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A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 9, part 1: Benjamin Harrison

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Title: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 9, part 1: Benjamin Harrison

Author: Benjamin Harrison

Editor: James D. Richardson


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS. VOLUME 9, PART 1: BENJAMIN HARRISON ***

A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS

BY JAMES D. RICHARDSON

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

VOLUME IX

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS 1902




Prefatory Note

This volume comprises the papers of Benjamin Harrison and of Grover
Cleveland (second term). The events of these two Administrations of
eight years, though highly interesting, coming as they do down to March
4, 1897, are so recent and fresh in the public mind that I need not
comment on them.

This volume is the last of the series, except the Appendix and Index
volume. The work of compiling was begun by me in April, 1895, just after
the expiration of the Fifty-third Congress. I then anticipated that
I could complete the work easily within a year. Though I have given my
entire time to the undertaking when not engaged in my official duties as
a Representative, instead of completing it within the time mentioned it
has occupied me for nearly four years. The labor has been far greater
than the Joint Committee on Printing or I supposed it would be. I had
no idea of the difficulties to overcome in obtaining the Presidential
papers, especially the proclamations and Executive orders. In the
Prefatory Note to Volume I, I said: "I have sought to bring together
in the several volumes of the series all Presidential proclamations,
addresses, messages, and communications to Congress excepting those
nominating persons to office and those which simply transmit treaties,
and reports of heads of Departments which contain no recommendation
from the Executive." But after the appearance of Volume I, and while
preparing the contents of Volume II, I became convinced that I had made
a mistake and that the work to be exhaustive should comprise every
message of the Presidents transmitting reports of heads of Departments
and other communications, no matter how brief or unintelligible the
papers were in themselves, and that to make them intelligible I should
insert editorial footnotes explaining them. Having acted upon the other
idea in making up Volume I and a portion of Volume II, quite a number of
such brief papers were intentionally omitted. Being convinced that all
the papers of the Executives should be inserted, the plan was modified
accordingly, and the endeavor was thereafter made to publish all of
them.

In order, however, that the compilation may be "accurate and
exhaustive," I have gone back and collected all the papers--those which
should have appeared in Volumes I and II, as well as such as were
unintentionally omitted from the succeeding volumes--excepting those
simply making nominations, and shall publish them in an appendix in the
last volume. While this may occasion some little annoyance to the reader
who seeks such papers in chronological order, yet, inasmuch as they all
appear at their proper places in the alphabetical Index, it is not
believed that any serious inconvenience will result.

The editor and compiler has resorted to every possible avenue and has
spared no effort to procure all public Presidential papers from the
beginning of the Government to March 4, 1897. He has looked out for
every reference to the work in the public prints, has endeavored to read
all the criticisms made because of omissions, and has availed himself of
all the papers to which his attention has been called by anyone; has
diligently and earnestly sought for same himself, and has, as stated
above, inserted all omitted papers in the Appendix, so that he feels
warranted in saying that if he has given to the country all he could
find and all any critic or reviewer has been able to find he has done
his whole duty and reasonable complaint can not be made if any paper is
still omitted. In view of the inaccessibility of many of the messages by
reason of their not having been entered on the journals of either House
of Congress, and of the fact that the Government itself does not possess
many of the proclamations and Executive orders, it may be that there
yet can be found a few papers omitted from this work; but with much
confidence, amounting to a positive conviction, I feel that assurance
may be safely given that only a few, if any at all, have been
overlooked.

Congress in June, 1897, by law requested me to prepare an index to the
entire compilation. I am now and have been for over two years engaged in
this work. I hope to be able to give the last volume, which will include
the Appendix and Index, as above stated, to Congress and the public in
about two months. It would have been completed at this time but for the
fact that in addition to making the Index simply an index to the various
messages and other papers I have added to it the encyclopedic feature.
There will therefore be found in the Index, in alphabetical order, a
large number of encyclopedic definitions of words and phrases used by
the Chief Executives, and of other politico-historical subjects. It
is believed that this feature will not detract in any manner from the
Index, but, on the other hand, will add largely to its value and to
the value of the entire compilation.

JAMES D. RICHARDSON.

NOVEMBER 24, 1898.




Benjamin Harrison

March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893




Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison, twenty-third President of the United States, was born
at North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833. His father, John Scott Harrison,
was the third son of General William Henry Harrison, ninth President
of the United States, who was the third and youngest son of Benjamin
Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. John
Scott Harrison was twice married, his second wife being Elizabeth,
daughter of Archibald Irwin, of Mercersburg, Pa. Benjamin was the second
son of this marriage. His parents were resolutely determined upon the
education of their children, and early in childhood Benjamin was placed
under private instruction at home. In 1847 he and his elder brother were
sent to a school on what was known as College Hill, a few miles from
Cincinnati. After remaining there two years entered the junior class at
Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, where he was graduated in 1852. Was
married October 20, 1853, to Caroline Scott, daughter of Dr. John W.
Scott, who was then president of Oxford Female Seminary, from which Mrs.
Harrison was graduated in 1852. After studying law under Storer & Gwynne
in Cincinnati, Mr. Harrison was admitted to the bar in 1854, and began
the practice of his profession at Indianapolis, Ind., which has since
been his home. Was appointed crier of the Federal court, at a salary of
$2.50 per day. This was the first money he had ever earned. Jonathan
W. Gordon, one of the leaders of the Indianapolis bar, called young
Harrison to his assistance in the prosecution of a criminal tried for
burglary, and intrusted to him the plea for the State. He had taken
ample notes of the evidence, but the case was closed at night, and the
court-house being dimly lighted by tallow candles, he was unable to read
them when he arose to address the court and jury, paying them aside,
he depended entirely upon his memory and found it perfect. He made an
eloquent plea, produced a marked impression, and won the case. Since
then he has always been an impromptu speaker. Formed a partnership later
with William Wallace, but in 1860 the latter became clerk of Marion
County, and the firm was changed to Harrison & Fishback, which was
terminated by the entry of the senior partner into the Army in 1862.
Was chosen reporter of the supreme court of Indiana in 1860 on the
Republican ticket. This was his first active appearance in the political
field. When the Civil War began assisted in raising the Seventieth
Indiana Regiment of Volunteers, taking a second lieutenant's commission
and raising Company A of that regiment. Governor Morton tendered him
the command of the regiment and he was commissioned its colonel. Mr.
Harrison appointed a deputy reporter for the supreme court. In the
ensuing autumn the Democratic State committee, considering his position
as a civil officer vacated by this military appointment, nominated and
elected a successor, although his term of office had not expired. Their
view was sustained by the State supreme court; but in 1864, while
Colonel Harrison was in the Army, the people of Indiana gave their
judgment by reelecting him to the position of supreme-court reporter
by an overwhelming majority. In 1862 the Seventieth Indiana went into
the field with Harrison as its colonel, their objective point being
Bowling Green, Ky. It was brigaded with the Seventy-ninth Ohio and the
One hundred and second, One hundred and fifth, and One hundred and
twenty-ninth Illinois regiments, under Brigadier-General Ward, of
Kentucky, and this organization was kept unchanged until the close of
the war. Colonel Harrison had the right of the brigade, and his command
was occupied at first in guarding railroads and hunting guerrillas, his
energies being largely spent in drilling his men. When General Rosecrans
set out for Chattanooga General Ward was sent on duty to Nashville, and
on January 2, 1864, his command was called to the front. Later this
brigade became the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Twentieth
Army Corps, under General Hooker, General Ward resuming its command.
The campaign under General Sherman, upon which his regiment with its
associate forces entered, was directed, as is now known, against the
Confederate army of General Joseph E. Johnston, and not against any
particular place. In the Federal advance one of the severest actions was
fought at Resaca, Ga., May 14 and 15, 1864, and the Seventieth Indiana
led the assault. His regiment participated in the fights at New Hope
Church and at Golgotha Church, Kenesaw Mountain, and Peach Tree Creek.
When Atlanta was taken by Sherman, September 2, 1864, Colonel Harrison
received his first furlough to visit home, being assigned to special
duty in a canvass of the State to recruit for the forces in the field.
Returning to Chattanooga and then to Nashville, he was placed in command
of a provisional brigade held in reserve at the battle at the latter
place (December 15 and 16, 1864), and was but little engaged. When the
fight was over he was sent in pursuit of the Confederate general Hood.
Recalled from that pursuit, was next ordered to report to General
Sherman at Savannah. While passing through New York he succumbed to an
attack of scarlet fever, but in a few weeks was able to proceed on his
way. Joining Sherman at Goldsboro, N.C., resumed command of his old
brigade, and at the close of the war went with it to Washington to take
part in the grand review of the armies. Was duly mustered out of the
service June 8, 1865, not, however, until he had received a commission
as brevet brigadier-general, dated January 23, 1865. Returning to
Indianapolis after the war, resumed his office of reporter of the
supreme court, but in 1867 declined a renomination, preferring to devote
himself exclusively to the practice of law. Became a member of the
firm of Porter, Harrison & Fishback, and, after subsequent changes,
of that of Harrison, Miller & Elam. Took part in 1868 and 1872 in the
Presidential campaigns in support of General Grant, traveling over
Indiana and speaking to large audiences. In 1876 at first declined a
nomination for governor on the Republican ticket, consenting to run only
after the regular nominee had withdrawn. In this contest he received
almost 2,000 more votes than his associates, but was defeated. Was a
member of the Mississippi River Commission in 1879. In 1880, as chairman
of the Indiana delegation in the Republican national convention, he cast
nearly the entire vote of the State for James A. Garfield for President.
President Garfield offered him a place in his Cabinet, but he declined
it, preferring the United States Senatorship from Indiana, to which
he had just been chosen, and which he held from 1881 to 1887. In the
Senate he advocated the tariff views of his party, opposed President
Cleveland's vetoes of pension bills, urged the reconstruction and
upbuilding of the Navy, and labored and voted for civil-service reform.
Was a delegate at large to the Republican national convention in 1884,
and in 1888 at Chicago was nominated for the Presidency on the eighth
ballot. The nomination was made unanimous, and in November he was
elected, receiving 233 electoral votes to 168 for Grover Cleveland.
Was inaugurated March 4, 1889. Was again nominated for the Presidency
at the national Republican convention which met at Minneapolis in 1892,
but was defeated at the November election, receiving 145 electoral
votes, against 276 votes for Grover Cleveland. Upon his retiring from
office located at Indianapolis, Ind., where he now resides.

       *       *       *       *       *




INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

FELLOW CITIZENS: There is no constitutional or legal requirement that
the President shall take the oath of office in the presence of the
people, but there is so manifest an appropriateness in the public
induction to office of the chief executive officer of the nation that
from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose service the
official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness the
solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes
a mutual covenant. The officer covenants to serve the whole body of the
people by a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the
unfailing defense and security of those who respect and observe them,
and that neither wealth, station, nor the power of combinations shall be
able to evade their just penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent
public purpose to serve the ends of cruelty or selfishness.

My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn.
The people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do
not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the
whole body of the people covenant with me and with each other to-day
to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to
yield willing obedience to all the laws and each to every other citizen
his equal civil and political rights. Entering thus solemnly into
covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke and confidently
expect the favor and help of Almighty God--that He will give to me
wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity
and a love of righteousness and peace.

This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the
Presidential term which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our
Constitution. The first inauguration of President Washington took place
in New York, where Congress was then sitting, on the 30th day of
April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of delays attending the
organization of the Congress and the canvass of the electoral vote. Our
people have already worthily observed the centennials of the Declaration
of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of the
Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of
the second great department of our constitutional scheme of government.
When the centennial of the institution of the judicial department,
by the organization of the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably
observed, as I trust it will be, our nation will have fully entered
its second century.

I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great part happy
contrasts between our country as it steps over the threshold into its
second century of organized existence under the Constitution and that
weak but wisely ordered young nation that looked undauntedly down the
first century, when all its years stretched out before it.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which
accompanied the institution of government under the Constitution, or to
find inspiration and guidance in the teachings and example of Washington
and his great associates, and hope and courage in the contrast which
thirty-eight populous and prosperous States offer to the thirteen
States, weak in everything except courage and the love of liberty, that
then fringed our Atlantic seaboard.

The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the
original States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of
five of the smaller States in 1790. The center of population when our
national capital was located was east of Baltimore, and it was argued
by many well-informed persons that it would move eastward rather than
westward; yet in 1880 it was found to be near Cincinnati, and the new
census about to be taken will show another stride to the westward. That
which was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the nation's
robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory, population, and
aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been in each of those directions.
The masses of our people are better fed, clothed, and housed than their
fathers were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly
enlarged and more generally diffused.

The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of their
continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the
lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied
and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have greatly increased.
The virtue of temperance is held in higher estimation. We have not
attained an ideal condition. Not all of our people are happy and
prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But on the
whole the opportunities offered to the individual to secure the comforts
of life are better than are found elsewhere and largely better than they
were here one hundred years ago.

The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General
Government, effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not
accomplished until the suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced
by the more imperative voice of experience. The divergent interests
of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect union," The merchant,
the shipmaster, and the manufacturer discovered and disclosed to our
statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must be added
to the political freedom which had been so bravely won. The commercial
policy of the mother country had not relaxed any of its hard and
oppressive features. To hold in check the development of our commercial
marine, to prevent or retard the establishment and growth of
manufactures in the States, and so to secure the American market for
their shops and the carrying trade for their ships, was the policy of
European statesmen, and was pursued with the most selfish vigor.

Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of
discriminating duties that should encourage the production of needed
things at home. The patriotism of the people, which no longer found a
field of exercise in war, was energetically directed to the duty of
equipping the young Republic for the defense of its independence by
making its people self-dependent. Societies for the promotion of home
manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of
the people were organized in many of the States. The revival at the end
of the century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation and
development of domestic industries and the defense of our working
people against injurious foreign competition is an incident worthy of
attention. It is not a departure but a return that we have witnessed.
The protective policy had then its opponents. The argument was made,
as now, that its benefits inured to particular classes or sections.

If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it was
only because slavery existed in some of the States. But for this there
was no reason why the cotton-producing States should not have led or
walked abreast with the New England States in the production of cotton
fabrics. There was this reason only why the States that divide with
Pennsylvania the mineral treasures of the great southeastern and
central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in bringing to the
smelting furnace and to the mill the coal and iron from their near
opposing hillsides. Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of
slavery. The emancipation proclamation was heard in the depths of the
earth as well as in the sky; men were made free, and material things
became our better servants.

The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff
discussion. We have no longer States that are necessarily only planting
States. None are excluded from achieving that diversification of
pursuits among the people which brings wealth and contentment. The
cotton plantation will not be less valuable when the product is spun in
the country town by operatives whose necessities call for diversified
crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural products.
Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive
capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the
skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no
longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their
communities? I look hopefully to the continuance of our protective
system and to the consequent development of manufacturing and mining
enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to agriculture as a
potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who
have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have
felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in shop or
field will not fail to find and to defend a community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the
great mining and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been
established in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the
workingman, without distinction of race, is needed for their defense as
well as for his own? I do not doubt that if those men in the South who
now accept the tariff views of Clay and the constitutional expositions
of Webster would courageously avow and defend their real convictions
they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and
cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not
only in establishing correct principles in our national administration,
but in preserving for their local communities the benefits of social
order and economical and honest government. At least until the good
offices of kindness and education have been fairly tried the contrary
conclusion can not be plausibly urged.

I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive policy
for any section of our country. It is the duty of the Executive to
administer and enforce in the methods and by the instrumentalities
pointed out and provided by the Constitution all the laws enacted by
Congress. These laws are general and their administration should be
uniform and equal. As a citizen may not elect what laws he will obey,
neither may the Executive elect which he will enforce. The duty to
obey and to execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the
whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting
individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because
they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of
danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use
this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain
an unjust advantage over others. They will presently themselves be
compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use
the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal
limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the
unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with
their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret, among
its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain rights
under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order and
prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes
those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by
it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose
breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of
dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if
moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may
well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.

An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of
government. If the educated and influential classes in a community
either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that
seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when the
lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient
cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the ignorant classes?
A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not
mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business
investments and honest labor.

