on the other hand a particularly high standard of conduct should be demanded from them and where misconduct can be proved the punishment should be exemplary in no department of governmental work in recent years has there been greater success than in that of giving scientific aid to the farming population thereby showing them how most efficiently to help themselves there is no need of insisting upon its importance for the welfare of the farmer is fundamentally necessary to the welfare of the republic as a whole in addition to such work as quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues and warring against them when here introduced much efficient help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the country new cereals have been established in the west for instance the practicability of producing the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively demonstrated through the introduction of new rices in louisiana and texas the production of rice in this country has been made to about equal the home demand in the the possibility of regrassing overstocked range lands has been demonstrated in the north many new forage crops have been introduced while in the east it has been shown that some of our choicest fruits can be stored and shipped in such a way as to find a profitable market abroad i again recommend to the favorable consideration of the congress the plans of the smithsonian institution for making the museum under its charge worthy of the nation and for preserving at the national capital not only records of the vanishing races of men but of the animals of this continent which like the buffalo will soon become extinct unless specimens from which their representatives may be renewed are sought in their native regions and maintained there in safety the district of columbia is the only part of our territory in which the national government exercises local or municipal functions and where in consequence the government has a free hand in reference to certain types of social and economic legislation which must be essentially local or municipal in their character the government should see to it for instance that the hygienic and sanitary legislation affecting washington is of a high character the evils of slum dwellings whether in the shape of crowded and congested districts or of the type should never be permitted to grow up in washington the city should be a model in every respect for all the cities of the country the charitable and correctional systems of the district should receive consideration at the hands of the congress to the end that they may embody the results of the most advanced thought in these fields moreover while washington is not a great industrial city there is some industrialism here and our labor legislation while it would not be important in itself might be made a model for the rest of the nation we should pass for instance a wise act for the district of columbia and we need such an act in our railroad companies in the district ought to be required by law to block their frogs the law for the better protection of the lives and limbs of railway employees which was passed in 1893 went into full effect on august 1 1901 it has resulted in averting thousands of casualties experience shows however the necessity of additional legislation to perfect this law a bill to provide for this passed the senate at the last session it is to be hoped that some such measure may now be enacted into law there is a growing tendency to provide for the publication of masses of documents for which there is no public demand and for the printing of which there is no real necessity large numbers of volumes are turned out by the government printing presses for which there is no justification nothing should be printed by any of the departments unless it contains something of permanent value and the congress could with advantage cut down very materially on all the printing which it has now become customary to provide the excessive cost of government printing is a strong argument against the position of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate the government doing any work which can with propriety be left in private hands gratifying progress has been made during the year in the extension of the merit system of making appointments in the government service it should be extended by law to the district of columbia it is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness through a wise provision of the congress at its last session the white house which had become disfigured by incongruous additions and changes has now been restored to what it was planned to be by washington in making the restorations the utmost care has been exercised to come as near as possible to the early plans and to supplement these plans by a careful study of such buildings as that of the university of virginia which was built by jefferson the white house is the property of the nation and so far as is compatible with living therein it should be kept as it originally was for the same reasons that we keep mount vernon as it originally was the stately simplicity of its architecture is an expression of the character of the period in which it was built and is in accord with the purposes it was designed to serve it is a good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuity with the nation past the reports of the several executive departments are submitted to the congress with this communication
still continue period unbounded prosperity prosperity creature law undoubtedly laws work instrumental creating conditions made possible unwise legislation would easy enough destroy undoubtedly periods depression wave recede tide advance nation seated continent flanked two great oceans composed men descendants pioneers sense pioneers men winnowed among nations old world energy boldness love adventure found eager hearts nation placed surely wrest success fortune people played large part world bent upon making future even larger past particular events last four years definitely decided woe weal place must great among nations may either fall greatly succeed greatly avoid endeavor either great failure great success must come even would play small part try would follow would play large part ignobly shamefully people sons men civil war sons men iron blood rejoice present face future high heart resolute creed weakling coward gospel hope triumphant endeavor shrink struggle us many problems us face outset twentieth century grave problems abroad still graver home know solve solve well provided bring solution qualities head heart shown men days washington rounded government days lincoln preserved country ever occupied higher plane material present moment due sudden accidental causes play economic forces country century laws sustained continuous policies high individual average citizenship great fortunes taken lead phenomenal industrial development fortunes evil incident action benefited community whole never material widely diffused among people great fortunes accumulated yet aggregate fortunes small indeed compared wealth people whole plain people better ever insurance companies practically mutual benefit societies especially helpful men moderate means represent accumulations capital among largest country deposits savings banks owners farms country ever history course conditions favored growth much good also favored somewhat growth evil eminently necessary endeavor cut evil let us keep due sense proportion let us fixing gaze upon lesser evil forget greater good evils real menacing outgrowth misery decadence prosperity progress gigantic industrial development industrial development must checked side side go progressive regulation diminish evils fail duty try remedy evils shall succeed proceed patiently practical common sense well resolution separating good bad holding former endeavoring get rid latter message present congress first session discussed length question regulation big corporations commonly interstate business often tendency monopoly popularly known trusts experience past year emphasized opinion desirability steps proposed fundamental requisite social efficiency high standard individual energy excellence wise inconsistent power act combination aims well achieved individual acting alone fundamental base civilization inviolability property wise inconsistent right society regulate exercise artificial powers confers upon owners property name corporate franchises way prevent misuse powers corporations especially combinations corporations managed public regulation experience shown system government necessary supervision obtained state action must therefore achieved national action aim away corporations contrary big aggregations inevitable development modern industrialism effort destroy would futile unless accomplished ways would work utmost mischief entire body politic nothing good way regulating supervising corporations fix clearly minds attacking corporations endeavoring away evil hostile merely determined shall handled subserve public good draw line misconduct wealth capitalist alone conjunction fellows performs great industrial feat wins money welldoer wrongdoer provided works proper legitimate lines wish favor man well wish supervise control actions prevent ill publicity harm honest corporation need tender sparing dishonest corporation curbing regulating combinations capital may become injurious public must careful stop great enterprises legitimately