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry
into the character and good disposition of persons applying for
citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in
their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form.
We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness,
and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any knowledge as to
what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and
its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of
every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of
our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration,
but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. There are
men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden
upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be
identified and excluded.

We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with
European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their
contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices
to promote peace, but never obtruding our advice and never attempting
unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial
advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that our
European policy will be the American policy of European courts.

It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace
and safety which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in
matters affecting them that a shorter waterway between our eastern and
western seaboards should be dominated by any European Government that
we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained
by any friendly power.

We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to maintain
and enlarge our friendly relations with all the great powers, but they
will not expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave
us subject to the dangers of a hostile observation or environment. We
have not sought to dominate or to absorb any of our weaker neighbors,
but rather to aid and encourage them to establish free and stable
governments resting upon the consent of their own people. We have a
clear right to expect, therefore, that no European Government will
seek to establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these
independent American States. That which a sense of justice restrains
us from seeking they may be reasonably expected willingly to forego.

It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so exclusively
American that our entire inattention to any events that may transpire
elsewhere can be taken for granted. Our citizens domiciled for purposes
of trade in all countries and in many of the islands of the sea demand
and will have our adequate care in their personal and commercial
rights. The necessities of our Navy require convenient coaling stations
and dock and harbor privileges. These and other trading privileges
we will feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any degree
partake of coercion, however feeble the government from which we ask
such concessions. But having fairly obtained them by methods and for
purposes entirely consistent with the most friendly disposition toward
all other powers, our consent will be necessary to any modification or
impairment of the concession.

We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation or the
just rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like treatment for our
own. Calmness, justice, and consideration should characterize our
diplomacy. The offices of an intelligent diplomacy or of friendly
arbitration in proper cases should be adequate to the peaceful
adjustment of all international difficulties. By such methods we will
make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation values more
highly, and avoid the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation that
ruthlessly breaks it.

The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public
officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the
Constitution or by act of Congress has become very burdensome and its
wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty. The civil list is so
large that a personal knowledge of any large number of the applicants
is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of
others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just
sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those
who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall
exercise consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an
ambition to improve the service should characterize all public
officers.

There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of those who
have business with our public offices may be promoted by a thoughtful
and obliging officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to
justify their selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of
their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed
by me a disqualification for public office, but it will in no case be
allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or
delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper
methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated
with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments will
need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will
not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads
of Departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty
connected therewith will be expected to enforce the civil-service
law fully and without evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do
something more to advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal,
or even my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be
a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall not, however, I am
sure, be able to put our civil service upon a nonpartisan basis until
we have secured an incumbency that fair-minded men of the opposition
will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in
the civil list is increased removals from office will diminish.

While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious
evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands
upon our Treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but
scarcely less imperative demands which arise now and then. Expenditure
should always be made with economy and only upon public necessity.
Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in public expenditures is
criminal. But there is nothing in the condition of our country or of
our people to suggest that anything presently necessary to the public
prosperity, security, or honor should be unduly postponed.

It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate
these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary
expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual
surplus will remain. We will fortunately be able to apply to the
redemption of the public debt any small and unforeseen excess of
revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below our necessary
expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of our
revenue laws and an increase of the public debt. It is quite possible,
I am sure, to effect the necessary reduction in our revenues without
breaking down our protective tariff or seriously injuring any domestic
industry.

The construction of a sufficient number of modern war ships and of
their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent
with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage,
and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times in our
history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly
beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion
I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to
be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should
encourage the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges
of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of communication,
and until these are provided the development of our trade with the
States lying south of us is impossible.

Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating relief to
the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. Such
occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their
valor and sacrifice.

It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of the
admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and Washington
Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the
case of some of them. The people who have settled these Territories are
intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic, and the accession of these
new States will add strength to the nation. It is due to the settlers
in the Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of
our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their titles
should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries confirmed by
patent.

It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being
manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for
years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the
ballot box and about the elector further safeguards, in order that our
elections might not only be free and pure, but might clearly appear to
be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not so soon discover
the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken control
of elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it
jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the
several States, provided penalties for their violation and a method
of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws or an unfair
partisan administration of them could suggest a departure from this
policy.

It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the
Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was
wisely made for it. The freedom of the ballot is a condition of our
national life, and no power vested in Congress or in the Executive to
secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion. The people
of all the Congressional districts have an equal interest that the
election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority
of the qualified electors residing within it. The results of such
elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing in
other districts that they shall be pure and free does not savor at all
of impertinence.

If in any of the States the public security is thought to be threatened
by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy is education. The
sympathy and help of our people will not be withheld from any community
struggling with special embarrassments or difficulties connected with
the suffrage if the remedies proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are
promoted by just and honorable methods. How shall those who practice
election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot
which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The
man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has
renounced his allegiance.

Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let those
who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof
of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting
fraternity and justice. A party success that is achieved by unfair
methods or by practices that partake of revolution is hurtful and
evanescent even from a party standpoint. We should hold our differing
opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the
arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the
same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the
decision had been in our favor.

No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love
or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so
full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed
upon our head a diadem and has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond
definition or calculation. But we must not forget that we take these
gifts upon the condition that justice and mercy shall hold the reins
of power and that the upward avenues of hope shall be free to all the
people.

I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent
ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all.
Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new
demonstration that the great body of our people are stable, patriotic,
and law-abiding. No political party can long pursue advantage at the
expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods without protest
and fatal disaffection in its own body. The peaceful agencies of
commerce are more fully revealing the necessary unity of all our
communities, and the increasing intercourse of our people is promoting
mutual respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation
which our next census will make of the swift development of the great
resources of some of the States. Each State will bring its generous
contribution to the great aggregate of the nation's increase. And when
the harvests from the fields, the cattle from the hills, and the ores
of the earth shall have been weighed, counted, and valued, we will turn
from them all to crown with the highest honor the State that has most
promoted education, virtue, justice, and patriotism among its people.

MARCH 4, 1889.




SPECIAL MESSAGE.


EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 17, 1889_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith, in answer to the Senate resolution of the 11th
ultimo, a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,
in regard to the case of Louis Riel, otherwise known as Louis David
Riel.[1]

BENJ. HARRISON.

[Footnote 1: Tried and executed by the authorities of British North
America for complicity in the rebellion in the Northwest Territory.]




PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

The following provisions of the laws of the United States are hereby
published for the information of all concerned:

Section 1956, Revised Statutes, chapter 3, Title XXIII, enacts that--

  No person shall kill any otter, mink, marten, sable, or fur seal, or
  other fur-bearing animal within the limits of Alaska Territory or in
  the waters thereof; and every person guilty thereof shall for each
  offense be fined not less than $200 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned
  not more than six months, or both; and all vessels, their tackle,
  apparel, furniture, and cargo, found engaged in violation of this
  section shall be forfeited; but the Secretary of the Treasury shall
  have power to authorize the killing of any such mink, marten, sable, or
  other fur-bearing animal, except fur seals, under such regulations as
  he may prescribe; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary to prevent
  the killing of any fur seal and to provide for the execution of the
  provisions of this section until it is otherwise provided by law, nor
  shall he grant any special privileges under this section.

       *       *       *       *       *

Section 3 of the act entitled "An act to provide for the protection
of the salmon fisheries of Alaska," approved March 2, 1889, provides
that--

  Sec. 3. That section 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United
  States is hereby declared to include and apply to all the dominion of
  the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, and it shall be the
  duty of the President at a timely season in each year to issue his
  proclamation, and cause the same to be published for one month in at
  least one newspaper (if any such there be) published at each United
  States port of entry on the Pacific coast, warning all persons against
  entering such waters for the purpose of violating the provisions of
  said section, and he shall also cause one or more vessels of the United
  States to diligently cruise said waters and arrest all persons and
  seize all vessels found to be or to have been engaged in any violation
  of the laws of the United States therein.


Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States,
pursuant to the above-recited statutes, hereby warn all persons against
entering the waters of Bering Sea within the dominion of the United
States for the purpose of violating the provisions of said section
1956, Revised Statutes; and I hereby proclaim that all persons found
to be or have been engaged in any violation of the laws of the United
States in said waters will be arrested and punished as above provided,
and that all vessels so employed, their tackle, apparel, furniture,
and cargoes, will be seized and forfeited.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of March, 1889, and of
the Independence of the United States the one hundred and thirteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, pursuant to section 8 of the act of Congress approved March 3,
1885, entitled "An act making appropriations for the current and
contingent expenses of the Indian Department and for fulfilling treaty
stipulations with various Indian tribes for the year ending June 30,
1886, and for other purposes," certain articles of cession and
agreement were made and concluded at the city of Washington on the 19th
day of January, A.D. 1889, by and between the United States of America
and the Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians, whereby the said
Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of Indians, for the consideration therein
mentioned, ceded and granted to the United States, without reservation
or condition, full and complete title to the entire western half of the
domain of the said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation in the Indian Territory,
lying west of the division line surveyed and established under the
treaty with said nation dated the 14th day of June, 1866, and also
granted and released to the United States all and every claim, estate,
right, or interest of any and every description in and to any and all
land and territory whatever, except so much of the former domain of
said Muscogee (or Creek) Nation as lies east of said line of division
surveyed and established as aforesaid, and then used and occupied as
the home of said nation, and which articles of cession and agreement
were duly accepted, ratified, and confirmed by said Muscogee (or Creek)
Nation of Indians by act of its council approved on the 31st day of
January, 1889, and by the United States by act of Congress approved
March 1, 1889; and

Whereas by section 12 of the act entitled "An act making appropriations
for the current and contingent expenses of the Indian Department and
for fulfilling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes for the
year ending June 30, 1890, and for other purposes," approved March 2,
1889, a sum of money was appropriated to pay in full the Seminole
Nation of Indians for all the right, title, interest, and claim which
said nation of Indians might have in and to certain lands ceded by
article 3 of the treaty between the United States and said nation of
Indians concluded June 14, 1866, and proclaimed August 16, 1866, said
appropriation to become operative upon the execution by the duly
appointed delegates of said nation specially empowered to do so of
a release and conveyance to the United States of all right, title,
interest, and claim of said nation of Indians in and to said lands in
manner and form satisfactory to the President of the United States; and

Whereas said release and conveyance, bearing date the 16th day of
March, 1889, has been duly and fully executed, approved, and delivered;
and

Whereas section 13 of the act last aforesaid, relating to said lands,
provides as follows:

  SEC. 13. That the lands acquired by the United States under said
  agreement shall be a part of the public domain, to be disposed of only
  as herein provided; and sections 16 and 36 of each township, whether
  surveyed or unsurveyed, are hereby reserved for the use and benefit of
  the public schools to be established within the limits of said lands
  under such conditions and regulations as may be hereafter enacted by
  Congress.

  That the lands acquired by conveyance from the Seminole Indians
  hereunder, except the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, shall be
  disposed of to actual settlers under the homestead laws only, except
  as herein otherwise provided (except that section 2301 of the Revised
  Statutes shall not apply): _And provided further_, That any person
  who, having attempted to but for any cause failed to secure a title
  in fee to a homestead under existing law, or who made entry under
  what is known as the commuted provision of the homestead law, shall
  be qualified to make a homestead entry upon said lands: _And provided
  further_, That the rights of honorably discharged Union soldiers and
  sailors in the late Civil War as defined and described in sections 2304
  and 2305 of the Revised Statutes shall not be abridged: _And provided
  further_, That each entry shall be in square form as nearly as
  practicable, and no person be permitted to enter more than one quarter
  section thereof, but until said lands are opened for settlement by
  proclamation of the President no person shall be permitted to enter
  upon and occupy the same, and no person violating this provision shall
  ever be permitted to enter any of said lands or acquire any right
  thereto.

  The Secretary of the Interior may, after said proclamation and not
  before, permit entry of said lands for town sites, under sections 2387
  and 2388 of the Revised Statutes, but no such entry shall embrace more
  than one half section of land.

  That all the foregoing provisions with reference to lands to be
  acquired from the Seminole Indians, including the provisions pertaining
  to forfeiture, shall apply to and regulate the disposal of the lands
  acquired from the Muscogee (or Creek) Indians by articles of cession
  and agreement made and concluded at the city of Washington on the 19th
  day of January, A.D. 1889.


Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States,
by virtue of the power in me vested by said act of Congress approved
March 2, 1889, aforesaid, do hereby declare and make known that so much
of the lands as aforesaid acquired from or conveyed by the Muscogee (or
Creek) Nation of Indians and from or by the Seminole Nation of Indians,
respectively, as is contained within the following-described
boundaries, viz:

Beginning at a point where the degree of longitude 98 west from
Greenwich, as surveyed in the years 1858 and 1871, intersects the
Canadian River; thence north along and with the said degree to a point
where the same intersects the Cimarron River; thence up said river,
along the right bank thereof, to a point where the same is intersected
by the south line of what is known as the Cherokee lands lying west of
the Arkansas River, or as the "Cherokee Outlet," said line being the
north line of the lands ceded by the Muscogee (or Creek) Nation of
Indians to the United States by the treaty of June 14, 1866; thence
east along said line to a point where the same intersects the west line
of the lands set apart as a reservation for the Pawnee Indians by act
of Congress approved April 10, 1876, being the range line between
ranges 4 and 5 east of the Indian meridian; thence south on said line
to a point where the same intersects the middle of the main channel of
the Cimarron River; thence up said river, along the middle of the main
channel thereof, to a point where the same intersects the range line
between range 1 east and range 1 west (being the Indian meridian),
which line forms the western boundary of the reservations set apart,
respectively, for the Iowa and Kickapoo Indians by Executive orders
dated, respectively, August 15, 1883; thence south along said range
line or meridian to a point where the same intersects the right bank
of the North Fork of the Canadian River; thence up said river, along
the right bank thereof, to a point where the same is intersected
by the west line of the reservation occupied by the Citizen band of
Pottawatomies and the Absentee Shawnee Indians, set apart under the
provisions of the treaty of February 27, 1867, between the United
States and the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians, and referred to in the
act of Congress approved May 23, 1872; thence south along the said west
line of the aforesaid reservation to a point where the same intersects
the middle of the main channel of the Canadian River; thence up the
said river, along the middle of the main channel thereof, to a point
opposite to the place of beginning, and thence north to the place of
beginning (saving and excepting 1 acre of land in square form in the
northwest corner of section 9, in township 16 north, range 2 west of
the Indian meridian in Indian Territory, and also 1 acre of land in the
southeast corner of the northwest quarter of section 15, township 16
north, range 7 west of the Indian meridian in the Indian Territory,
which last-described 2 acres are hereby reserved for Government use and
control), will, at and after the hour of 12 o'clock noon of the 22d day
of April next, and not before, be open for settlement, under the terms
of and subject to all the conditions, limitations, and restrictions
contained in said act of Congress approved March 2, 1889, and the laws
of the United States applicable thereto.

And it is hereby expressly declared and made known that no other
parts or portions of the lands embraced within the Indian Territory
than those herein specifically described and declared to be open to
settlement at the time above named and fixed are to be considered as
open to settlement under this proclamation or the act of March 2, 1889,
aforesaid.

And warning is hereby again expressly given that no person entering
upon and occupying said lands before said hour of 12 o'clock noon of
the 22d day of April, A.D. 1889, hereinbefore fixed, will ever be
permitted to enter any of said lands or acquire any rights thereto, and
that the officers of the United States will be required to strictly
enforce the provision of the act of Congress to the above effect.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 23d day of March, A.D. 1889, and
of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and
thirteenth.

[SEAL.]

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

A hundred years have passed since the Government which our forefathers
founded was formally organized. At noon on the 30th day of April, 1789,
in the city of New York, and in the presence of an assemblage of the
heroic men whose patriotic devotion had led the colonies to victory and
independence, George Washington took the oath of office as Chief
Magistrate of the new-born Republic. This impressive act was preceded
at 9 o'clock in the morning in all the churches of the city by prayer
for God's blessing on the Government and its first President.

The centennial of this illustrious event in our history has been
declared a general holiday by act of Congress, to the end that the
people of the whole country may join in commemorative exercises
appropriate to the day.

In order that the joy of the occasion may be associated with a deep
thankfulness in the minds of the people for all our blessings in the
past and a devout supplication to God for their gracious continuance in
the future, the representatives of the religious creeds, both Christian
and Hebrew, have memorialized the Government to designate an hour for
prayer and thanksgiving on that day.

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, in response to this pious and reasonable request, do recommend
that on Tuesday, April 30, at the hour of 9 o'clock in the morning,
the people of the entire country repair to their respective places
of divine worship to implore the favor of God that the blessings of
liberty, prosperity, and peace may abide with us as a people, and that
His hand may lead us in the paths of righteousness and good deeds.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States of America to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done in the city of Washington, this 4th day of April, A.D. 1889, and
of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and
thirteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

A highly favored people, mindful of their dependence on the bounty of
Divine Providence, should seek fitting occasion to testify gratitude
and ascribe praise to Him who is the author of their many blessings.
It behooves us, then, to look back with thankful hearts over the past
year and bless God for His infinite mercy in vouchsafing to our land
enduring peace, to our people freedom from pestilence and famine, to
our husbandmen abundant harvests, and to them that labor a recompense
of their toil.

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States
of America, do earnestly recommend that Thursday, the 28th day of
this present month of November, be set apart as a day of national
thanksgiving and prayer, and that the people of our country, ceasing
from the cares and labors of their working day, shall assemble in their
respective places of worship and give thanks to God, who has prospered
us on our way and made our paths the paths of peace, beseeching Him to
bless the day to our present and future good, making it truly one of
thanksgiving for each reunited home circle as for the nation at large.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 1st day of November, A.D. 1889,
and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and
fourteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 22d day of February, 1889, provide that the inhabitants of the
Territory of Dakota might upon the conditions prescribed in said act
become the States of North Dakota and South Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the area comprising the
Territory of Dakota should for the purposes of the act be divided on
the line of the seventh standard parallel produced due west to the
western boundary of said Territory, and that the delegates elected as
therein provided to the constitutional convention in districts north of
said parallel should assemble in convention at the time prescribed in
the act at the city of Bismarck; and

Whereas it was provided by the said act that the delegates elected as
aforesaid should, after they had met and organized, declare on behalf
of the people of North Dakota that they adopt the Constitution of the
United States, whereupon the said convention should be authorized to
form a constitution and State government for the proposed State of
North Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution so adopted
should be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or
political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not
taxed, and not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the
convention should, by an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of
the United States and the people of said States, make certain
provisions prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitutions of North
Dakota and South Dakota should, respectively, incorporate an agreement,
to be reached in accordance with the provision of the act, for an
equitable division of all property belonging to the Territory of
Dakota, the disposition of all public records, and also for the
apportionment of the debts and liabilities of said Territory, and that
each of said States should obligate itself to pay its proportion of
such debts and liabilities the same as if they had been created by such
States, respectively; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution thus
formed for the people of North Dakota should, by an ordinance of the
convention forming the same, be submitted to the people of North Dakota
at an election to be held therein on the first Tuesday in October,
1889, for ratification or rejection by the qualified voters of said
proposed State, and that the returns of said election should be made to
the secretary of the Territory of Dakota, who, with the governor and
chief justice thereof, or any two of them, should canvass the same, and
if a majority of the legal votes cast should be for the constitution
the governor should certify the result to the President of the United
States, together with a statement of the votes cast thereon and upon
separate articles or propositions, and a copy of said constitution,
articles, propositions, and ordinances; and

Whereas it has been certified to me by the governor of the Territory
of Dakota that within the time prescribed by said act of Congress a
constitution for the proposed State of North Dakota has been adopted
and the same ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of said
proposed State in accordance with the conditions prescribed in said
act; and

Whereas it is also certified to me by the said governor that at the
same time that the body of said constitution was submitted to a vote of
the people a separate article, numbered 20 and entitled "Prohibition,"
was also submitted and received a majority of all the votes cast for
and against said article, as well as a majority of all the votes cast
for and against the constitution, and was adopted; and

Whereas a duly authenticated copy of said constitution, article,
ordinances, and propositions, as required by said act, has been
received by me:

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, do, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress
aforesaid, declare and proclaim the fact that the conditions imposed
by Congress on the State of North Dakota to entitle that State to
admission to the Union have been ratified and accepted and that the
admission of the said State into the Union is now complete.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 2d day of November, A.D. 1889, and
of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and
fourteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 22d day of February, 1889, provide that the inhabitants of the
Territory of Dakota might upon the conditions prescribed in the said
act become the States of North Dakota and South Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the area comprising the
Territory of Dakota should for the purposes of the act be divided on
the line of the seventh standard parallel produced due west to the
western boundary of said Territory, and that the delegates elected as
therein provided to the constitutional convention in districts south of
said parallel should at the time prescribed in the act assemble in
convention at the city of Sioux Falls; and

Whereas it was provided by the said act that the delegates elected as
aforesaid should, after they had met and organized, declare on behalf
of the people of South Dakota that they adopt the Constitution of the
United States, whereupon the said convention should be authorized to
form a constitution and State government for the proposed State of
South Dakota; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution so adopted
should be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or
political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not
taxed, and not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the
convention should, by an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of
the United States and the people of said States, make certain
provisions prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitutions of North
Dakota and South Dakota should, respectively, incorporate an agreement,
to be reached in accordance with the provisions of the act, for an
equitable division of all property belonging to the Territory of
Dakota, the disposition of all public records, and also for the
apportionment of the debts and liabilities of said Territory, and that
each of said States should obligate itself to pay its proportion of
such debts and liabilities the same as if they had been created by such
States respectively; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that at the election for delegates
to the constitutional convention in South Dakota, as therein provided,
each elector might have written or printed on his ballot the words
"For the Sioux Falls constitution" or the words "Against the Sioux
Falls constitution;" that the votes on this question should be returned
and canvassed in the same manner as the votes for the election of
delegates, and if a majority of all votes cast on this question should
be "For the Sioux Falls constitution" it should be the duty of the
convention which might assemble at Sioux Falls, as provided in the
act, to resubmit to the people of South Dakota, for ratification or
rejection, at an election provided for in said act, the constitution
framed at Sioux Falls and adopted November 3, 1885, and also the
articles and propositions separately submitted at that election,
including the question of locating the temporary seat of government,
with such changes only as related to the name and boundary of the
proposed State, to the reapportionment of the judicial and legislative
districts, and such amendments as might be necessary in order to comply
with the provisions of the act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution formed for
the people of South Dakota should, by an ordinance of the convention
forming the same, be submitted to the people of South Dakota at an
election to be held therein on the first Tuesday in October, 1889, for
ratification or rejection by the qualified voters of said proposed
State, and that the returns of said election should be made to the
secretary of the Territory of Dakota, who, with the governor and chief
justice thereof, or any two of them, should canvass the same, and if
a majority of the legal votes cast should be for the constitution the
governor should certify the result to the President of the United
States, together with a statement of the votes cast thereon and upon
separate articles or propositions, and a copy of said constitution,
articles, propositions, and ordinances; and

Whereas it has been certified to me by the governor of the Territory of
Dakota that at the aforesaid election for delegates the "Sioux Falls
constitution" was submitted to the people of the proposed State of
South Dakota, as provided in the said act; that a majority of all the
votes cast on this question was "For the Sioux Falls constitution,"
and that the said constitution was at the time prescribed in the act
resubmitted to the people of South Dakota, with proper changes and
amendments, and has been adopted and ratified by a majority of the
qualified voters of said proposed State in accordance with the
conditions prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it is also certified to me by the said governor that at the
same time that the body of said constitution was submitted to a vote
of the people two additional articles were submitted separately, to
wit, an article numbered 24, entitled "Prohibition," which received a
majority of all the votes cast for and against said article, as well
as a majority of all the votes cast for and against the constitution,
and was adopted; and an article numbered 25, entitled "Minority
representation," which did not receive a majority of the votes cast
thereon or upon the constitution, and was rejected; and

Whereas a duly authenticated copy of said constitution, additional
articles, ordinances, and propositions, as required by said act, has
been received by me:

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, do, in accordance with the act of Congress aforesaid, declare
and proclaim the fact that the conditions imposed by Congress on the
State of South Dakota to entitle that State to admission to the Union
have been ratified and accepted and that the admission of the said
State into the Union is now complete.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 2d day of November, A.D. 1889, and
of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and
fourteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 22d day of February, 1889, provide that the inhabitants of the
Territory of Montana might upon the conditions prescribed in said act
become the State of Montana; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that delegates elected as therein
provided to a constitutional convention in the Territory of Montana
should meet at the seat of government of said Territory, and that after
they had met and organized they should declare on behalf of the people
of Montana that they adopt the Constitution of the United States,
whereupon the said convention should be authorized to form a State
government for the proposed State of Montana; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution so adopted
should be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or
political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not
taxed, and not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the
convention should, by an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of
the United States and the people of said State, make certain provisions
prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution thus formed
for the people of Montana should, by an ordinance of the convention
forming the same, be submitted to the people of Montana at an election
to be held therein on the 1st Tuesday in October, 1889, for
ratification or rejection by the qualified voters of said proposed
State, and that the returns of said election should be made to the
secretary of said Territory, who, with the governor and chief justice
thereof, or any two of them, should canvass the same, and if a majority
of the legal votes cast should be for the constitution the governor
should certify the result to the President of the United States,
together with a statement of the votes cast thereon and upon separate
articles or propositions, and a copy of said constitution, articles,
propositions, and ordinances; and

Whereas it has been certified to me by the governor of said Territory
that within the time prescribed by said act of Congress a constitution
for the proposed State of Montana has been adopted, and that the same,
together with two ordinances connected therewith, has been ratified by
a majority of the qualified voters of said proposed State in accordance
with the conditions prescribed in said act; and

Whereas a duly authenticated copy of said constitution and ordinances,
as required by said act, has been received by me:

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, do, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress
aforesaid, declare and proclaim the fact that the conditions imposed by
Congress on the State of Montana to entitle that State to admission to
the Union have been ratified and accepted and that the admission of the
said State into the Union is now complete.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 8th day of November, A.D. 1889,
and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred
and fourteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 22d day of February, 1889, provide that the inhabitants of the
Territory of Washington might upon the conditions prescribed in said
act become the State of Washington; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that delegates elected as therein
provided to a constitutional convention in the Territory of Washington
should meet at the seat of government of said Territory, and that after
they had met and organized they should declare on behalf of the people
of Washington that they adopt the Constitution of the United States,
whereupon the said convention should be authorized to form a State
government for the proposed State of Washington; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution so adopted
should be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or
political rights on account of race or color, except as to Indians not
taxed, and not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States
and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the
convention should, by an ordinance irrevocable without the consent of
the United States and the people of said State, make certain provisions
prescribed in said act; and

Whereas it was provided by said act that the constitution thus formed
for the people of Washington should, by an ordinance of the convention
forming the same, be submitted to the people of Washington at an
election to be held therein on the first Tuesday in October, 1889, for
ratification or rejection by the qualified voters of said proposed
State, and that the returns of said election should be made to the
secretary of said Territory, who, with the governor and chief justice
thereof, or any two of them, should canvass the same, and if a majority
of the legal votes cast should be for the constitution the governor
should certify the result to the President of the United States,
together with a statement of the votes cast thereon and upon separate
articles or propositions, and a copy of said constitution, articles,
propositions, and ordinances; and

Whereas it has been certified to me by the governor of said Territory
that within the time prescribed by said act of Congress a constitution
for the proposed State of Washington has been adopted, and that the
same has been ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of said
proposed State in accordance with the conditions prescribed in said
act; and

Whereas it is also certified to me by the said governor that at the
same time the body of said constitution was submitted to a vote
of the people two separate articles, entitled "Woman suffrage" and
"Prohibition," were likewise submitted, which said separate articles
did not receive a majority of the votes cast thereon or upon the
constitution, and were rejected; also that at the same election the
question of the location of a permanent seat of government was so
submitted, and that no place received a majority of all the votes
cast upon said question; and

Whereas a duly authenticated copy of said constitution and articles,
as required by said act, has been received by me:

Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States of
America, do, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress
aforesaid, declare and proclaim the fact that the conditions imposed by
Congress on the State of Washington to entitle that State to admission
to the Union have been ratified and accepted and that the admission of
the said State into the Union is now complete.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 11th day of November, A.D. 1889,
and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred
and fourteenth.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  JAMES G. BLAINE,
    _Secretary of State_.




EXECUTIVE ORDERS.


EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, March 11, 1889_.

Whereas civil-service rules for the railway mail service were approved
January 4, 1889, to go into effect March 15, 1889; and

Whereas it is represented to me by the Civil Service Commission in a
communication of this date that it will be impossible to complete
arrangements for putting said rules into full effect on said date, or
sooner than May 1, 1889:

_It is therefore ordered_, That said railway mail rules shall take
effect May 1, 1889, instead of March 15, 1889: _Provided_, That such
rules shall become operative and take effect in any State or Territory
as soon as an eligible register for such State or Territory shall be
prepared, if it shall be prior to the date above fixed.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 17, 1889_.

Special Departmental Rule No. 1 is hereby amended by including among the
places excepted from examination thereunder in section 2 the following:
"and inspector of furniture."

As amended so much of that section as relates to the office of Secretary
of the Treasury will read as follows:

  2. In the Department of the Treasury, in the office of the Secretary:
  Government actuary and inspector of furniture.

BENJ. HARRISON.



REGULATIONS FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF ARMS, ORDNANCE STORES,
QUARTERMASTER'S STORES, AND CAMP EQUIPAGE TO THE TERRITORIES AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, PRESCRIBED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
IN CONFORMITY WITH THE SECOND SECTION OF THE ACT ENTITLED "AN ACT TO
AMEND SECTION 1661, REVISED STATUTES, MAKING AN ANNUAL APPROPRIATION TO
PROVIDE ARMS AND EQUIPMENTS FOR THE MILITIA."

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 23, 1889_.

1. Arms, ordnance stores, quartermaster's stores, and camp equipage
shall be issued to the Territories on requisitions of the governors
thereof, and to the District of Columbia on requisitions approved by the
senior general of the District militia present for duty. Returns shall
be made annually by the senior general of the District militia in the
manner as required by sections 3 and 4 of the act above referred to in
the case of States and Territories.

2. It is forbidden to make issues to States and Territories in excess of
the amount to their credit under the provisions of section 1661, Revised
Statutes, as amended by the above act.

3. Any regulations established hitherto which in any way conflict with
these are hereby revoked.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

MAY 4, 1889.

Special Departmental Rule No. 1 is hereby amended by including among the
places excepted from examination thereunder in section 2 the following:
"custodian of dies, rolls, and plates at the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, two subcustodians, keeper of the vault, and distributer of
stock."

As amended so much of that section as relates to the office of the
Secretary of the Treasury will read:

2. In the Department of the Treasury, in the office of the Secretary:
Government actuary, inspector of furniture, custodian of dies, rolls,
and plates at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, two subcustodians,
keeper of the vault, and distributer of stock.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENTS OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 27, 1889_.

Departmental Rule VIII is hereby amended as follows:

At the end of section 1 insert an additional clause, as follows:

  (_d_) From the office of the President of the United States, after two
  years' continuous service therein immediately preceding the transfer,
  to any place in the classified service without examination, upon the
  requisition of the head of the Department to which the transfer is to
  be made and the certification of the Commission.

In section 2, line 1, after the word "authorized," insert the following:
"except as provided in section 1, clause (_d_)."

BENJ. HARRISON.



BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

EXECUTIVE ORDER.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 29, 1889_.

_It is hereby ordered_, That the several Executive Departments and the
Government Printing Office be closed on Thursday, the 30th instant, to
enable the employees to participate in the decoration of the graves of
the soldiers who fell during the rebellion.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 7, 1889_.

In November, 1862, President Lincoln quoted the words of Washington to
sustain his own views, and announced in a general order that--

  The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and
  enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men
  in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of
  the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers
  and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian
  people, and a due regard for the divine will demand that Sunday labor
  in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.