reduced cost production abandon place country leadership international industrial world strike wealth result closing factories mines turning idle streets leaving farmer without market grows insistence upon impossible means delay achieving possible exactly hand stubborn defense alike good bad existing system resolute effort obstruct attempt betterment betrays blindness historic truth wise evolution sure safeguard revolution important subject come congress regulation interstate business country afford sit supine plea peculiar system government helpless presence new conditions unable grapple cut whatever evil arisen connection power congress regulate interstate commerce absolute unqualified grant without limitations prescribed constitution congress constitutional authority make laws necessary proper executing power satisfied power exhausted legislation statute books evident therefore evils restrictive commercial freedom entailing restraint upon national commerce fall within regulative power congress wise reasonable law would necessary proper exercise congressional authority end evils eradicated believe monopolies unjust discriminations prevent cripple competition fraudulent overcapitalization evils trust organizations practices injuriously affect interstate trade prevented power congress regulate commerce foreign nations among several states regulations requirements operating directly upon commerce instrumentalities thereof engaged therein earnestly recommend subject consideration congress view passage law reasonable provisions effective operations upon questions finally adjudicated raise doubts necessity constitutional amendment prove impossible accomplish purposes set forth law assuredly shrink amending constitution secure beyond peradventure power sought congress heretofore made appropriation better enforcement antitrust law stands much done department justice securing enforcement law much could done congress would make special appropriation purpose expended direction one proposition advocated reduction tariff means reaching evils trusts fall within category described merely would wholly ineffective diversion efforts direction would mean abandonment intelligent attempt away evils many largest corporations many certainly included proper scheme regulation would affected slightest degree change tariff save change interfered general prosperity country relation tariff big corporations whole tariff makes manufactures profitable tariff remedy proposed would effect simply make manufactures unprofitable remove tariff punitive measure directed trusts would inevitably result ruin weaker competitors struggling aim unwise tariff changes give foreign products advantage domestic products proper regulation give domestic competition fair chance end reached tariff changes would affect unfavorably domestic competitors good bad alike question regulation trusts stands apart question tariff revision stability economic policy must always prime economic need country stability fossilization country acquiesced wisdom principle exceedingly undesirable system destroyed violent radical changes therein past experience shows great prosperity country always come protective tariff country prosper fitful tariff changes short intervals moreover tariff laws whole work well business prospered prospering better endure time slight inconveniences inequalities schedules upset business quick radical changes earnestly wished could treat tariff standpoint solely business needs perhaps much hope partisanship may entirely excluded consideration subject least made secondary business interests country interests people whole unquestionably business interests best served together fixity principle regards tariff combine system permit us time time make necessary reapplication principle shifting national needs must take scrupulous care reapplication shall made way amount dislocation system mere threat speak performance would produce paralysis business energies community first consideration making changes would course preserve principle underlies whole tariff system principle putting american business interests least full equality interests abroad always allowing sufficient rate duty cover difference labor cost abroad like tiller soil treated essential shaping whole economic policy must never change jeopardize standard comfort standard wages american one way readjustment sought reached reciprocity treaties greatly desired treaties may adopted used widen markets give greater field activities producers one hand hand secure practical shape lowering duties longer needed protection among people minimum damage done may disregarded sake maximum good accomplished prove impossible ratify pending treaties seem warrant endeavor execute others amend pending treaties ratified end secure reciprocity met direct legislation wherever tariff conditions needed change advantage made application reciprocity idea made outright lowering duties given product possible change made fullest consideration practical experts approach subject business standpoint view particular interests affected commercial people whole machinery providing careful investigation readily supplied executive department already disposal methods collecting facts figures congress desires additional consideration given subject committees commission business experts appointed whose duty recommend action congress deliberate scientific examination various schedules affected changed changing conditions unhurried unbiased report commission would show changes made various schedules far changes could go without also changing great prosperity country enjoying upsetting fixed economic policy cases tariff produce monopoly constitute inconsiderable factor question course case found given rate duty promote monopoly works ill protectionist would object reduction duty would equalize competition judgment tariff anthracite coal removed anthracite put actually nominally free list would effect save crises crises might service people interest rates potent factor business activity order rates may equalized meet varying needs seasons widely separated communities prevent recurrence financial stringencies injuriously affect legitimate business necessary element elasticity monetary system banks natural servants commerce upon placed far practicable burden furnishing maintaining circulation adequate supply needs diversified industries domestic foreign commerce issue regulated sufficient supply always available business interests country would unwise unnecessary time attempt reconstruct financial system growth century additional legislation think desirable mere outline plan sufficiently comprehensive meet requirements would transgress appropriate limits communication suggested however future legislation subject view encouraging use instrumentalities automatically supply every legitimate demand productive industries commerce amount character circulation making kinds money interchangeable holder convertible established gold standard call attention need passing proper immigration law covering points outlined message first session present congress substantially bill already passed house secure fair treatment alike labor capital hold check unscrupulous man whether employer employee without weakening individual initiative without hampering cramping industrial development country problem fraught great difficulties one highest importance solve lines sanity common sense well devotion right era federation combination exactly business men find must often work corporations constant tendency corporations grow larger often necessary laboring men work federations become important factors modern industrial life kinds federation capitalistic labor much good necessary corollary evil opposition kind organization take form opposition whatever bad conduct given corporation union attacks upon corporations upon unions beneficent work people accomplished corporations unions must refrain arbitrary tyrannous interference rights others organized capital organized labor alike remember long run interest must brought harmony interest general public conduct must conform fundamental rules obedience law individual freedom justice fair dealing toward remember addition power must strive realization healthy lofty generous ideals every employer every must guaranteed liberty right likes property labor long infringe upon rights others highest importance employer employee alike endeavor appreciate viewpoint sure disaster come upon long run either grows take habitual attitude sour hostility distrust toward people deserve better country representatives capital labor many work continually bring good understanding kind based upon wisdom upon broad kindly sympathy employers employed need remember kind class animosity political world possible even wicked even destructive national welfare sectional race religious animosity get good government upon condition keep true principles upon nation founded judge man part class upon individual merits right ask man rich poor whatever creed occupation birthplace residence shall act well honorably neighbor country neither rich man poor man upright man rich poor far constitutional powers national government touch matters general vital moment nation exercised conformity principles set forth earnestly hoped secretary commerce may created seat cabinet rapid multiplication questions affecting labor capital growth complexity organizations labor capital find expression steady