The truth so concisely stated can not be too faithfully regarded, and
the pressure to ignore it is far less now than in the midst of war. To
recall the kindly and considerate spirit of the orders issued by these
great men in the most trying times of our history, and to promote
contentment and efficiency, the President directs that Sunday-morning
inspection will be merely of the dress and general appearance, without
arms; and the more complete inspection under arms, with all men present,
as required in paragraph 950, Army Regulations, 1889, will take place on
Saturday.

BENJ. HARRISON.

By the President:
  REDFIELD PROCTOR,
    _Secretary of War_.



AMENDMENTS OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 10, 1889_.

Special Departmental Rule No. 1 is hereby amended as follows:

In section 2, at the end of paragraph 1, insert the following: "foremen
of laborers, skilled laborers, elevator conductors, foreman of cabinet
shop, and cabinetmakers."

So that as amended so much of section 2 as relates to the office of the
Secretary of the Treasury will read:

  In the office of the Secretary: Government actuary, inspector of
  furniture, custodian of dies, rolls, and plates at the Bureau of
  Engraving and Printing, two subcustodians, keeper of the vault, and
  distributer of stock, foremen of laborers, skilled laborers, elevator
  conductors, foreman of cabinet shop, and cabinetmakers.

In section 3 strike out the last paragraph and insert in lieu thereof
the following:

  In the Geological Survey: General assistant, executive officer, chief
  photographer, editor, all scientific employees of the Geological Survey
  officially designated as follows: Chief geologist, geologist, assistant
  geologist, chief paleontologist, paleontologist, and assistant
  paleontologist, chief chemist, chemist, assistant chemist, chief
  physicist, physicist, assistant physicist, chief geographer, geographer,
  assistant geographer, chief topographer, topographer, assistant
  topographer, chief hydrographer, hydrographer, assistant hydrographer,
  supervising engineer, engineer, assistant engineer, paleontological
  draftsman, chief mechanician, mechanician, assistant mechanician.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 18, 1889_.

Departmental Rule X, Customs Rule VII, Postal Rule VII, and Railway Mail
Rule VI are hereby amended by adding to each of said rules, at the end
thereof, the following:

  _Provided_, That certification may be made, subject to the other
  conditions of this rule, for the reinstatement of any person who served
  in the military or naval service of the United States in the late War of
  the Rebellion, and was honorably discharged therefrom, without regard to
  the length of time he has been separated from the service.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

JULY 26, 1889.

Clause (_h_) of section 2 of General Rule III is hereby amended by
adding to that clause, at the end thereof, the following: "or for
temporary appointment for not exceeding thirty days in any part of the
classified service."

Approved:

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

JULY 26, 1889.

Section 5 of Railway Mail Rule II is hereby amended by adding an
additional clause, as follows:

  (_c_) Printers, employed as such.

Approved:

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 17, 1889_.

Clause 5 of Railway Mail Rule II is hereby amended by adding thereto the
following clauses:

  (_d_) Clerks employed exclusively as porters in handling mail matter in
  bulk, in sacks, or pouches, and not otherwise.

  (_e_) Clerks employed exclusively on steamboats.

Approved:

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

AUGUST 20, 1889.

Clause 2 of Special Departmental Rule No. 1 is hereby amended by
including among the places excepted from examination in the office of
the Supervising Architect the following: "engineers and draftsmen of
classes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, not exceeding ten in all: _Provided_, That
these ten places shall cease to be excepted places from and after June
30, 1890."

As thus amended so much of clause 2 as relates to the office of the
Supervising Architect will read as follows:

In the office of the Supervising Architect: Supervising Architect,
assistant and chief clerk, confidential clerk to Supervising Architect,
photographer, engineers and draftsmen of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, not
exceeding ten in all: _Provided_, That these ten places shall cease to
be excepted places from and after June 30, 1890.

Approved:

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

OCTOBER 29, 1889.

Section 2 of Special Departmental Rule No. 1 is hereby amended by adding
to the places excepted from examination in the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing the following: "plate cleaners, transferrers, hardeners,
provers, pressmen, machinists, plumbers, carpenters, and blacksmiths."

Approved:

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENTS OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

Section 2 of Railway Mail Rule IV is hereby amended by substituting for
clause (_b_) of said section the following:

  (_b_) The Commission shall certify from the register of the State or
  Territory in which the vacancy exists the names of the three eligibles
  thereon having the highest averages, resident in the counties of said
  State or Territory through or on the borders of which the section of the
  road passes on which the person to be appointed is to serve, who have
  not been three times certified: _Provided_, That if there are not three
  eligibles resident in said counties, then certification shall be made in
  like manner from the counties of said State or Territory nearest to the
  line of said road in which there are three eligibles; or if there are
  not three eligibles upon the register of said State or Territory, then
  certification may be made from the register of any adjoining State or
  Territory: _Provided further_, That if upon the register of the State
  or Territory in which vacancy exists there are the names of eligibles
  having a claim of preference under section 1754, Revised Statutes, the
  names of such eligibles shall be certified before the names of other
  eligibles of higher grade.


At the end of the rule add an additional section, as follows:

  7. In case of public and pressing exigency demanding the immediate
  employment of experienced railway mail clerks who can not be at once
  supplied in the manner provided for in section 2 of this rule, or by
  transfer under Rule V, or reappointment under Rule VI, there may be
  employed, without examination or certification, under such regulations
  as the Postmaster-General may prescribe, for a period not to exceed
  thirty days, which, with the consent of the Commission, may be extended
  to sixty days, any persons who have been in the railway mail service,
  who have the requisite knowledge and experience, who may be available.
  Every such employment and the reasons therefor shall be at once
  reported to the Commission.


Approved, November 1, 1889.

BENJ. HARRISON.



AMENDMENT OF CIVIL-SERVICE RULES.

Special Customs Rule No. 1 is hereby amended by adding to the places
excepted from examination at the port of New York the following:

  Office of the General Appraiser: Chief clerk and law clerk.

Approved, November 18, 1889.

BENJ. HARRISON.




FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.


EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, December 3, 1889_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

There are few transactions in the administration of the Government
that are even temporarily held in the confidence of those charged
with the conduct of the public business. Every step taken is under the
observation of an intelligent and watchful people. The state of the
Union is known from day to day, and suggestions as to needed legislation
find an earlier voice than that which speaks in these annual
communications of the President to Congress.

Good will and cordiality have characterized our relations and
correspondence with other governments, and the year just closed leaves
few international questions of importance remaining unadjusted. No
obstacle is believed to exist that can long postpone the consideration
and adjustment of the still pending questions upon satisfactory and
honorable terms. The dealings of this Government with other states have
been and should always be marked by frankness and sincerity, our
purposes avowed, and our methods free from intrigue. This course has
borne rich fruit in the past, and it is our duty as a nation to preserve
the heritage of good repute which a century of right dealing with
foreign governments has secured to us.

It is a matter of high significance and no less of congratulation that
the first year of the second century of our constitutional existence
finds as honored guests within our borders the representatives of all
the independent States of North and South America met together in
earnest conference touching the best methods of perpetuating and
expanding the relations of mutual interest and friendliness existing
among them. That the opportunity thus afforded for promoting closer
international relations and the increased prosperity of the States
represented will be used for the mutual good of all I can not permit
myself to doubt. Our people will await with interest and confidence the
results to flow from so auspicious a meeting of allied and in large part
identical interests.

The recommendations of this international conference of enlightened
statesmen will doubtless have the considerate attention of Congress and
its cooperation in the removal of unnecessary barriers to beneficial
intercourse between the nations of America. But while the commercial
results which it is hoped will follow this conference are worthy of
pursuit and of the great interests they have excited, it is believed
that the crowning benefit will be found in the better securities which
may be devised for the maintenance of peace among all American nations
and the settlement of all contentions by methods that a Christian
civilization can approve. While viewing with interest our national
resources and products, the delegates will, I am sure, find a higher
satisfaction in the evidences of unselfish friendship which everywhere
attend their intercourse with our people.

Another international conference having great possibilities for good has
lately assembled and is now in session in this capital. An invitation
was extended by the Government, under the act of Congress of July 9,
1888, to all maritime nations to send delegates to confer touching the
revision and amendment of the rules and regulations governing vessels
at sea and to adopt a uniform system of marine signals. The response to
this invitation has been very general and very cordial. Delegates from
twenty-six nations are present in the conference, and they have entered
upon their useful work with great zeal and with an evident appreciation
of its importance. So far as the agreement to be reached may require
legislation to give it effect, the cooperation of Congress is
confidently relied upon.

It is an interesting, if not, indeed, an unprecedented, fact that the
two international conferences have brought together here the accredited
representatives of thirty-three nations.

Bolivia, Ecuador, and Honduras are now represented by resident envoys of
the plenipotentiary grade. All the States of the American system now
maintain diplomatic representation at this capital.

In this connection it may be noted that all the nations of the Western
Hemisphere, with one exception, send to Washington envoys extraordinary
and ministers plenipotentiary, being the highest grade accredited to
this Government. The United States, on the contrary, sends envoys of
lower grades to some of our sister Republics. Our representative in
Paraguay and Uruguay is a minister resident, while to Bolivia we send a
minister resident and consul-general. In view of the importance of our
relations with the States of the American system, our diplomatic agents
in those countries should be of the uniform rank of envoy extraordinary
and minister plenipotentiary. Certain missions were so elevated by the
last Congress with happy effect, and I recommend the completion of the
reform thus begun, with the inclusion also of Hawaii and Hayti, in view
of their relations to the American system of states.

I also recommend that timely provision be made for extending to Hawaii
an invitation to be represented in the international conference now
sitting at this capital.

Our relations with China have the attentive consideration which their
magnitude and interest demand. The failure of the treaty negotiated
under the Administration of my predecessor for the further and more
complete restriction of Chinese labor immigration, and with it the
legislation of the last session of Congress dependent thereon, leaves
some questions open which Congress should now approach in that wise and
just spirit which should characterize the relations of two great and
friendly powers. While our supreme interests demand the exclusion of
a laboring element which experience has shown to be incompatible with
our social life, all steps to compass this imperative need should be
accompanied with a recognition of the claim of those strangers now
lawfully among us to humane and just treatment.

The accession of the young Emperor of China marks, we may hope, an era
of progress and prosperity for the great country over which he is called
to rule.

The present state of affairs in respect to the Samoan Islands is
encouraging. The conference which was held in this city in the summer
of 1887 between the representatives of the United States, Germany, and
Great Britain having been adjourned because of the persistent divergence
of views which was developed in its deliberations, the subsequent course
of events in the islands gave rise to questions of a serious character.
On the 4th of February last the German minister at this capital, in
behalf of his Government, proposed a resumption of the conference at
Berlin. This proposition was accepted, as Congress in February last was
informed.

Pursuant to the understanding thus reached, commissioners were appointed
by me, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who proceeded
to Berlin, where the conference was renewed. The deliberations extended
through several weeks, and resulted in the conclusion of a treaty which
will be submitted to the Senate for its approval. I trust that the
efforts which have been made to effect an adjustment of this question
will be productive of the permanent establishment of law and order in
Samoa upon the basis of the maintenance of the rights and interests of
the natives as well as of the treaty powers.

The questions which have arisen during the past few years between Great
Britain and the United States are in abeyance or in course of amicable
adjustment.

On the part of the government of the Dominion of Canada an effort has
been apparent during the season just ended to administer the laws and
regulations applicable to the fisheries with as little occasion for
friction as was possible, and the temperate representations of this
Government in respect of cases of undue hardship or of harsh
interpretations have been in most cases met with measures of transitory
relief. It is trusted that the attainment of our just rights under
existing treaties and in virtue of the concurrent legislation of the two
contiguous countries will not be long deferred and that all existing
causes of difference may be equitably adjusted.

I recommend that provision be made by an international agreement for
visibly marking the water boundary between the United States and Canada
in the narrow channels that join the Great Lakes. The conventional line
therein traced by the northwestern boundary survey years ago is not in
all cases readily ascertainable for the settlement of jurisdictional
questions.

A just and acceptable enlargement of the list of offenses for which
extradition may be claimed and granted is most desirable between this
country and Great Britain. The territory of neither should become a
secure harbor for the evil doers of the other through any avoidable
shortcoming in this regard. A new treaty on this subject between the two
powers has been recently negotiated and will soon be laid before the
Senate.

The importance of the commerce of Cuba and Puerto Rico with the United
States, their nearest and principal market, justifies the expectation
that the existing relations may be beneficially expanded. The
impediments resulting from varying dues on navigation and from the
vexatious treatment of our vessels on merely technical grounds of
complaint in West India ports should be removed.

The progress toward an adjustment of pending claims between the United
States and Spain is not as rapid as could be desired.

Questions affecting American interests in connection with railways
constructed and operated by our citizens in Peru have claimed the
attention of this Government. It is urged that other governments in
pressing Peru to the payment of their claims have disregarded the
property rights of American citizens. The matter will be carefully
investigated with a view to securing a proper and equitable adjustment.

A similar issue is now pending with Portugal. The Delagoa Bay Railway,
in Africa, was constructed under a concession by Portugal to an American
citizen. When nearly completed the road was seized by the agents of the
Portuguese Government. Formal protest has been made through our minister
at Lisbon against this act, and no proper effort will be spared to
secure proper relief.

In pursuance of the charter granted by Congress and under the terms of
its contract with the Government of Nicaragua the Interoceanic Canal
Company has begun the construction of the important waterway between the
two oceans which its organization contemplates. Grave complications for
a time seemed imminent, in view of a supposed conflict of jurisdiction
between Nicaragua and Costa Rica in regard to the accessory privileges
to be conceded by the latter Republic toward the construction of works
on the San Juan River, of which the right bank is Costa Rican territory.
I am happy to learn that a friendly arrangement has been effected
between the two nations. This Government has held itself ready to
promote in every proper way the adjustment of all questions that might
present obstacles to the completion of a work of such transcendent
importance to the commerce of this country, and, indeed, to the
commercial interests of the world.

The traditional good feeling between this country and the French
Republic has received additional testimony in the participation of
our Government and people in the international exposition held at
Paris during the past summer. The success of our exhibitors has been
gratifying. The report of the commission will be laid before Congress
in due season.

This Government has accepted, under proper reserve as to its policy in
foreign territories, the invitation of the Government of Belgium to take
part in an international congress, which opened at Brussels on the 16th
of November, for the purpose of devising measures to promote the
abolition of the slave trade in Africa and to prevent the shipment of
slaves by sea. Our interest in the extinction of this crime against
humanity in the regions where it yet survives has been increased by the
results of emancipation within our own borders.

With Germany the most cordial relations continue. The questions arising
from the return to the Empire of Germans naturalized in this country are
considered and disposed of in a temperate spirit to the entire
satisfaction of both Governments.

It is a source of great satisfaction that the internal disturbances of
the Republic of Hayti are at last happily ended, and that an apparently
stable government has been constituted. It has been duly recognized by
the United States.

A mixed commission is now in session in this capital for the settlement
of long-standing claims against the Republic of Venezuela, and it is
hoped that a satisfactory conclusion will be speedily reached. This
Government has not hesitated to express its earnest desire that the
boundary dispute now pending between Great Britain and Venezuela may be
adjusted amicably and in strict accordance with the historic title of
the parties.

The advancement of the Empire of Japan has been evidenced by the recent
promulgation of a new constitution, containing valuable guaranties of
liberty and providing for a responsible ministry to conduct the
Government.

It is earnestly recommended that our judicial rights and processes in
Korea be established on a firm basis by providing the machinery
necessary to carry out treaty stipulations in that regard.

The friendliness of the Persian Government continues to be shown by its
generous treatment of Americans engaged in missionary labors and by the
cordial disposition of the Shah to encourage the enterprise of our
citizens in the development of Persian resources.

A discussion is in progress touching the jurisdictional treaty rights of
the United States in Turkey. An earnest effort will be made to define
those rights to the satisfaction of both Governments.

Questions continue to arise in our relations with several countries in
respect to the rights of naturalized citizens. Especially is this the
case with France, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, and to a less extent with
Switzerland. From time to time earnest efforts have been made to
regulate this subject by conventions with those countries. An improper
use of naturalization should not be permitted, but it is most important
that those who have been duly naturalized should everywhere be accorded
recognition of the rights pertaining to the citizenship of the country
of their adoption. The appropriateness of special conventions for that
purpose is recognized in treaties which this Government has concluded
with a number of European States, and it is advisable that the
difficulties which now arise in our relations with other countries on
the same subject should be similarly adjusted.

The recent revolution in Brazil in favor of the establishment of a
republican form of government is an event of great interest to the
United States. Our minister at Rio de Janeiro was at once instructed to
maintain friendly diplomatic relations with the Provisional Government,
and the Brazilian representatives at this capital were instructed by
the Provisional Government to continue their functions. Our friendly
intercourse with Brazil has therefore suffered no interruption.

Our minister has been further instructed to extend on the part of this
Government a formal and cordial recognition of the new Republic so soon
as the majority of the people of Brazil shall have signified their
assent to its establishment and maintenance.

Within our own borders a general condition of prosperity prevails. The
harvests of the last summer were exceptionally abundant, and the trade
conditions now prevailing seem to promise a successful season to the
merchant and the manufacturer and general employment to our working
people.

The report of the Secretary of the Treasury for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1889, has been prepared and will be presented to Congress.
It presents with clearness the fiscal operations of the Government, and
I avail myself of it to obtain some facts for use here.

The aggregate receipts from all sources for the year were
$387,050,058.84, derived as follows:

  From customs                                          $223,832,741.69
  From internal revenue                                  130,881,513.92
  From miscellaneous sources                              32,335,803.23


The ordinary expenditures for the same period were $281,996,615.60,
and the total expenditures, including the sinking fund, were
$329,579,929.25. The excess of receipts over expenditures was, after
providing for the sinking fund, $57,470,129.59.

For the current fiscal year the total revenues, actual and estimated,
are $385,000,000, and the ordinary expenditures, actual and estimated,
are $293,000,000, making with the sinking fund a total expenditure of
$341,321,116.99, leaving an estimated surplus of $43,678,883.01.

During the fiscal year there was applied to the purchase of bonds, in
addition to those for the sinking fund, $90,456,172.35, and during the
first quarter of the current year the sum of $37,838,937.77, all of
which were credited to the sinking fund. The revenues for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1891, are estimated by the Treasury Department at
$385,000,000, and the expenditures for the same period, including the
sinking fund, at $341,430,477.70. This shows an estimated surplus for
that year of $43,569,522.30, which is more likely to be increased than
reduced when the actual transactions are written up.

The existence of so large an actual and anticipated surplus should
have the immediate attention of Congress, with a view to reducing the
receipts of the Treasury to the needs of the Government as closely as
may be. The collection of moneys not needed for public uses imposes an
unnecessary burden upon our people, and the presence of so large a
surplus in the public vaults is a disturbing element in the conduct
of private business. It has called into use expedients for putting
it into circulation of very questionable propriety. We should not
collect revenue for the purpose of anticipating our bonds beyond the
requirements of the sinking fund, but any unappropriated surplus in the
Treasury should be so used, as there is no other lawful way of returning
the money to circulation, and the profit realized by the Government
offers a substantial advantage.

The loaning of public funds to the banks without interest upon the
security of Government bonds I regard as an unauthorized and dangerous
expedient. It results in a temporary and unnatural increase of the
banking capital of favored localities and compels a cautious and gradual
recall of the deposits to avoid injury to the commercial interests. It
is not to be expected that the banks having these deposits will sell
their bonds to the Treasury so long as the present highly beneficial
arrangement is continued. They now practically get interest both upon
the bonds and their proceeds. No further use should be made of this
method of getting the surplus into circulation, and the deposits now
outstanding should be gradually withdrawn and applied to the purchase of
bonds. It is fortunate that such a use can be made of the existing
surplus, and for some time to come of any casual surplus that may exist
after Congress has taken the necessary steps for a reduction of the
revenue. Such legislation should be promptly but very considerately
enacted.

I recommend a revision of our tariff law both in its administrative
features and in the schedules. The need of the former is generally
conceded, and an agreement upon the evils and inconveniences to be
remedied and the best methods for their correction will probably not be
difficult. Uniformity of valuation at all our ports is essential, and
effective measures should be taken to secure it. It is equally desirable
that questions affecting rates and classifications should be promptly
decided.

The preparation of a new schedule of customs duties is a matter of great
delicacy because of its direct effect upon the business of the country,
and of great difficulty by reason of the wide divergence of opinion as
to the objects that may properly be promoted by such legislation. Some
disturbance of business may perhaps result from the consideration of
this subject by Congress, but this temporary ill effect will be reduced
to the minimum by prompt action and by the assurance which the country
already enjoys that any necessary changes will be so made as not to
impair the just and reasonable protection of our home industries. The
inequalities of the law should be adjusted, but the protective principle
should be maintained and fairly applied to the products of our farms as
well as of our shops. These duties necessarily have relation to other
things besides the public revenues. We can not limit their effects by
fixing our eyes on the public Treasury alone. They have a direct
relation to home production, to work, to wages, and to the commercial
independence of our country, and the wise and patriotic legislator
should enlarge the field of his vision to include all of these. The
necessary reduction in our public revenues can, I am sure, be made
without making the smaller burden more onerous than the larger by reason
of the disabilities and limitations which the process of reduction puts
upon both capital and labor. The free list can very safely be extended
by placing thereon articles that do not offer injurious competition to
such domestic products as our home labor can supply. The removal of the
internal tax upon tobacco would relieve an important agricultural
product from a burden which was imposed only because our revenue from
customs duties was insufficient for the public needs. If safe provision
against fraud can be devised, the removal of the tax upon spirits used
in the arts and in manufactures would also offer an unobjectionable
method of reducing the surplus.

A table presented by the Secretary of the Treasury showing the amount
of money of all kinds in circulation each year from 1878 to the present
time is of interest. It appears that the amount of national-bank notes
in circulation has decreased during that period $114,109,729, of which
$37,799,229 is chargeable to the last year. The withdrawal of bank
circulation will necessarily continue under existing conditions. It is
probable that the adoption of the suggestions made by the Comptroller
of the Currency, namely, that the minimum deposit of bonds for the
establishment of banks be reduced and that an issue of notes to the
par value of the bonds be allowed, would help to maintain the bank
circulation. But while this withdrawal of bank notes has been going on
there has been a large increase in the amount of gold and silver coin in
circulation and in the issues of gold and silver certificates.

The total amount of money of all kinds in circulation on March 1,
1878, was $805,793,807, while on October 1, 1889, the total was
$1,405,018,000. There was an increase of $293,417,552 in gold coin,
of $57,554,100 in standard silver dollars, of $72,311,249 in gold
certificates, of $276,619,715 in silver certificates, and of $14,073,787
in United States notes, making a total of $713,976,403. There was during
the same period a decrease of $114,109,729 in bank circulation and of
$642,481 in subsidiary silver. The net increase was $599,224,193. The
circulation per capita has increased about $5 during the time covered by
the table referred to.

The total coinage of silver dollars was on November 1, 1889,
$343,638,001, of which $283,539,521 were in the Treasury vaults and
$60,098,480 were in circulation. Of the amount in the vaults
$277,319,944 were represented by outstanding silver certificates,
leaving $6,219,577 not in circulation and not represented by
certificates.

The law requiring the purchase by the Treasury of $2,000,000 worth of
silver bullion each month, to be coined into silver dollars of 412-1/2
grains, has been observed by the Department, but neither the present
Secretary nor any of his predecessors has deemed it safe to exercise the
discretion given by law to increase the monthly purchases to $4,000,000.
When the law was enacted (February 28, 1878) the price of silver in the
market was $1.204 Per ounce, making the bullion value of the dollar 93
cents. Since that time the price has fallen as low as 91.2 cents per
ounce, reducing the bullion value of the dollar to 70.6 cents. Within
the last few months the market price has somewhat advanced, and on the
1st day of November last the bullion value of the silver dollar was 72
cents.

The evil anticipations which have accompanied the coinage and use of the
silver dollar have not been realized. As a coin it has not had general
use, and the public Treasury has been compelled to store it. But this
is manifestly owing to the fact that its paper representative is more
convenient. The general acceptance and the use of the silver certificate
show that silver has not been otherwise discredited. Some favorable
conditions have contributed to maintain this practical equality in their
commercial use between the gold and silver dollars; but some of these
are trade conditions that statutory enactments do not control and of the
continuance of which we can not be certain.

I think it is clear that if we should make the coinage of silver at the
present ratio free we must expect that the difference in the bullion
values of the gold and silver dollars will be taken account of in
commercial transactions; and I fear the same result would follow any
considerable increase of the present rate of coinage. Such a result
would be discreditable to our financial management and disastrous to all
business interests. We should not tread the dangerous edge of such a
peril. And, indeed, nothing more harmful could happen to the silver
interests. Any safe legislation upon this subject must secure the
equality of the two coins in their commercial uses.

I have always been an advocate of the use of silver in our currency.
We are large producers of that metal, and should not discredit it. To
the plan which will be presented by the Secretary of the Treasury for
the issuance of notes or certificates upon the deposit of silver bullion
at its market value I have been able to give only a hasty examination,
owing to the press of other matters and to the fact that it has been
so recently formulated. The details of such a law require careful
consideration, but the general plan suggested by him seems to satisfy
the purpose--to continue the use of silver in connection with our
currency and at the same time to obviate the danger of which I have
spoken. At a later day I may communicate further with Congress upon this
subject.

The enforcement of the Chinese exclusion act has been found to be very
difficult on the northwestern frontier. Chinamen landing at Victoria
find it easy to pass our border, owing to the impossibility with the
force at the command of the customs officers of guarding so long an
inland line. The Secretary of the Treasury has authorized the employment
of additional officers, who will be assigned to this duty, and every
effort will be made to enforce the law. The Dominion exacts a head tax
of $50 for each Chinaman landed, and when these persons, in fraud of our
law, cross into our territory and are apprehended our officers do not
know what to do with them, as the Dominion authorities will not suffer
them to be sent back without a second payment of the tax. An effort will
be made to reach an understanding that will remove this difficulty.

The proclamation required by section 3 of the act of March 2, 1889,
relating to the killing of seals and other fur-bearing animals, was
issued by me on the 21st day of March,[2] and a revenue vessel was
dispatched to enforce the laws and protect the interests of the United
States. The establishment of a refuge station at Point Barrow, as
directed by Congress, was successfully accomplished.

Judged by modern standards, we are practically without coast defenses.
Many of the structures we have would enhance rather than diminish the
perils of their garrisons if subjected to the fire of improved guns, and
very few are so located as to give full effect to the greater range of
such guns as we are now making for coast-defense uses. This general
subject has had consideration in Congress for some years, and the
appropriation for the construction of large rifled guns made one year
ago was, I am sure, the expression of a purpose to provide suitable
works in which these guns might be mounted. An appropriation now made
for that purpose would not advance the completion of the works beyond
our ability to supply them with fairly effective guns.

The security of our coast cities against foreign attacks should not rest
altogether in the friendly disposition of other nations. There should be
a second line wholly in our own keeping. I very urgently recommend an
appropriation at this session for the construction of such works in our
most exposed harbors.

I approve the suggestion of the Secretary of War that provision be made
for encamping companies of the National Guard in our coast works for
a specified time each year and for their training in the use of heavy
guns. His suggestion that an increase of the artillery force of the Army
is desirable is also, in this connection, commended to the consideration
of Congress.

The improvement of our important rivers and harbors should be promoted
by the necessary appropriations. Care should be taken that the
Government is not committed to the prosecution of works not of public
and general advantage and that the relative usefulness of works of that
class is not overlooked. So far as this work can ever be said to be
completed, I do not doubt that the end would be sooner and more
economically reached if fewer separate works were undertaken at the same
time, and those selected for their greater general interest were more
rapidly pushed to completion. A work once considerably begun should not
be subjected to the risks and deterioration which interrupted or
insufficient appropriations necessarily occasion.

The assault made by David S. Terry upon the person of Justice Field,
of the Supreme Court of the United States, at Lathrop, Cal., in August
last, and the killing of the assailant by a deputy United States marshal
who had been deputed to accompany Justice Field and to protect him from
anticipated violence at the hands of Terry, in connection with the legal
proceedings which have followed, suggest questions which, in my
judgment, are worthy of the attention of Congress.

I recommend that more definite provision be made by law not only for the
protection of Federal officers, but for a full trial of such cases in
the United States courts. In recommending such legislation I do not at
all impeach either the general adequacy of the provision made by the
State laws for the protection of all citizens or the general good
disposition of those charged with the execution of such laws to give
protection to the officers of the United States. The duty of protecting
its officers, as such, and of punishing those who assault them on
account of their official acts should not be devolved expressly or by
acquiescence upon the local authorities.

Events which have been brought to my attention happening in other
parts of the country have also suggested the propriety of extending by
legislation fuller protection to those who may be called as witnesses in
the courts of the United States. The law compels those who are supposed
to have knowledge of public offenses to attend upon our courts and grand
juries and to give evidence. There is a manifest resulting duty that
these witnesses shall be protected from injury on account of their
testimony. The investigations of criminal offenses are often rendered
futile and the punishment of crime impossible by the intimidation of
witnesses.

The necessity of providing some more speedy method for disposing of the
cases which now come for final adjudication to the Supreme Court becomes
every year more apparent and urgent. The plan of providing some
intermediate courts having final appellate jurisdiction of certain
classes of questions and cases has, I think, received a more general
approval from the bench and bar of the country than any other. Without
attempting to discuss details, I recommend that provision be made for
the establishment of such courts.

The salaries of the judges of the district courts in many of the
districts are, in my judgment, inadequate. I recommend that all such
salaries now below $5,000 per annum be increased to that amount. It is
quite true that the amount of labor performed by these judges is very
unequal, but as they can not properly engage in other pursuits to
supplement their incomes the salary should be such in all cases as to
provide an independent and comfortable support.

Earnest attention should be given by Congress to a consideration of the
question how far the restraint of those combinations of capital commonly
called "trusts" is matter of Federal jurisdiction. When organized, as
they often are, to crush out all healthy competition and to monopolize
the production or sale of an article of commerce and general necessity,
they are dangerous conspiracies against the public good, and should be
made the subject of prohibitory and even penal legislation.

The subject of an international copyright has been frequently commended
to the attention of Congress by my predecessors. The enactment of such a
law would be eminently wise and just.

Our naturalization laws should be so revised as to make the inquiry into
the moral character and good disposition toward our Government of the
persons applying for citizenship more thorough. This can only be done
by taking fuller control of the examination, by fixing the times for
hearing such applications, and by requiring the presence of some one who
shall represent the Government in the inquiry. Those who are the avowed
enemies of social order or who come to our shores to swell the injurious
influence and to extend the evil practices of any association that
defies our laws should not only be denied citizenship, but a domicile.

The enactment of a national bankrupt law of a character to be a
permanent part of our general legislation is desirable. It should be
simple in its methods and inexpensive in its administration.

The report of the Postmaster-General not only exhibits the operations
of the Department for the last fiscal year, but contains many valuable
suggestions for the improvement and extension of the service, which are
commended to your attention. No other branch of the Government has so
close a contact with the daily life of the people. Almost everyone uses
the service it offers, and every hour gained in the transmission of the
great commercial mails has an actual and possible value that only those
engaged in trade can understand.

The saving of one day in the transmission of the mails between New York
and San Francisco, which has recently been accomplished, is an incident
worthy of mention.

The plan suggested of a supervision of the post-offices in separate
districts that shall involve instruction and suggestion and a rating
of the efficiency of the postmasters would, I have no doubt, greatly
improve the service.

A pressing necessity exists for the erection of a building for the joint
use of the Department and of the city post-office. The Department was
partially relieved by renting outside quarters for a part of its force,
but it is again overcrowded. The building used by the city office never
was fit for the purpose, and is now inadequate and unwholesome.