tendency toward employment capital huge corporations wonderful strides country toward leadership international business world justify urgent demand creation position substantially leading commercial bodies country united requesting creation desirable measure already passed senate enacted law creation department would advance toward dealing exercising supervision whole subject great corporations interstate business end view congress endow department large powers could increased experience might show need hope soon submit senate reciprocity treaty cuba may 20 last united states kept promise island formally vacating cuban soil turning cuba people chosen first officials new republic cuba lies doors whatever affects good ill affects us also much people felt platt amendment definitely took ground cuba must hereafter closer political relations us power thus sense cuba become part international political system makes necessary return given benefits becoming part economic system standpoint mischievous policy fail recognize need moreover unworthy mighty generous nation greatest successful republic history refuse stretch helping hand young weak sister republic entering upon career independence always fearlessly insist upon rights face strong ungrudging hand generous duty weak urge adoption reciprocity cuba eminently interests control cuban market every means foster supremacy tropical lands waters south us also giant republic north make sister nations american continent feel whenever permit desire show disinterestedly effectively friend convention great britain concluded laid senate ratification providing reciprocal trade arrangements united states newfoundland substantially lines convention formerly negotiated secretary state blaine believe reciprocal trade relations greatly advantage countries civilization grows warfare becomes less less normal condition foreign relations last century seen marked diminution wars civilized powers wars uncivilized powers largely mere matters international police duty essential welfare world wherever possible arbitration similar method employed lieu war settle difficulties civilized nations although yet world progressed sufficiently render possible necessarily desirable invoke arbitration every case formation international tribunal sits hague event good omen great consequences welfare mankind may flow far better possible invoke permanent tribunal create special arbitrators given purpose matter sincere congratulation country united states mexico first use good offices hague court done last summer satisfactory results case claim issue us sister republic earnestly hoped first case serve precedent others united states foreign nations may take advantage machinery already existence hague commend favorable consideration congress hawaiian fire claims subject careful investigation last session congress wisely provided shall build isthmian canal possible panama reports undoubtedly acquire good title french panama canal company negotiations pending colombia secure assent building canal canal one greatest engineering feats twentieth century greater engineering feat yet accomplished history mankind work carried continuing policy without regard change administration begun circumstances make matter pride administrations continue policy canal great benefit america importance world advantage us industrially also improving military position advantage countries tropical america earnestly hoped countries already done signal success invite shores commerce improve material conditions recognizing stability order prerequisites successful development independent nation america need slightest fear aggression united states behoves one maintain order within borders discharge obligations foreigners done rest assured strong weak nothing dread outside interference increasing interdependence complexity international political economic relations render incumbent civilized orderly powers insist proper policing world fall 1901 communication addressed secretary state asking whether permission would granted president corporation lay cable point california coast philippine islands way hawaii statement conditions terms upon corporation would undertake lay operate cable volunteered inasmuch congress shortly convene legislation subject consideration congress several years seemed wise defer action upon application congress first opportunity act congress adjourned without taking action leaving matter exactly condition stood congress convened meanwhile appears commercial pacific cable company promptly proceeded preparations laying cable also made application president access use soundings taken nero purpose discovering practicable route cable company urging access soundings could complete cable much sooner required take soundings upon account pending consideration subject appeared important desirable attach certain conditions permission examine use soundings granted consequence solicitation cable company certain conditions formulated upon president willing allow access soundings consent landing laying cable subject alterations additions thereto imposed congress deemed proper especially clear cable connection kind china foreign country part company plan course moreover accordance line precedents including president grant action case first french cable explained congress annual message december 1875 instance occurring 1879 second french cable brest pierre branch cape cod conditions prescribed among things maximum rate commercial messages company construct line philippine islands china present well known british line manila hongkong representatives cable company kept conditions long consideration continuing meantime prepare laying cable however length acceded line pacific coast chinese empire way honolulu philippine islands thus provided expected within months ready business among conditions one reserving power congress modify repeal copy conditions herewith transmitted porto rico necessary say prosperity island wisdom governed make serve example best insular administration july 4 last one hundred anniversary declaration independence peace amnesty promulgated philippine islands trouble since time time threatened mohammedan moros late insurrectionary filipinos war entirely ceased civil government introduced filipino enjoy rights life liberty pursuit happiness never known recorded history islands people taken whole enjoy measure greater granted orientals foreign power greater enjoyed orientals governments save japanese alone gone far granting rights liberty certainly gone limit interests philippine people wise go hurry matters go faster going would entail calamity people islands policy ever entered american people vindicated signal manner policy holding philippines triumph arms triumph laws principles come sooner right expect much praise given army done philippines warfare administrative standpoint preparing way civil government similar credit belongs civil authorities way planted seeds ground thus made ready courage unflinching endurance high soldierly efficiency general humanity troops strikingly manifested remain fifteen thousand troops islands told one hundred thousand sent course individual instances wrongdoing among warred fearful difficulties climate surroundings strain terrible provocations continually received foes occasional instances cruel retaliation occurred every effort made prevent cruelties finally efforts completely successful every effort also made detect punish wrongdoers making allowance misdeeds remains true indeed instances war waged civilized power semicivilized barbarous forces little wrongdoing victors philippine islands hand amount difficult important beneficent work done incalculable taking work army civil authorities together may questioned whether anywhere else modern times world seen better example real constructive statesmanship people given philippine islands high praise also given filipinos aggregate numerous accepted new conditions joined representatives work hearty good welfare islands army reduced minimum allowed law small size nation certainly kept highest point efficiency senior officers given scant chance ordinary conditions exercise commands commensurate rank circumstances would fit duty time actual war system maneuvering army bodies little size begun steadily continued without maneuvers folly expect event hostilities serious foe even small army corps could handled advantage officers enlisted men take hearty pride better material found must thoroughly trained individuals mass marksmanship men must receive special attention circumstances modern warfare man must act far individual responsibility ever high individual efficiency unit utmost importance formerly unit regiment regiment even troop company individual soldier every effort must made develop every workmanlike soldierly quality officer enlisted man urgently call attention need passing bill providing general staff reorganization supply departments lines bill proposed secretary war last year young officers enter army west point probably stand compeers military service every effort made training reward merit scrutiny careers capacity keep high relative excellence throughout careers measure providing reorganization militia system securing highest efficiency national guard already passed house receive prompt attention action great importance relation national guard militia volunteer forces united states defined place present obsolete laws practical efficient system