The unsatisfactory condition of the law relating to the transmission
through the mails of lottery advertisements and remittances is clearly
stated by the Postmaster-General, and his suggestion as to amendments
should have your favorable consideration.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy shows a reorganization of the
bureaus of the Department that will, I do not doubt, promote the
efficiency of each.

In general, satisfactory progress has been made in the construction of
the new ships of war authorized by Congress. The first vessel of the new
Navy, the _Dolphin_, was subjected to very severe trial tests and to
very much adverse criticism; but it is gratifying to be able to state
that a cruise around the world, from which she has recently returned,
has demonstrated that she is a first-class vessel of her rate.

The report of the Secretary shows that while the effective force of the
Navy is rapidly increasing by reason of the improved build and armament
of the new ships, the number of our ships fit for sea duty grows very
slowly. We had on the 4th of March last 37 serviceable ships, and though
4 have since been added to the list, the total has not been increased,
because in the meantime 4 have been lost or condemned. Twenty-six
additional vessels have been authorized and appropriated for; but it is
probable that when they are completed our list will only be increased to
42--a gain of 5. The old wooden-ships are disappearing almost as fast as
the new vessels are added. These facts carry their own argument. One of
the new ships may in fighting strength be equal to two of the old, but
it can not do the cruising duty of two. It is important, therefore, that
we should have a more rapid increase in the number of serviceable ships.
I concur in the recommendation of the Secretary that the construction of
8 armored ships, 3 gunboats, and 5 torpedo boats be authorized.

An appalling calamity befell three of our naval vessels on duty at the
Samoan Islands, in the harbor of Apia, in March last, involving the
loss of 4 officers and 47 seamen, of two vessels, the _Trenton_ and the
_Vandalia_, and the disabling of a third, the _Nipsic_. Three vessels of
the German navy, also in the harbor, shared with our ships the force of
the hurricane and suffered even more heavily. While mourning the brave
officers and men who died facing with high resolve perils greater than
those of battle, it is most gratifying to state that the credit of the
American Navy for seamanship, courage, and generosity was magnificently
sustained in the storm-beaten harbor of Apia.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the transactions
of the Government with the Indian tribes. Substantial progress has been
made in the education of the children of school age and in the allotment
of lands to adult Indians. It is to be regretted that the policy of
breaking up the tribal relation and of dealing with the Indian as an
individual did not appear earlier in our legislation. Large reservations
held in common and the maintenance of the authority of the chiefs and
headmen have deprived the individual of every incentive to the exercise
of thrift, and the annuity has contributed an affirmative impulse toward
a state of confirmed pauperism.

Our treaty stipulations should be observed with fidelity and our
legislation should be highly considerate of the best interests of
an ignorant and helpless people. The reservations are now generally
surrounded by white settlements. We can no longer push the Indian back
into the wilderness, and it remains only by every suitable agency to
push him upward into the estate of a self-supporting and responsible
citizen. For the adult the first step is to locate him upon a farm,
and for the child to place him in a school.

School attendance should be promoted by every moral agency, and those
failing should be compelled. The national schools for Indians have been
very successful and should be multiplied, and as far as possible should
be so organized and conducted as to facilitate the transfer of the
schools to the States or Territories in which they are located when the
Indians in a neighborhood have accepted citizenship and have become
otherwise fitted for such a transfer. This condition of things will be
attained slowly, but it will be hastened by keeping it in mind; and in
the meantime that cooperation between the Government and the mission
schools which has wrought much good should be cordially and impartially
maintained.

The last Congress enacted two distinct laws relating to negotiations
with the Sioux Indians of Dakota for a relinquishment of a portion of
their lands to the United States and for dividing the remainder into
separate reservations. Both were approved on the same day--March 2.
The one submitted to the Indians a specific proposition; the other
(section 3 of the Indian appropriation act) authorized the President
to appoint three commissioners to negotiate with these Indians for
the accomplishment of the same general purpose, and required that any
agreements made should be submitted to Congress for ratification.

On the 16th day of April last I appointed Hon. Charles Foster, of Ohio,
Hon. William Warner, of Missouri, and Major-General George Crook, of the
United States Army, commissioners under the last-named law. They were,
however, authorized and directed first to submit to the Indians the
definite proposition made to them by the act first mentioned, and only
in the event of a failure to secure the assent of the requisite number
to that proposition to open negotiations for modified terms under the
other act. The work of the commission was prolonged and arduous, but the
assent of the requisite number was, it is understood, finally obtained
to the proposition made by Congress, though the report of the commission
has not yet been submitted. In view of these facts, I shall not, as at
present advised, deem it necessary to submit the agreement to Congress
for ratification, but it will in due course be submitted for
information. This agreement releases to the United States about
9,000,000 acres of land.

The commission provided for by section 14 of the Indian appropriation
bill to negotiate with the Cherokee Indians and all other Indians owning
or claiming lands lying west of the ninety-sixth degree of longitude for
the cession to the United States of all such lands was constituted by
the appointment of Hon. Lucius Fairchild, of Wisconsin, Hon. John F.
Hartranft, of Pennsylvania, and Hon. Alfred M. Wilson, of Arkansas,
and organized on June 29 last. Their first conference with the
representatives of the Cherokees was held at Tahlequah July 29, with
no definite results. General John F. Hartranft, of Pennsylvania, was
prevented by ill health from taking part in the conference. His death,
which occurred recently, is justly and generally lamented by a people he
had served with conspicuous gallantry in war and with great fidelity in
peace. The vacancy thus created was filled by the appointment of Hon.
Warren G. Sayre, of Indiana.

A second conference between the commission and the Cherokees was begun
November 6, but no results have yet been obtained, nor is it believed
that a conclusion can be immediately expected. The cattle syndicate now
occupying the lands for grazing purposes is clearly one of the agencies
responsible for the obstruction of our negotiations with the Cherokees.
The large body of agricultural lands constituting what is known as the
"Cherokee Outlet" ought not to be, and, indeed, can not long be, held
for grazing and for the advantage of a few against the public interests
and the best advantage of the Indians themselves. The United States
has now under the treaties certain rights in these lands. These will
not be used oppressively, but it can not be allowed that those who by
sufferance occupy these lands shall interpose to defeat the wise and
beneficent purposes of the Government. I can not but believe that the
advantageous character of the offer made by the United States to the
Cherokee Nation for a full release of these lands as compared with other
suggestions now made to them will yet obtain for it a favorable
consideration.

Under the agreement made between the United States and the Muscogee (or
Creek) Nation of Indians on the 19th day of January, 1889, an absolute
title was secured by the United States to about 3,500,000 acres of land.
Section 12 of the general Indian appropriation act approved March 2,
1889, made provision for the purchase by the United States from the
Seminole tribe of a certain portion of their lands. The delegates of the
Seminole Nation, having first duly evidenced to me their power to act
in that behalf, delivered a proper release or conveyance to the United
States of all the lands mentioned in the act, which was accepted by
me and certified to be in compliance with the statute.

By the terms of both the acts referred to all the lands so purchased
were declared to be a part of the public domain and open to settlement
under the homestead law. But of the lands embraced in these purchases,
being in the aggregate about 5,500,000 acres, 3,500,000 acres had
already, under the terms of the treaty of 1866, been acquired by the
United States for the purpose of settling other Indian tribes thereon
and had been appropriated to that purpose. The land remaining and
available for settlement consisted of 1,887,796 acres, surrounded on all
sides by lands in the occupancy of Indian tribes. Congress had provided
no civil government for the people who were to be invited by my
proclamation to settle upon these lands, except as the new court which
had been established at Muscogee or the United States courts in some of
the adjoining States had power to enforce the general laws of the United
States.

In this condition of things I was quite reluctant to open the lands to
settlement; but in view of the fact that several thousand persons, many
of them with their families, had gathered upon the borders of the Indian
Territory with a view to securing homesteads on the ceded lands, and
that delay would involve them in much loss and suffering, I did on the
23d day of March last issue a proclamation[3] declaring that the lands
therein described would be open to settlement under the provisions of
the law on the 22d day of April following at 12 o'clock noon. Two land
districts had been established and the offices were opened for the
transaction of business when the appointed time arrived.

It is much to the credit of the settlers that they very generally
observed the limitation as to the time when they might enter the
Territory. Care will be taken that those who entered in violation of the
law do not secure the advantage they unfairly sought. There was a good
deal of apprehension that the strife for locations would result in much
violence and bloodshed, but happily these anticipations were not
realized. It is estimated that there are now in the Territory about
60,000 people, and several considerable towns have sprung up, for which
temporary municipal governments have been organized. Guthrie is said to
have now a population of almost 8,000. Eleven schools and nine churches
have been established, and three daily and five weekly newspapers are
published in this city, whose charter and ordinances have only the
sanction of the voluntary acquiescence of the people from day to day.

Oklahoma City has a population of about 5,000, and is proportionately as
well provided as Guthrie with churches, schools, and newspapers. Other
towns and villages having populations of from 100 to 1,000 are scattered
over the Territory.

In order to secure the peace of this new community in the absence of
civil government, I directed General Merritt, commanding the Department
of the Missouri, to act in conjunction with the marshals of the United
States to preserve the peace, and upon their requisition to use the
troops to aid them in executing warrants and in quieting any riots or
breaches of the peace that might occur. He was further directed to use
his influence to promote good order and to avoid any conflicts between
or with the settlers. Believing that the introduction and sale of
liquors where no legal restraints or regulations existed would endanger
the public peace, and in view of the fact that such liquors must first
be introduced into the Indian reservations before reaching the white
settlements, I further directed the general commanding to enforce the
laws relating to the introduction of ardent spirits into the Indian
country.

The presence of the troops has given a sense of security to the
well-disposed citizens and has tended to restrain the lawless. In one
instance the officer in immediate command of the troops went further
than I deemed justifiable in supporting the _de facto_ municipal
government of Guthrie, and he was so informed, and directed to limit the
interference of the military to the support of the marshals on the lines
indicated in the original order. I very urgently recommend that Congress
at once provide a Territorial government for these people. Serious
questions, which may at any time lead to violent outbreaks, are awaiting
the institution of courts for their peaceful adjustment. The American
genius for self-government has been well illustrated in Oklahoma; but it
is neither safe nor wise to leave these people longer to the expedients
which have temporarily served them.

Provision should be made for the acquisition of title to town lots in
the towns now established in Alaska, for locating town sites, and for
the establishment of municipal governments. Only the mining laws have
been extended to that Territory, and no other form of title to lands can
now be obtained. The general land laws were framed with reference to the
disposition of agricultural lands, and it is doubtful if their operation
in Alaska would be beneficial.

We have fortunately not extended to Alaska the mistaken policy of
establishing reservations for the Indian tribes, and can deal with them
from the beginning as individuals with, I am sure, better results; but
any disposition of the public lands and any regulations relating to
timber and to the fisheries should have a kindly regard to their
interests. Having no power to levy taxes, the people of Alaska are
wholly dependent upon the General Government, to whose revenues the
seal fisheries make a large annual contribution. An appropriation for
education should neither be overlooked nor stinted.

The smallness of the population and the great distances between the
settlements offer serious obstacles to the establishment of the usual
Territorial form of government. Perhaps the organization of several
sub-districts with a small municipal council of limited powers for each
would be safe and useful.

Attention is called in this connection to the suggestions of the
Secretary of the Treasury relating to the establishment of another port
of entry in Alaska and of other needed customs facilities and
regulations.

In the administration of the land laws the policy of facilitating in
every proper way the adjustment of the honest claims of individual
settlers upon the public lands has been pursued. The number of pending
cases had during the preceding Administration been greatly increased
under the operation of orders for a time suspending final action in a
large part of the cases originating in the West and Northwest, and by
the subsequent use of unusual methods of examination. Only those who are
familiar with the conditions under which our agricultural lands have
been settled can appreciate the serious and often fatal consequences to
the settler of a policy that puts his title under suspicion or delays
the issuance of his patent. While care is taken to prevent and to expose
fraud, it should not be imputed without reason.

The manifest purpose of the homestead and preemption laws was to promote
the settlement of the public domain by persons having a _bona fide_
intent to make a home upon the selected lands. Where this intent is well
established and the requirements of the law have been substantially
complied with, the claimant is entitled to a prompt and friendly
consideration of his case; but where there is reason to believe that
the claimant is the mere agent of another who is seeking to evade a law
intended to promote small holdings and to secure by fraudulent methods
large tracts of timber and other lands, both principal and agent should
not only be thwarted in their fraudulent purpose, but should be made to
feel the full penalties of our criminal statutes. The laws should be so
administered as not to confound these two classes and to visit penalties
only upon the latter.

The unsettled state of the titles to large bodies of lands in the
Territories of New Mexico and Arizona has greatly retarded the
development of those Territories. Provision should be made by law for
the prompt trial and final adjustment before a judicial tribunal or
commission of all claims based upon Mexican grants. It is not just to an
intelligent and enterprising people that their peace should be disturbed
and their prosperity retarded by these old contentions. I express the
hope that differences of opinion as to methods may yield to the urgency
of the case.

The law now provides a pension for every soldier and sailor who was
mustered into the service of the United States during the Civil War and
is now suffering from wounds or disease having an origin in the service
and in the line of duty. Two of the three necessary facts, viz, muster
and disability, are usually susceptible of easy proof; but the third,
origin in the service, is often difficult and in many deserving cases
impossible to establish. That very many of those who endured the
hardships of our most bloody and arduous campaigns are now disabled from
diseases that had a real but not traceable origin in the service I do
not doubt. Besides these there is another class composed of men many of
whom served an enlistment of three full years and of reenlisted veterans
who added a fourth year of service, who escaped the casualties of battle
and the assaults of disease, who were always ready for any detail, who
were in every battle line of their command, and were mustered out in
sound health, and have since the close of the war, while fighting with
the same indomitable and independent spirit the contests of civil life,
been overcome by disease or casualty.

I am not unaware that the pension roll already involves a very large
annual expenditure; neither am I deterred by that fact from recommending
that Congress grant a pension to such honorably discharged soldiers and
sailors of the Civil War as, having rendered substantial service during
the war, are now dependent upon their own labor for a maintenance and by
disease or casualty are incapacitated from earning it. Many of the men
who would be included in this form of relief are now dependent upon
public aid, and it does not, in my judgment, consist with the national
honor that they shall continue to subsist upon the local relief given
indiscriminately to paupers instead of upon the special and generous
provision of the nation they served so gallantly and unselfishly. Our
people will, I am sure, very generally approve such legislation. And I
am equally sure that the survivors of the Union Army and Navy will feel
a grateful sense of relief when this worthy and suffering class of their
comrades is fairly cared for.

There are some manifest inequalities in the existing law that should be
remedied. To some of these the Secretary of the Interior has called
attention.

It is gratifying to be able to state that by the adoption of new and
better methods in the War Department the calls of the Pension Office for
information as to the military and hospital records of pension claimants
are now promptly answered and the injurious and vexatious delays that
have heretofore occurred are entirely avoided. This will greatly
facilitate the adjustment of all pending claims.

The advent of four new States--South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and
Washington--into the Union under the Constitution in the same month,
and the admission of their duly chosen representatives to our National
Congress at the same session, is an event as unexampled as it is
interesting.

The certification of the votes cast and of the constitutions adopted in
each of the States was filed with me, as required by the eighth section
of the act of February 22, 1889, by the governors of said Territories,
respectively. Having after a careful examination found that the several
constitutions and governments were republican in form and not repugnant
to the Constitution of the United States, that all the provisions of the
act of Congress had been complied with, and that a majority of the votes
cast in each of said proposed States was in favor of the adoption of
the constitution submitted therein, I did so declare by a separate
proclamation as to each--as to North Dakota and South Dakota on
Saturday, November 2;[4] as to Montana on Friday, November 8,[5] and as
to Washington on Monday, November 11.[6]

Each of these States has within it resources the development of which
will employ the energies of and yield a comfortable subsistence to a
great population. The smallest of these new States, Washington, stands
twelfth, and the largest, Montana, third, among the forty-two in area.
The people of these States are already well-trained, intelligent, and
patriotic American citizens, having common interests and sympathies with
those of the older States and a common purpose to defend the integrity
and uphold the honor of the nation.