adopted provision made enable secretary war keep cavalry artillery horses long performance duty horses fetch trifle sold rather turn misery awaiting thus disposed would better employ light work around posts necessary put painlessly death first time history naval maneuvers large scale held immediate command admiral navy constantly increasing attention paid gunnery navy yet far earnestly urge increase asked secretary navy appropriation improving markmanship granted battle shots count shots hit necessary provide ample funds practice great guns time peace funds must provide purchase projectiles allowances prizes encourage gun crews especially gun pointers perfecting intelligent system alone possible get good practice halt work building navy providing every year additional fighting craft rich country vast extent territory great population country moreover army diminutive indeed compared power deliberately made certain foreign policies demand possession navy isthmian canal greatly increase efficiency navy navy sufficient size inadequate navy building canal would merely giving hostage power superior strength monroe doctrine treated cardinal feature american foreign policy would worse idle assert unless intended back backed thoroughly good navy good navy provocative war surest guaranty peace individual unit navy efficient kind regards material personnel found world call special attention need providing manning ships serious trouble threatens us better regards securing services sufficient number highest type sailormen sea mechanics veteran seamen war ships high type found navy rides waters world unsurpassed daring resolution readiness thorough knowledge profession deserve every consideration shown enough possible improvise crew possible improvise war ship build finest ship deadliest battery send afloat raw crew matter brave individually would insure disaster foe average capacity encountered neither ships men improvised war begun need thousand additional officers order properly man ships provided construction classes naval school annapolis greatly enlarged time thus add officers need facilitate retirement head list whose usefulness become impaired promotion must fostered service kept efficient lamentable scarcity officers large number recruits unskilled men necessarily put aboard new vessels commissioned thrown upon officers especially lieutenants junior grades unusual labor fatigue gravely strained powers endurance sign immediate strain must continue time longer officers graduated annapolis recruits become trained skillful duties difficulties incident upon development war fleet conduct officers creditable service lieutenants junior grades particular displayed ability steadfast cheerfulness entitles ungrudging thanks realize disheartening trials fatigues necessity subjected cloud horizon present seems slightest chance trouble foreign power earnestly hope state things may continue way insure continuance provide thoroughly efficient navy refusal maintain navy would invite trouble trouble came would insure disaster fatuous vanity refusing prepare danger foolish wicked nation past experience shown fatuity refusing recognize prepare crisis advance usually succeeded mad panic hysterical fear crisis actually arrived striking increase revenues department shows clearly prosperity people increasing activity business country receipts department fiscal year ending june 30 last amounted increase preceding year largest increase known history postal service magnitude increase best appear fact entire postal receipts year 1860 amounted rural service longer experimental stage become fixed policy results following introduction fully justified congress large appropriations made establishment extension average yearly increase receipts rural districts country two per cent able actual results show rural service established extent enable us make comparisons yearly increase upward ten per cent november 1 1902 rural routes established operation covering territory united states available rural service awaiting action department petitions applications establishment additional routes shows conclusively want establishment service met need extending rapidly possible justified financial results practical benefits rural population brings men live soil close relations active business world keeps farmer daily touch markets potential educational force enhances value farm property makes farm life far pleasanter less isolated much check undesirable current country city hoped congress make liberal appropriations continuance service already established extension subjects importance taken congress recent years inauguration system irrigation arid regions far west good beginning therein made policy national irrigation adopted need thorough scientific forest protection grow rapidly ever throughout states legislation provided protection game wild creatures generally forest reserves senseless slaughter game judicious protection permanently preserved national reserves people whole stopped instance serious count national good sense permit present practice butchering stately beautiful creature elk antlers tusks far available agriculture whatever extent may reclaimed national irrigation law remaining public lands held rigidly home builder settler lives land one else actual use law timber stone law commutation clause homestead law perverted intention enacted permit acquisition large areas public domain actual settlers consequent prevention settlement moreover approaching exhaustion public ranges late led much discussion best manner using public lands west suitable chiefly grazing sound steady development west depends upon building homes therein much prosperity nation due operation homestead law hand recognize fact grazing region man corresponds homesteader may unable settle permanently allowed use amount pasture land brother homesteader allowed use arable land one hundred sixty acres fairly rich soil much smaller amount irrigated land may keep family plenty whereas one could get living one hundred sixty acres dry pasture land capable supporting outside one head cattle every ten acres past great tracts public domain fenced persons title thereto direct defiance law forbidding maintenance construction unlawful inclosure public land various reasons little interference inclosures past ample notice given trespassers resources command government hereafter used put stop trespassing view capital importance matters commend earnest consideration congress congress finds difficulty dealing lack thorough knowledge subject recommend provision made commission experts specially investigate report upon complicated questions involved especially urge upon congress need wise legislation alaska credit nation alaska years still poor system laws case country valuable possession mineral wealth fisheries furs forests also land available certain kinds farming stockgrowing territory great size varied resources well fitted support large permanent population alaska needs good land law provisions homesteads encourage permanent settlement shape legislation view exploiting abandoning territory building homes therein land laws liberal type hold inducements actual settler desire see take possession country forests alaska protected secondary still important matter game also time imperative settlers allowed cut timber proper regulations use laws enacted protect alaskan salmon fisheries greed would destroy preserved permanent industry food supply management control turned commission fish fisheries alaska delegate congress would well congressional committee could visit alaska investigate needs ground dealing indians aim ultimate absorption body people many cases absorption must slow portions indian territory mixture blood gone time progress wealth education plenty men varying degrees purity indian blood absolutely indistinguishable point social political economic ability white associates tribes yet made perceptible advance toward equality try force tribes fast prevent going forward moreover tribes live widely different conditions tribe made considerable advance lives fertile farming soil possible allot members lands severalty much case white settlers tribes course desirable arid prairie lands effort induce indians lead pastoral rather agricultural lives permit settle villages rather force isolation large indian schools situated remote indian reservation special peculiar work great importance excellent though immense amount additional work must done reservations among old among young indians first important step toward absorption indian teach earn living yet necessarily assumed community indians must become either tillers soil stock raisers industries may properly diversified show special desire adaptability industrial even commercial pursuits encouraged far practicable follow bent every effort made develop indian along lines natural aptitude encourage existing native industries peculiar certain tribes various kinds basket weaving canoe building smith work blanket work indian boys girls given confident command colloquial english ordinarily prepared vigorous struggle conditions people live rather immediate absorption highly developed community officials represent government dealing indians work hard conditions also conditions render easy wrong difficult detect wrong consequently amply paid one hand hand particularly high standard conduct demanded misconduct proved punishment exemplary department governmental work recent years greater