The attention of the Interstate Commerce Commission has been called to
the urgent need of Congressional legislation for the better protection
of the lives and limbs of those engaged in operating the great
interstate freight lines of the country, and especially of the yardmen
and brakemen. A petition signed by nearly 10,000 railway brakemen was
presented to the Commission asking that steps might be taken to bring
about the use of automatic brakes and couplers on freight cars.

At a meeting of State railroad commissioners and their accredited
representatives held at Washington in March last upon the invitation of
the Interstate Commerce Commission a resolution was unanimously adopted
urging the Commission "to consider what can be done to prevent the loss
of life and limb in coupling and uncoupling freight cars and in handling
the brakes of such cars." During the year ending June 30, 1888, over
2,000 railroad employees were killed in service and more than 20,000
injured. It is competent, I think, for Congress to require uniformity
in the construction of cars used in interstate commerce and the use of
improved safety appliances upon such trains. Time will be necessary to
make the needed changes, but an earnest and intelligent beginning should
be made at once. It is a reproach to our civilization that any class
of American workmen should in the pursuit of a necessary and useful
vocation be subjected to a peril of life and limb as great as that of
a soldier in time of war.

The creation of an Executive Department to be known as the Department of
Agriculture by the act of February 9 last was a wise and timely response
to a request which had long been respectfully urged by the farmers of
the country; but much remains to be done to perfect the organization of
the Department so that it may fairly realize the expectations which
its creation excited. In this connection attention is called to the
suggestions contained in the report of the Secretary, which is herewith
submitted. The need of a law officer for the Department such as is
provided for the other Executive Departments is manifest. The failure of
the last Congress to make the usual provision for the publication of the
annual report should be promptly remedied. The public interest in the
report and its value to the farming community, I am sure, will not be
diminished under the new organization of the Department.

I recommend that the weather service be separated from the War
Department and established as a bureau in the Department of Agriculture.
This will involve an entire reorganization both of the Weather Bureau
and of the Signal Corps, making of the first a purely civil organization
and of the other a purely military staff corps. The report of the Chief
Signal Officer shows that the work of the corps on its military side has
been deteriorating.

The interests of the people of the District of Columbia should not be
lost sight of in the pressure for consideration of measures affecting
the whole country. Having no legislature of its own, either municipal
or general, its people must look to Congress for the regulation of all
those concerns that in the States are the subject of local control. Our
whole people have an interest that the national capital should be made
attractive and beautiful, and, above all, that its repute for social
order should be well maintained. The laws regulating the sale of
intoxicating drinks in the District should be revised with a view to
bringing the traffic under stringent limitations and control.

In execution of the power conferred upon me by the act making
appropriations for the expenses of the District of Columbia for the
year ending June 30, 1890, I did on the 17th day of August last appoint
Rudolph Hering, of New York, Samuel M. Gray, of Rhode Island, and
Frederick P. Stearns, of Massachusetts, three eminent sanitary
engineers, to examine and report upon the system of sewerage existing in
the District of Columbia. Their report, which is not yet completed, will
be in due course submitted to Congress.

The report of the Commissioners of the District is herewith transmitted,
and the attention of Congress is called to the suggestions contained
therein.

The proposition to observe the four hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America by the opening of a world's fair or exposition in
some one of our great cities will be presented for the consideration of
Congress. The value and interest of such an exposition may well claim
the promotion of the General Government.

On the 4th of March last the Civil Service Commission had but a single
member. The vacancies were filled on the 9th day of May, and since then
the Commissioners have been industriously, though with an inadequate
force, engaged in executing the law. They were assured by me that a
cordial support would be given them in the faithful and impartial
enforcement of the statute and of the rules and regulations adopted
in aid of it.

Heretofore the book of eligibles has been closed to everyone, except
as certifications were made upon the requisition of the appointing
officers. This secrecy was the source of much suspicion and of many
charges of favoritism in the administration of the law. What is secret
is always suspected; what is open can be judged. The Commission, with
the full approval of all its members, has now opened the list of
eligibles to the public. The eligible lists for the classified
post-offices and custom-houses are now publicly posted in the respective
offices, as are also the certifications for appointments. The purpose of
the civil-service law was absolutely to exclude any other consideration
in connection with appointments under it than that of merit as tested by
the examinations. The business proceeds upon the theory that both the
examining boards and the appointing officers are absolutely ignorant
as to the political views and associations of all persons on the
civil-service lists. It is not too much to say, however, that some
recent Congressional investigations have somewhat shaken public
confidence in the impartiality of the selections for appointment.

The reform of the civil service will make no safe or satisfactory
advance until the present law and its equal administration are well
established in the confidence of the people. It will be my pleasure,
as it is my duty, to see that the law is executed with firmness and
impartiality. If some of its provisions have been fraudulently evaded
by appointing officers, our resentment should not suggest the repeal of
the law, but reform in its administration. We should have one view of
the matter, and hold it with a sincerity that is not affected by the
consideration that the party to which we belong is for the time in
power.

My predecessor, on the 4th day of January, 1889, by an Executive order
to take effect March 15, brought the Railway Mail Service under the
operation of the civil-service law.[7] Provision was made that the order
should take effect sooner in any State where an eligible list was sooner
obtained. On the 11th day of March Mr. Lyman, then the only member of
the Commission, reported to me in writing that it would not be possible
to have the list of eligibles ready before May 1, and requested that the
taking effect of the order be postponed until that time, which was
done,[8] subject to the same provision contained in the original order
as to States in which an eligible list was sooner obtained.

As a result of the revision of the rules, of the new classification, and
of the inclusion of the Railway Mail Service, the work of the Commission
has been greatly increased, and the present clerical force is found to
be inadequate. I recommend that the additional clerks asked by the
Commission be appropriated for.

The duty of appointment is devolved by the Constitution or by the law,
and the appointing officers are properly held to a high responsibility
in its exercise. The growth of the country and the consequent increase
of the civil list have magnified this function of the Executive
disproportionally. It can not be denied, however, that the labor
connected with this necessary work is increased, often to the point of
actual distress, by the sudden and excessive demands that are made upon
an incoming Administration for removals and appointments. But, on the
other hand, it is not true that incumbency is a conclusive argument for
continuance in office. Impartiality, moderation, fidelity to public
duty, and a good attainment in the discharge of it must be added before
the argument is complete. When those holding administrative offices so
conduct themselves as to convince just political opponents that no party
consideration or bias affects in any way the discharge of their public
duties, we can more easily stay the demand for removals.

I am satisfied that both in and out of the classified service great
benefit would accrue from the adoption of some system by which the
officer would receive the distinction and benefit that in all private
employments comes from exceptional faithfulness and efficiency in the
performance of duty.

I have suggested to the heads of the Executive Departments that they
consider whether a record might not be kept in each bureau of all those
elements that are covered by the terms "faithfulness" and "efficiency,"
and a rating made showing the relative merits of the clerks of each
class, this rating to be regarded as a test of merit in making
promotions.

I have also suggested to the Postmaster-General that he adopt some plan
by which he can, upon the basis of the reports to the Department and of
frequent inspections, indicate the relative merit of postmasters of each
class. They will be appropriately indicated in the Official Register and
in the report of the Department. That a great stimulus would thus be
given to the whole service I do not doubt, and such a record would be
the best defense against inconsiderate removals from office.

The interest of the General Government in the education of the
people found an early expression, not only in the thoughtful and
sometimes warning utterances of our ablest statesmen, but in liberal
appropriations from the common resources for the support of education
in the new States. No one will deny that it is of the gravest national
concern that those who hold the ultimate control of all public affairs
should have the necessary intelligence wisely to direct and determine
them. National aid to education has heretofore taken the form of land
grants, and in that form the constitutional power of Congress to promote
the education of the people is not seriously questioned. I do not think
it can be successfully questioned when the form is changed to that of a
direct grant of money from the public Treasury.

Such aid should be, as it always has been, suggested by some exceptional
conditions. The sudden emancipation of the slaves of the South, the
bestowal of the suffrage which soon followed, and the impairment of the
ability of the States where these new citizens were chiefly found to
adequately provide educational facilities presented not only exceptional
but unexampled conditions. That the situation has been much ameliorated
there is no doubt. The ability and interest of the States have happily
increased.

But a great work remains to be done, and I think the General
Government should lend its aid. As the suggestion of a national grant
in aid of education grows chiefly out of the condition and needs of
the emancipated slave and his descendants, the relief should as far
as possible, while necessarily proceeding upon some general lines, be
applied to the need that suggested it. It is essential, if much good is
to be accomplished, that the sympathy and active interest of the people
of the States should be enlisted, and that the methods adopted should
be such as to stimulate and not to supplant local taxation for school
purposes.

As one Congress can not bind a succeeding one in such a case and as
the effort must in some degree be experimental, I recommend that any
appropriation made for this purpose be so limited in annual amount and
as to the time over which it is to extend as will on the one hand give
the local school authorities opportunity to make the best use of the
first year's allowance, and on the other deliver them from the
temptation to unduly postpone the assumption of the whole burden
themselves.

The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us. They were brought
here in chains and held in the communities where they are now chiefly
found by a cruel slave code. Happily for both races, they are now free.
They have from a standpoint of ignorance and poverty--which was our
shame, not theirs--made remarkable advances in education and in the
acquisition of property. They have as a people shown themselves to
be friendly and faithful toward the white race under temptations of
tremendous strength. They have their representatives in the national
cemeteries, where a grateful Government has gathered the ashes of
those who died in its defense. They have furnished to our Regular Army
regiments that have won high praise from their commanding officers for
courage and soldierly qualities and for fidelity to the enlistment oath.
In civil life they are now the toilers of their communities, making
their full contribution to the widening streams of prosperity which
these communities are receiving. Their sudden withdrawal would stop
production and bring disorder into the household as well as the shop.
Generally they do not desire to quit their homes, and their employers
resent the interference of the emigration agents who seek to stimulate
such a desire.

But notwithstanding all this, in many parts of our country where the
colored population is large the people of that race are by various
devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and
of many of their civil rights. The wrong does not expend itself upon
those whose votes are suppressed. Every constituency in the Union is
wronged.

It has been the hope of every patriot that a sense of justice and of
respect for the law would work a gradual cure of these flagrant evils.
Surely no one supposes that the present can be accepted as a permanent
condition. If it is said that these communities must work out this
problem for themselves, we have a right to ask whether they are at work
upon it. Do they suggest any solution? When and under what conditions is
the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those
full civil rights which have so long been his in law? When is that
equality of influence which our form of government was intended to
secure to the electors to be restored? This generation should
courageously face these grave questions, and not leave them as a
heritage of woe to the next. The consultation should proceed with
candor, calmness, and great patience, upon the lines of justice and
humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty. No question in our country can
be at rest except upon the firm base of justice and of the law.

I earnestly invoke the attention of Congress to the consideration of
such measures within its well-defined constitutional powers as will
secure to all our people a free exercise of the right of suffrage and
every other civil right under the Constitution and laws of the United
States. No evil, however deplorable, can justify the assumption either
on the part of the Executive or of Congress of powers not granted, but
both will be highly blamable if all the powers granted are not wisely
but firmly used to correct these evils. The power to take the whole
direction and control of the election of members of the House of
Representatives is clearly given to the General Government. A partial
and qualified supervision of these elections is now provided for by law,
and in my opinion this law may be so strengthened and extended as to
secure on the whole better results than can be attained by a law taking
all the processes of such election into Federal control. The colored man
should be protected in all of his relations to the Federal Government,
whether as litigant, juror, or witness in our courts, as an elector for
members of Congress, or as a peaceful traveler upon our interstate
railways.

There is nothing more justly humiliating to the national pride and
nothing more hurtful to the national prosperity than the inferiority of
our merchant marine compared with that of other nations whose general
resources, wealth, and seacoast lines do not suggest any reason for
their supremacy on the sea. It was not always so, and our people are
agreed, I think, that it shall not continue to be so. It is not possible
in this communication to discuss the causes of the decay of our shipping
interests or the differing methods by which it is proposed to restore
them. The statement of a few well-authenticated facts and some general
suggestions as to legislation is all that is practicable. That the great
steamship lines sailing under the flags of England, France, Germany,
Spain, and Italy, and engaged in foreign commerce, were promoted and
have since been and now are liberally aided by grants of public money
in one form or another is generally known. That the American lines of
steamships have been abandoned by us to an unequal contest with the
aided lines of other nations until they have been withdrawn, or in
the few cases where they are still maintained are subject to serious
disadvantages, is matter of common knowledge.

The present situation is such that travelers and merchandise find
Liverpool often a necessary intermediate port between New York and some
of the South American capitals. The fact that some of the delegates from
South American States to the conference of American nations now in
session at Washington reached our shores by reversing that line of
travel is very conclusive of the need of such a conference and very
suggestive as to the first and most necessary step in the direction of
fuller and more beneficial intercourse with nations that are now our
neighbors upon the lines of latitude, but not upon the lines of
established commercial intercourse.

I recommend that such appropriations be made for ocean mail service in
American steamships between our ports and those of Central and South
America, China, Japan, and the important islands in both of the great
oceans as will be liberally remunerative for the service rendered and
as will encourage the establishment and in some fair degree equalize
the chances of American steamship lines in the competitions which they
must meet. That the American States lying south of us will cordially
cooperate in establishing and maintaining such lines of steamships to
their principal ports I do not doubt.

We should also make provision for a naval reserve to consist of such
merchant ships of American construction and of a specified tonnage and
speed as the owners will consent to place at the use of the Government
in case of need as armed cruisers. England has adopted this policy, and
as a result can now upon necessity at once place upon her naval list
some of the fastest steamships in the world. A proper supervision of the
construction of such vessels would make their conversion into effective
ships of war very easy.

I am an advocate of economy in our national expenditures, but it is
a misuse of terms to make this word describe a policy that withholds
an expenditure for the purpose of extending our foreign commerce. The
enlargement and improvement of our merchant marine, the development of
a sufficient body of trained American seamen, the promotion of rapid and
regular mail communication between the ports of other countries and our
own, and the adaptation of large and swift American merchant steamships
to naval uses in time of war are public purposes of the highest concern.
The enlarged participation of our people in the carrying trade, the new
and increased markets that will be opened for the products of our farms
and factories, and the fuller and better employment of our mechanics
which will result from a liberal promotion of our foreign commerce
insure the widest possible diffusion of benefit to all the States
and to all our people. Everything is most propitious for the present
inauguration of a liberal and progressive policy upon this subject,
and we should enter upon it with promptness and decision.

The legislation which I have suggested, it is sincerely believed,
will promote the peace and honor of our country and the prosperity and
security of the people. I invoke the diligent and serious attention of
Congress to the consideration of these and such other measures as may
be presented having the same great end in view.

BENJ. HARRISON.

[Footnote 2: See pp. 14-15.]

[Footnote 3: See pp. 15-18.]

[Footnote 4: See pp. 20-24.]

[Footnote 5: See pp. 24-25.]

[Footnote 6: See pp. 25-26.]

[Footnote 7: See Vol. VIII, pp. 847-851.]

[Footnote 8: See p. 27.]




SPECIAL MESSAGES.


EXECUTIVE MANSION, _December 17, 1889_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

The act of Congress approved July 9, 1888, "for an international marine
conference to secure greater safety for life and property at sea," and
in virtue of which the present conference is now holding its sessions
at Washington, provides by the third section that the labors of the
conference shall terminate on the 1st day of January, 1890, or sooner,
by direction of the President.

I transmit herewith a report from the Acting Secretary of State,
accompanied with a letter from Rear-Admiral S.R. Franklin, United States
Navy, president of the conference, stating that in all probability the
labors of the conference can not be brought to a close by the time fixed
by the present law.