success giving scientific aid farming population thereby showing efficiently help need insisting upon importance welfare farmer fundamentally necessary welfare republic whole addition work quarantine animal vegetable plagues warring introduced much efficient help rendered farmer introduction new plants specially fitted cultivation peculiar conditions existing different portions country new cereals established west instance practicability producing best types macaroni wheats regions annual rainfall ten inches thereabouts conclusively demonstrated introduction new rices louisiana texas production rice country made equal home demand possibility regrassing overstocked range lands demonstrated north many new forage crops introduced east shown choicest fruits stored shipped way find profitable market abroad recommend favorable consideration congress plans smithsonian institution making museum charge worthy nation preserving national capital records vanishing races men animals continent like buffalo soon become extinct unless specimens representatives may renewed sought native regions maintained safety district columbia part territory national government exercises local municipal functions consequence government free hand reference certain types social economic legislation must essentially local municipal character government see instance hygienic sanitary legislation affecting washington high character evils slum dwellings whether shape crowded congested districts type never permitted grow washington city model every respect cities country charitable correctional systems district receive consideration hands congress end may embody results advanced thought fields moreover washington great industrial city industrialism labor legislation would important might made model rest nation pass instance wise act district columbia need act railroad companies district ought required law block frogs law better protection lives limbs railway employees passed 1893 went full effect august 1 1901 resulted averting thousands casualties experience shows however necessity additional legislation perfect law bill provide passed senate last session hoped measure may enacted law growing tendency provide publication masses documents public demand printing real necessity large numbers volumes turned government printing presses justification nothing printed departments unless contains something permanent value congress could advantage cut materially printing become customary provide excessive cost government printing strong argument position inclined abstract grounds advocate government work propriety left private hands gratifying progress made year extension merit system making appointments government service extended law district columbia much desired consular system established law basis providing appointment promotion consequence proved fitness wise provision congress last session white house become disfigured incongruous additions changes restored planned washington making restorations utmost care exercised come near possible early plans supplement plans careful study buildings university virginia built jefferson white house property nation far compatible living therein kept originally reasons keep mount vernon originally stately simplicity architecture expression character period built accord purposes designed serve good thing preserve buildings historic monuments keep alive sense continuity nation past reports several executive departments submitted congress communication
still continue period unbounded prosperity prosperity creature law undoubtedly law work instrumental create condition make possible unwise legislation would easy enough destroy undoubtedly period depression wave recede tide advance nation seat continent flank two great ocean compose men descendant pioneer sense pioneer men winnow among nation old world energy boldness love adventure find eager heart nation place surely wrest success fortune people play large part world bent upon make future even large past particular event last four year definitely decide woe weal place must great among nation may either fall greatly succeed greatly avoid endeavor either great failure great success must come even would play small part try would follow would play large part ignobly shamefully people son men civil war son men iron blood rejoice present face future high heart resolute creed weakling coward gospel hope triumphant endeavor shrink struggle u many problem u face outset twentieth century grave problem abroad still graver home know solve solve well provide bring solution quality head heart show men day washington rounded government day lincoln preserved country ever occupy high plane material present moment due sudden accidental cause play economic force country century law sustain continuous policy high individual average citizenship great fortune take lead phenomenal industrial development fortune evil incident action benefit community whole never material widely diffuse among people great fortune accumulate yet aggregate fortune small indeed compare wealth people whole plain people better ever insurance company practically mutual benefit society especially helpful men moderate mean represent accumulation capital among large country deposit saving bank owner farm country ever history course condition favor growth much good also favor somewhat growth evil eminently necessary endeavor cut evil let u keep due sense proportion let u fix gaze upon less evil forget great good evil real menace outgrowth misery decadence prosperity progress gigantic industrial development industrial development must check side side go progressive regulation diminish evil fail duty try remedy evils shall succeed proceed patiently practical common sense well resolution separate good bad hold former endeavor get rid latter message present congress first session discuss length question regulation big corporation commonly interstate business often tendency monopoly popularly know trust experience past year emphasize opinion desirability step propose fundamental requisite social efficiency high standard individual energy excellence wise inconsistent power act combination aim well achieve individual act alone fundamental base civilization inviolability property wise inconsistent right society regulate exercise artificial power confers upon owner property name corporate franchise way prevent misuse power corporation especially combination corporation manage public regulation experience show system government necessary supervision obtain state action must therefore achieved national action aim away corporation contrary big aggregation inevitable development modern industrialism effort destroy would futile unless accomplished way would work utmost mischief entire body politic nothing good way regulate supervise corporation fix clearly mind attack corporation endeavor away evil hostile merely determine shall handle subserve public good draw line misconduct wealth capitalist alone conjunction fellow perform great industrial feat win money welldoer wrongdoer provide work proper legitimate line wish favor man well wish supervise control action prevent ill publicity harm honest corporation need tender spar dishonest corporation curb regulate combination capital may become injurious public must careful stop great enterprise legitimately reduce cost production abandon place country leadership international industrial world strike wealth result close factory mine turn idle street leave farmer without market grows insistence upon impossible mean delay achieve possible exactly hand stubborn defense alike good bad exist system resolute effort obstruct attempt betterment betray blindness historic truth wise evolution sure safeguard revolution important subject come congress regulation interstate business country afford sit supine plea peculiar system government helpless presence new condition unable grapple cut whatever evil arisen connection power congress regulate interstate commerce absolute unqualified grant without limitation prescribe constitution congress constitutional authority make law necessary proper execute power satisfy power exhaust legislation statute book evident therefore evils restrictive commercial freedom entail restraint upon national commerce fall within regulative power congress wise reasonable law would necessary proper exercise congressional authority end evils eradicate believe monopoly unjust discrimination prevent cripple competition fraudulent overcapitalization evils trust organization practice injuriously affect interstate trade prevent power congress regulate commerce foreign nation among several state regulation requirement operate directly upon commerce instrumentality thereof engage therein earnestly recommend subject consideration congress view passage law reasonable provision effective operation upon question finally adjudicate raise doubt necessity constitutional amendment prove impossible accomplish purpose set forth law assuredly shrink amend constitution secure beyond peradventure power seek congress heretofore make appropriation well enforcement antitrust law stand much do department justice secure enforcement law much could do congress would make special appropriation purpose expend direction one proposition advocate reduction tariff mean reach evil trust fall within category describe merely would wholly ineffective diversion effort direction would mean abandonment intelligent attempt away evils many large corporation many certainly include proper scheme regulation would affect slight degree change tariff save change interfere general prosperity country relation tariff big corporation whole tariff make manufacture profitable tariff remedy propose would effect simply make manufacture unprofitable remove tariff punitive measure direct trust would inevitably result ruin weak competitor struggle aim unwise tariff change give foreign product advantage domestic product proper regulation give domestic competition fair chance end reach tariff change would affect unfavorably domestic competitor good bad alike question regulation trust stand apart question tariff revision stability economic policy must always prime economic need country stability fossilization country acquiesce wisdom principle exceedingly undesirable system destroy violent radical change therein past experience show great prosperity country always come protective tariff country prosper fitful tariff change short interval moreover tariff law whole work well business prosper prosper well endure time slight inconvenience inequality schedule upset business quick radical change earnestly wish could treat tariff standpoint solely business need perhaps much hope partisanship may entirely exclude consideration subject least make secondary business interest country interest people whole unquestionably business interest best serve together fixity principle regard tariff combine system permit u time time make necessary reapplication principle shift national need must take scrupulous care reapplication shall make way amount dislocation system mere threat speak performance would produce paralysis business energy community first consideration making change would course preserve principle underlies whole tariff system principle put american business interest least full equality interest abroad always allow sufficient rate duty cover difference labor cost abroad like tiller soil treat essential shape whole economic policy must never change jeopardize standard comfort standard wage american one way readjustment seek reach reciprocity treaty greatly desire treaty may adopt use widen market give great field activity producer one hand hand secure practical shape lower duty longer need protection among people minimum damage do may disregard sake maximum good accomplish prove impossible ratify pending treaty seem warrant endeavor execute others amend pending treaty ratify end secure reciprocity meet direct legislation wherever tariff condition need change advantage make application reciprocity idea make outright lowering duty give product possible change make full consideration practical expert approach subject business standpoint view particular interest affect commercial people whole machinery provide careful investigation readily supply executive department already disposal method collect fact figure congress desire additional consideration give subject committee commission business expert appoint whose duty recommend action congress deliberate scientific examination various schedule affect change change condition unhurried unbiased report commission would show change make various schedule far change could go without also change great prosperity country enjoy upset fixed economic policy case tariff produce monopoly constitute inconsiderable factor question course case find give rate duty promote monopoly work ill protectionist would object reduction duty would equalize competition judgment tariff anthracite coal remove anthracite put actually nominally free list would effect save crisis crisis might service people interest rate potent factor business activity order rate may equalize meet vary need season widely separate community prevent recurrence financial stringency injuriously affect legitimate business necessary element elasticity monetary system bank natural servant commerce upon place far practicable burden furnish maintain circulation adequate supply need diversified industry domestic foreign commerce issue regulate sufficient supply always available business interest country would unwise unnecessary time attempt reconstruct financial system growth century additional legislation think desirable mere outline plan sufficiently comprehensive meet requirement would transgress appropriate limit communication suggest however future legislation subject view encouraging use instrumentality automatically supply every legitimate demand productive industry commerce amount character circulation make kind money interchangeable holder convertible establish gold standard call attention need pass proper immigration law cover point outline message first session present congress substantially bill already pass house secure fair treatment alike labor capital hold check unscrupulous man whether employer employee without weaken individual initiative without hamper cramp industrial development country problem fraught great difficulty one high importance solve line sanity common sense well devotion right era federation combination exactly business men find must often work corporation constant tendency corporation grow large often necessary labor men work federation become important factor modern industrial life kind federation capitalistic labor much good necessary corollary evil opposition kind organization take form opposition whatever bad conduct give corporation union attack upon corporation upon union beneficent work people accomplish corporation union must refrain arbitrary tyrannous interference right others organize capital organize labor alike remember long run interest must bring harmony interest general public conduct must conform fundamental rule obedience law individual freedom justice fair deal toward remember addition power must strive realization healthy lofty generous ideal every employer every must guarantee liberty right like property labor long infringe upon right others high importance employer employee alike endeavor appreciate viewpoint sure disaster come upon long run either grows take habitual attitude sour hostility distrust toward people deserve good country representative capital labor many work continually bring good understanding kind base upon wisdom upon broad kindly sympathy employer employ need remember kind class animosity political world possible even wicked even destructive national welfare sectional race religious animosity get good government upon condition keep true principle upon nation found judge man part class upon individual merit right ask man rich poor whatever creed occupation birthplace residence shall act well honorably neighbor country neither rich man poor man upright man rich poor far constitutional power national government touch matter general vital moment nation exercise conformity principle set forth earnestly hop secretary commerce may create seat cabinet rapid multiplication question affect labor capital growth complexity organization labor capital find expression steady tendency toward employment capital huge corporation wonderful stride country toward leadership international business world justify urgent demand creation position substantially leading commercial body country unite request creation desirable measure already pass senate enact law creation department would advance toward deal exercise supervision whole subject great corporation interstate business end view congress endow department large power could increase experience might show need hope soon submit senate reciprocity treaty cuba may 20 last united state keep promise island formally vacate cuban soil turn cuba people choose first official new republic cuba lie door whatever affect good ill affect u also much people felt platt amendment definitely take ground cuba must hereafter close political relation u power thus sense cuba become part international political system make necessary return give benefit become part economic system standpoint mischievous policy fail recognize need moreover unworthy mighty generous nation great successful republic history refuse stretch help hand young weak sister republic enter upon career independence always fearlessly insist upon right face strong ungrudging hand generous duty weak urge adoption reciprocity cuba eminently interest control cuban market every mean foster supremacy tropical land water south u also giant republic north make sister nation american continent feel whenever permit desire show disinterestedly effectively friend convention great britain conclude laid senate ratification provide reciprocal trade arrangement united state newfoundland substantially line convention formerly negotiate secretary state blaine believe reciprocal trade relation greatly advantage country civilization grows warfare become less less normal condition foreign relation last century see mark diminution war civilize power war uncivilized power largely mere matter international police duty essential welfare world wherever possible arbitration similar method employ lieu war settle difficulty civilize nation although yet world progress sufficiently render possible necessarily desirable invoke arbitration every case formation international tribunal sits hague event good omen great consequence welfare mankind may flow far well possible invoke permanent tribunal create special arbitrator give purpose matter sincere congratulation country unite state mexico first use good office hague court do last summer satisfactory result case claim issue u sister republic earnestly hop first case serve precedent others united state foreign nation may take advantage machinery already existence hague commend favorable consideration congress hawaiian fire claim subject careful investigation last session congress wisely provide shall build isthmian canal possible panama report undoubtedly acquire good title french panama canal company negotiation pending colombia secure assent build canal canal one great engineering feat twentieth century great engineering feat yet accomplish history mankind work carry continuing policy without regard change administration begin circumstance make matter pride administration continue policy canal great benefit america importance world advantage u industrially also improve military position advantage country tropical america earnestly hop country already do signal success invite shore commerce improve material condition recognize stability order prerequisite successful development independent nation america need slight fear aggression unite state behove one maintain order within border discharge obligation foreigner do rest assure strong weak nothing dread outside interference increase interdependence complexity international political economic relation render incumbent civilize orderly power insist proper police world fall 1901 communication address secretary state ask whether permission would grant president corporation lay cable point california coast philippine islands way hawaii statement condition term upon corporation would undertake lay operate cable volunteer inasmuch congress shortly convene legislation subject consideration congress several year seem wise defer action upon application congress first opportunity act congress adjourn without take action leave matter exactly condition stand congress convene meanwhile appear commercial pacific cable company promptly proceed preparation lay cable also make application president access use sounding take nero purpose discover practicable route cable company urge access sounding could complete cable much sooner require take sounding upon account pending consideration subject appear important desirable attach certain condition permission examine use sounding grant consequence solicitation cable company certain condition formulate upon president willing allow access sounding consent land lay cable subject alteration addition thereto impose congress deem proper especially clear cable connection kind china foreign country part company plan course moreover accordance line precedent include president grant action case first french cable explain congress annual message december 1875 instance occur 1879 second french cable brest pierre branch cape cod condition prescribe among thing maximum rate commercial message company construct line philippine island china present well know british line manila hongkong representative cable company keep condition long consideration continue meantime prepare lay cable however length acceded line pacific coast chinese empire way honolulu philippine island thus provide expect within month ready business among condition one reserve power congress modify repeal copy condition herewith transmit porto rico necessary say prosperity island wisdom govern make serve example best insular administration july 4 last one hundred anniversary declaration independence peace amnesty promulgate philippine island trouble since time time threaten mohammedan moro late insurrectionary filipino war entirely cease civil government introduce filipino enjoy right life liberty pursuit happiness never know recorded history island people take whole enjoy measure great grant oriental foreign power great enjoy oriental government save japanese alone go far grant right liberty certainly go limit interest philippine people wise go hurry matter go faster go would entail calamity people islands policy ever enter american people vindicate signal manner policy hold philippine triumph arm triumph law principle come sooner right expect much praise give army do philippine warfare administrative standpoint prepare way civil government similar credit belongs civil authority way plant seed ground thus make ready courage unflinching endurance high soldierly efficiency general humanity troop strikingly manifest remain fifteen thousand troop islands told one hundred thousand sent course individual instance wrongdoing among warred fearful difficulty climate surroundings strain terrible provocation continually receive foe occasional instance cruel retaliation occur every effort make prevent cruelty finally effort completely successful every effort also make detect punish wrongdoer make allowance misdeed remain true indeed instance war wag civilized power semicivilized barbarous force little wrongdoing victor philippine island hand amount difficult important beneficent work do incalculable take work army civil authority together may question whether anywhere else modern time world see well example real constructive statesmanship people give philippine island high praise also give filipinos aggregate numerous accept new condition join representative work hearty good welfare island army reduce minimum allowed law small size nation certainly keep high point efficiency senior officer give scant chance ordinary condition exercise command commensurate rank circumstance would fit duty time actual war system maneuver army body little size begin steadily continue without maneuver folly expect event hostility serious foe even small army corp could handle advantage officer enlist men take hearty pride well material find must thoroughly trained individual mass marksmanship men must receive special attention circumstance modern warfare man must act far individual responsibility ever high individual efficiency unit utmost importance formerly unit regiment regiment even troop company individual soldier every effort must make develop every workmanlike soldierly quality officer enlist man urgently call attention need pass bill provide general staff reorganization supply department line bill propose secretary war last year young officer enter army west point probably stand compeer military service every effort make train reward merit scrutiny career capacity keep high relative excellence throughout career measure provide reorganization militia system secure high efficiency national guard already pass house receive prompt attention action great importance relation national guard militia volunteer force united state define place present obsolete law practical efficient system adopt provision make enable secretary war keep cavalry artillery horse long performance duty horse fetch trifle sell rather turn misery await thus dispose would well employ light work around post necessary put painlessly death first time history naval maneuver large scale hold immediate command admiral navy constantly increase attention pay gunnery navy yet far earnestly urge increase ask secretary navy appropriation improve markmanship grant battle shot count shot hit necessary provide ample fund practice great guns time peace fund must provide purchase projectile allowance prize encourage gun crew especially gun pointer perfect intelligent system alone possible get good practice halt work build navy providing every year additional fighting craft rich country vast extent territory great population country moreover army diminutive indeed compare power deliberately make certain foreign policy demand possession navy isthmian canal greatly increase efficiency navy navy sufficient size inadequate navy building canal would merely give hostage power superior strength monroe doctrine treat cardinal feature american foreign policy would worse idle assert unless intend back back thoroughly good navy good navy provocative war sure guaranty peace individual unit navy efficient kind regard material personnel find world call special attention need provide man ship serious trouble threaten u good regard secure service sufficient number high type sailormen sea mechanic veteran seaman war ship high type find navy rides water world unsurpassed dare resolution readiness thorough knowledge profession deserve every consideration show enough possible improvise crew possible improvise war ship build fine ship deadly battery send afloat raw crew matter brave individually would insure disaster foe average capacity encounter neither ship men improvise war begin need thousand additional officer order properly man ship provide construction class naval school annapolis greatly enlarge time thus add officer need facilitate retirement head list whose usefulness become impaired promotion must foster service keep efficient lamentable scarcity officer large number recruit unskilled men necessarily put aboard new vessel commission thrown upon officer especially lieutenant junior grade unusual labor fatigue gravely strain power endurance sign immediate strain must continue time long officer graduate annapolis recruit become trained skillful duty difficulty incident upon development war fleet conduct officer creditable service lieutenant junior grade particular display ability steadfast cheerfulness entitle ungrudging thanks realize dishearten trial fatigue necessity subject cloud horizon present seem slight chance trouble foreign power earnestly hope state thing may continue way insure continuance provide thoroughly efficient navy refusal maintain navy would invite trouble trouble come would insure disaster fatuous vanity refuse prepare danger foolish wicked nation past experience show fatuity refuse recognize prepare crisis advance usually succeed mad panic hysterical fear crisis actually arrive striking increase revenue department show clearly prosperity people increase activity business country receipt department fiscal year end june 30 last amounted increase precede year large increase know history postal service magnitude increase best appear fact entire postal receipt year 1860 amount rural service longer experimental stage become fixed policy result follow introduction fully justify congress large appropriation make establishment extension average yearly increase receipt rural district country two per cent able actual result show rural service establish extent enable u make comparison yearly increase upward ten per cent november 1 1902 rural route establish operation cover territory united state available rural service await action department petition application establishment additional route show conclusively want establishment service meet need extend rapidly possible justified financial result practical benefit rural population bring men live soil close relation active business world keep farmer daily touch market potential educational force enhances value farm property make farm life far pleasanter less isolated much check undesirable current country city hop congress make liberal appropriation continuance service already establish extension subject importance take congress recent year inauguration system irrigation arid region far west good begin therein make policy national irrigation adopt need thorough scientific forest protection grow rapidly ever throughout state legislation provide protection game wild creature generally forest reserve senseless slaughter game judicious protection permanently preserve national reserve people whole stop instance serious count national good sense permit present practice butcher stately beautiful creature elk antler tusk far available agriculture whatever extent may reclaim national irrigation law remain public land hold rigidly home builder settler live land one else actual use law timber stone law commutation clause homestead law pervert intention enact permit acquisition large area public domain actual settler consequent prevention settlement moreover approach exhaustion public range late lead much discussion best manner use public land west suitable chiefly graze sound steady development west depend upon build home therein much prosperity nation due operation homestead law hand recognize fact graze region man correspond homesteader may unable settle permanently allow use amount pasture land brother homesteader allow use arable land one hundred sixty acre fairly rich soil much small amount irrigate land may keep family plenty whereas one could get live one hundred sixty acre dry pasture land capable support outside one head cattle every ten acre past great tract public domain fence person title thereto direct defiance law forbid maintenance construction unlawful inclosure public land various reason little interference inclosure past ample notice give trespasser resource command government hereafter use put stop trespassing view capital importance matter commend earnest consideration congress congress find difficulty deal lack thorough knowledge subject recommend provision make commission expert specially investigate report upon complicated question involve especially urge upon congress need wise legislation alaska credit nation alaska year still poor system law case country valuable possession mineral wealth fishery furs forest also land available certain kind farm stockgrowing territory great size varied resource well fit support large permanent population alaska need good land law provision homestead encourage permanent settlement shape legislation view exploit abandon territory building home therein land law liberal type hold inducement actual settler desire see take possession country forest alaska protect secondary still important matter game also time imperative settler allow cut timber proper regulation use law enact protect alaskan salmon fishery greed would destroy preserved permanent industry food supply management control turn commission fish fishery alaska delegate congress would well congressional committee could visit alaska investigate need ground deal indian aim ultimate absorption body people many case absorption must slow portion indian territory mixture blood go time progress wealth education plenty men vary degree purity indian blood absolutely indistinguishable point social political economic ability white associate tribes yet make perceptible advance toward equality try force tribe fast prevent go forward moreover tribes live widely different condition tribe make considerable advance life fertile farm soil possible allot member land severalty much case white settler tribes course desirable arid prairie land effort induce indian lead pastoral rather agricultural life permit settle village rather force isolation large indian school situate remote indian reservation special peculiar work great importance excellent though immense amount additional work must do reservation among old among young indian first important step toward absorption indian teach earn living yet necessarily assume community indian must become either tiller soil stock raiser industry may properly diversify show special desire adaptability industrial even commercial pursuit encourage far practicable follow bent every effort make develop indian along line natural aptitude encourage exist native industry peculiar certain tribe various kind basket weave canoe building smith work blanket work indian boys girl give confident command colloquial english ordinarily prepared vigorous struggle condition people live rather immediate absorption highly developed community official represent government deal indian work hard condition also condition render easy wrong difficult detect wrong consequently amply pay one hand hand particularly high standard conduct demand misconduct proved punishment exemplary department governmental work recent year great success give scientific aid farm population thereby show efficiently help need insist upon importance welfare farmer fundamentally necessary welfare republic whole addition work quarantine animal vegetable plague war introduce much efficient help render farmer introduction new plant specially fit cultivation peculiar condition exist different portion country new cereal establish west instance practicability produce best type macaroni wheat region annual rainfall ten inch thereabouts conclusively demonstrate introduction new rice louisiana texas production rice country make equal home demand possibility regrassing overstocked range land demonstrate north many new forage crop introduce east show choice fruit store shipped way find profitable market abroad recommend favorable consideration congress plan smithsonian institution make museum charge worthy nation preserve national capital record vanish race men animal continent like buffalo soon become extinct unless specimen representative may renew sought native region maintain safety district columbia part territory national government exercise local municipal function consequence government free hand reference certain type social economic legislation must essentially local municipal character government see instance hygienic sanitary legislation affect washington high character evil slum dwelling whether shape crowd congested district type never permit grow washington city model every respect city country charitable correctional system district receive consideration hand congress end may embody result advanced thought field moreover washington great industrial city industrialism labor legislation would important might make model rest nation pas instance wise act district columbia need act railroad company district ought require law block frog law good protection live limbs railway employee pass 1893 go full effect august 1 1901 result avert thousand casualty experience show however necessity additional legislation perfect law bill provide pass senate last session hop measure may enact law grow tendency provide publication mass document public demand print real necessity large number volume turned government print press justification nothing print department unless contains something permanent value congress could advantage cut materially print become customary provide excessive cost government print strong argument position incline abstract ground advocate government work propriety leave private hand gratify progress make year extension merit system make appointment government service extend law district columbia much desire consular system establish law basis provide appointment promotion consequence prove fitness wise provision congress last session white house become disfigure incongruous addition change restore planned washington making restoration utmost care exercise come near possible early plan supplement plan careful study building university virginia build jefferson white house property nation far compatible live therein keep originally reason keep mount vernon originally stately simplicity architecture expression character period build accord purpose design serve good thing preserve building historic monument keep alive sense continuity nation past report several executive department submit congress communication