In consideration of the many important questions now under discussion by
the conference, which should if possible be satisfactorily determined
before the final adjournment, I earnestly recommend that a further act
be passed to enable the conference to continue its sessions for a period
of two months from January 1, 1890.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _December 18, 1889_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of 16th instant from the Secretary
of the Interior, submitting the report, with accompanying papers, of the
commission appointed under the provisions of the act of March 2, 1889
(25 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 1002), to conduct negotiations with the
Coeur d'Alene tribe of Indians for the purchase and release by said
tribe of such portions of its reservation not agricultural and valuable
chiefly for minerals and timber as such tribe shall consent to sell,
etc., together with the agreement entered into by said commission
September 9, 1889, with said Indians.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _December 20, 1889_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 16th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, submitting a draft of a bill "to provide for
the reduction of the Round Valley Indian Reservation, in the State of
California, and for other purposes." I invite your attention to the
papers herein referred to, showing the necessity for the proposed
legislation, and ask that the bill herewith receive careful and early
consideration.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 7, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I herewith inclose a report from the Secretary of State, with
accompanying papers, in relation to the death of George Pauls, a German
subject, at Wilmington, N.C., May 8, 1886, and the claim of his widow
for compensation on that account. In view of the statements made by the
Secretary of State, I earnestly recommend that an appropriation of
$5,000 be made in behalf of Mrs. Pauls.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 13, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State of the 13th
instant, recommending that the necessary means be provided to erect
suitable buildings on the grounds so generously presented in the year
1884 to this Government for the use of its legation at Bangkok by His
Majesty the King of Siam.

I commend the matter to the favorable consideration of Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 16, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in relation
to the claim of the Government of Sweden and Norway, under the treaty
between the United States and that Government of July 4, 1827, for the
benefit of the lower rate of tonnage dues under the shipping acts of
1884 and 1886.

I recommend the immediate adoption by Congress of the necessary
legislation to enable this Government to apply in the case of Sweden and
Norway the same rule in respect to the levying of tonnage dues under the
treaty of 1827 as was claimed and secured by this Government under the
same instrument in 1828.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _January 20, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a letter of Professor T.C. Mendenhall, chairman of
a committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
and president of that association, and also the memorial prepared by
said committee, relating to the preservation of the forests upon the
public domain.

I very earnestly recommend that adequate legislation may be provided
to the end that the rapid and needless destruction of our great forest
areas may be prevented.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 20, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of War, relating to the
condition and needs of the band of Apache Indians now held at Mount
Vernon Barracks and at Governors Island. The reports of General Crook
and Lieutenant Howard, which accompany the letter of the Secretary, show
that some of these Indians have rendered good service to the Government
in the pursuit and capture of the murderous band that followed Natchez
and Geronimo. It is a reproach that they should not in our treatment of
them be distinguished from the cruel and bloody members of the tribe now
confined with them.

I earnestly recommend that provision be made by law for locating these
Indians upon lands in the Indian Territory.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, January 27, 1890_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit, in reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant,
a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, in
relation to the execution of the acts of Congress approved May 6, 1882,
and October 1, 1888, concerning Chinese.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 10, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In pursuance of the power vested in me by the terms of the last clause
of section 3 of the act of Congress approved March 2, 1889, entitled
"An act making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses
of the Indian Department and for fulfilling treaty stipulations with
various Indian tribes for the year ending June 30, 1890, and for other
purposes," a commission, as therein authorized, was appointed,
consisting of Charles Foster, of Ohio, William Warner, of Missouri, and
General George Crook, of the United States Army. This commission was
specially instructed to present to the Sioux Indians occupying the Great
Sioux Reservation, for their acceptance thereof and consent thereto in
manner and form as therein provided, the act of Congress approved March
2, 1889, entitled "An act to divide a portion of the reservation of the
Sioux Nation of Indians in Dakota into separate reservations and to
secure the relinquishment of the Indian title to the remainder, and for
other purposes."

The report of the commission was submitted to me on the 24th day of
December, 1889, and is, with the accompanying documents and a letter of
the Secretary of the Interior, herewith transmitted for the information
of Congress. It appears from the report of the commission that the
consent of more than three-fourths of the adult Indians to the terms of
the act last named was secured, as required by section 12 of the treaty
of 1868, and upon a careful examination of the papers submitted I find
such to be the fact, and that such consent is properly evidenced by the
signatures of more than three-fourths of such Indians.

At the outset of the negotiations the commission was confronted by
certain questions as to the interpretation and effect of the act of
Congress which they were presenting for the acceptance of the Indians.
Upon two or three points of some importance the commission gave in
response to these inquiries an interpretation to the law, and it was
the law thus explained to them that was accepted by the Indians. The
commissioners had no power to bind Congress or the Executive by their
construction of a statute, but they were the agents of the United
States, first, to submit a definite proposition for the acceptance
of the Indians, and, that failing, to agree upon modified terms to
be submitted to Congress for ratification. They were dealing with an
ignorant and suspicious people, and an explanation of the terms and
effect of the offer submitted could not be avoided. Good faith demands
that if the United States accepts the lands ceded the beneficial
construction of the act given by our agents should be also admitted
and observed.

The chief difficulty in the construction of the act grows out of its
relation to prior treaties, which were by section 19 continued in
force so far as they are not in conflict with the terms of the act.
The seventh article of the treaty of 1868, relating to schools and
schoolhouses, is by section 17 of the act continued in force for twenty
years, "subject to such modifications as Congress shall deem most
effective to secure to said Indians equivalent benefits of such
education."

Section 7 of the treaty of 1868 provides only for instruction in the
"elementary branches of an English education," while section 17 of the
act, after continuing this section of the treaty in force, provides a
fund which is to be applied "for the promotion of industrial and other
suitable education among said Indians." Again, section 7 of the treaty
provides for the erection of a schoolhouse for every thirty children who
can be induced to attend, while section 20 of the act requires the
erection of not less than thirty schoolhouses, and more if found
necessary.

The commissioners were asked by the Indians whether the cost of the
English schools provided for in section 7 of the treaty and of the
schoolhouses provided for in the same section and in section 20 of the
act would be a charge against the proceeds of the lands they were now
asked to cede to the United States. This question was answered in the
negative, and I think the answer was correct. If the act, without
reference to section 7 of the treaty, is to be construed to express
the whole duty of the Government toward the Indians in the matter of
schools, the extension for twenty years of the provisions of that
section is without meaning.

The assurance given by the commissioners that the money appropriated by
section 27 of the act to pay certain bands for the ponies taken by the
military authorities in 1876 would not be a charge against the proceeds
of the ceded lands was obviously a correct interpretation of the law.

The Indians were further assured by the commissioners that the amount
appropriated for the expenses of the commission could not under the law
be made a charge upon the proceeds of their lands. This, I think, is a
correct exposition of the act.

It seems from the report of the commission that some of the Indians at
the Standing Rock Agency asked whether if they accepted the act they
could have the election to take their allotments under section 6 of the
treaty of 1868 and have the benefits of sections 8 and 10 of that
treaty, and were told that they could.

As the treaty is continued in force except where it contravenes the
provisions of the act, I do not see any difficulty in admitting this
interpretation.

It will be found that the commission has submitted many recommendations,
some of them involving legislation and others appealing to powers
already possessed by the executive department. The consent of the
Indians to the act was not made dependent upon the adoption of any of
these recommendations, but many of them are obviously just and promotive
of the true interests of the Indians. So far as these require
legislation they are earnestly commended to the attention of Congress.

The Secretary of the Interior has prepared and submits with his letter
transmitting the report of the commission the draft of a bill embodying
those recommendations of the commission requiring legislation.

The appropriations necessary to carry into effect the provisions of the
act should be promptly made and be immediately available.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, February 12, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, respecting the
International Marine Conference which was held in the city of Washington
in the year 1889, together with a copy of the proceedings of the
conference, including the final act.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 17, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 11th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, submitting a copy of a report from the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and accompanying draft of a bill to amend
the first section of an act entitled "An act to provide for the
allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations,
and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the
Territories over the Indians, and for other purposes," approved February
8, 1887.

The matter is presented for the consideration and action of Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 18, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 8th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, submitting a report of the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs and accompanying agreement, made with the Sisseton and
Wahpeton bands of Dakota or Sioux Indians, for the purchase and release
of the surplus lands in the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, in the
States of North and South Dakota, the negotiations for said purchase and
release having been conducted under the authority contained in the fifth
section of the general allotment act of February 8, 1887 (24 U.S.
Statutes at Large, p. 388), which provides, among other things, that the
"purchase shall not be complete until ratified by Congress, and the form
and manner of executing such release shall also be prescribed by
Congress."

This agreement involves a departure from the terms of the general
allotment act in at least one important particular. It gives to each
member of the tribe 160 acres of land without regard to age or sex,
while the general law gives this allotment only to heads of families.
There are, I think, serious objections to the basis adopted in the
general law, especially in its application to married women; but if the
basis of the agreement herewith submitted is accepted, it would, I
think, result in some cases, where there are large families of minor
children, in excessive allotments to a single family. Whatever is done
in this case will of course become in some sense a precedent in the
cases yet to be dealt with.

Perhaps the question of the payment by the United States of the
annuities which were forfeited by the act of February 16, 1863
(12 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 652), should not have been considered in
connection with this negotiation for the cession of these lands. But it
appears that a refusal to consider this claim would have terminated the
negotiation, and if the claim is just its allowance has already been
too long delayed. The forfeiture declared by the act of 1863 unjustly
included the annuities of certain Indians of these bands who were not
only guilty of no fault, but who rendered meritorious services in the
armies of the United States in the suppression of the Sioux outbreak
and in the War of the Rebellion.

The agreement submitted, as I understand, provides for the payment of
the annuities justly due to these friendly Indians to all the members
of the two bands per capita. This is said to be the unanimous wish of
the Indians, and a distribution to the friendly Indians and their
descendants only would now be very difficult, if not impossible.

The agreement is respectfully submitted for the consideration of
Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 24, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of 18th instant from the Secretary
of the Interior, submitting copy of a report from the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, inclosing, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill
authorizing the removal of the Indians of the Papago or Gila Bend
Reservation, in Maricopa County, Arizona Territory, to the Papago Indian
Reservation, in Pima County, in said Territory, or to the Pima and
Maricopa Indian reservations, commonly known as the Gila River and Salt
River Indian reservations, respectively, in said Territory, and for
other purposes.

The matter is presented for the early consideration and action of
Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 24, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 18th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, submitting a copy of a report of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs and accompanying item for insertion in
the bill making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses
of the Indian Department, which makes provision for further compensation
of Henry B. Carrington, special agent appointed under the act of March
2, 1889, "to provide for the sale of lands patented to certain members
of the Flathead band of Indians in Montana Territory, and for other
purposes," to secure the consent of the Indians thereto and appraise
the lands and improvements thereof; for an appropriation to remove the
Indians whose lands have been sold to the Jocko Reservation, and for
additional legislation considered necessary to complete this matter,
as suggested by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

I also transmit a copy of the report of Special Agent Carrington and its
inclosures.

The matter is presented for the early consideration of Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 4, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In pursuance of the authority and direction contained in the act of
Congress approved January 14, 1889, entitled "An act for the relief and
civilization of the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota," three
commissioners were appointed by the President on February 26, 1889, as
therein authorized and directed, namely, Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota,
Martin Marty, of Dakota, and Joseph B. Whiting, of Wisconsin, to
negotiate with said Indians.

The commissioners have submitted their final report, with accompanying
papers, showing the results of the negotiations conducted by them, and
the same has been carefully reviewed by the Secretary of the Interior in
his report to me thereon.

Being satisfied from an examination of the papers submitted that the
cession and relinquishment by said Chippewa Indians of their title and
interest in the lands specified and described in the agreement with the
different bands or tribes of Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota
was obtained in the manner prescribed in the first section of said act,
and that more than the requisite number have signed said agreement, I
have, as provided by said act, approved the said instruments in writing
constituting the agreement entered into by the commissioners with said
Indians.

The commissioners did not escape the embarrassment which unfortunately
too often attends our negotiations with the Indians, namely, an
indisposition to treat with the Government for further concessions while
its obligations incurred under former agreements are unkept. I am sure
it will be the disposition of Congress to consider promptly and in a
just and friendly spirit the claims presented by these Indians through
our commissioners, which have been formulated in the draft of a bill
prepared by the Secretary of the Interior and submitted herewith.

The act of January 14, 1889 (25 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 642),
evidently contemplated the voluntary removal of the body of all these
bands of Indians to the White Earth and Red Lake reservations; but a
proviso in section 3 of the act authorized any Indian to take his
allotment upon the reservation where he now resides. The commissioners
report that quite a general desire was expressed by the Indians to avail
themselves of this option. The result of this is that the ceded land can
not be ascertained and brought to sale under the act until all of the
allotments are made.

I recommend that the necessary appropriations to complete the surveys
and allotments be made at once available, so that the work may be begun
and completed at the earliest possible day.

A copy of the report made by the commissioners, with copies of all the
papers submitted therewith, except the census rolls, is herewith
presented for the information of the Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 24, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 8th
instant, in relation to the employment by the Regular Army of the United
States of Indian scouts for the purpose of pursuing hostile Indians in
their raids in the territory of the United States and Mexico, and in
regard to the proposed transfer of the Apache Chiricahua Indians from
Mount Vernon Barracks, Ala., to Fort Sill, Ind. T., I transmit herewith
a communication from the Secretary of State on the subject, together
with the accompanying papers.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 29, 1890_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 28th instant,
the House of Representatives concurring, I return herewith the bill
(S. 1332) entitled "An act granting to the city of Colorado Springs,
in the State of Colorado, certain lands therein described for water
reservoirs."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, March 31, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in relation
to the discriminating duty now imposed upon foreign works of art,
and recommend that action thereon looking to the removal of the
discrimination be taken by Congress during its present session, if
practicable.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, April 15, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I herewith transmit, in reply to the resolution of the House of
Representatives of the 3d instant, a report from the Secretary of State,
accompanied by certain correspondence in regard to the seizure of the
schooner _Rebecca_ by the Mexican customs authorities at Tampico in
February, 1884.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, April 18, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith the fifth annual report of the Commissioner of Labor.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 18, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives, the
Senate concurring, I return herewith House bill No. 5179, entitled "An
act fixing the rate of interest to be charged on arrearages of general
and special taxes now due the District of Columbia if paid within a
specified time."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 21, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives, the
Senate concurring, I return herewith House bill No. 105, entitled
"An act in relation to immediate transportation of dutiable goods,
amendatory of the act of July 10, 1880."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, April 21, 1890_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In answer to the resolution of the Senate dated March 25 last, in
relation to La Abra Silver Mining Company and the distribution or
payment of moneys to that corporation on account of the award in its
favor by the Mexican Government, I transmit herewith a report from the
Secretary of State upon the subject, together with the accompanying
papers.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 30, 1890_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, the House of
Representatives concurring, I return herewith Senate bill 895, entitled
"An act to organize the Territory of Oklahoma, to establish courts in
the Indian Territory, and for other purposes."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 8, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of March 31,
1890, respecting the importation into foreign countries of breadstuffs
and provisions from the United States and the rates of duty imposed upon
such articles, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State
on the subject, together with the accompanying papers.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 13, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 10th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, and the accompanying copies of
correspondence, relative to the condition of the Northern Cheyenne
Indians at the Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak.

The desire of these Indians to be united upon some common reservation
with their brethren now occupying the Tongue River Reserve, in Montana,
is quite natural, and such an arrangement would, I think, promote the
best interests of both of these bands.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 17, 1890_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of this date, I return
herewith the bill (S. 903) entitled "An act for the erection of a public
building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 19, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I inclose herewith a draft of a bill submitted by the Secretary of the
Interior, providing for the survey and disposal of a tract of land
situated in the city of Monterey, Cal., known as the "Cuartel" lot.

The lot referred to is one of the tracts excluded from the survey of the
Pueblo lands of Monterey, Cal., by the decision of Acting Secretary of
the Interior Muldrow of October 4, 1887 (6 Land Decisions, p. 179), on
the ground that it was in a state of reservation for national purposes.

A communication from the Secretary of War to the Secretary of the
Interior, copy herewith, states that this lot has been occupied at
intervals by the War Department for military purposes, but as it is not
within the limits of any declared military reservation the act of July
5, 1884 (23 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 103), providing for a transfer
to the Interior Department of abandoned military reservations, does not
apply.

The lot is no longer required for military purposes, and a willingness
is expressed by the War Department that the Department of the Interior
should assume control of it. A copy of the tracing, with notes, is
inclosed, showing an approximate survey and describing the situation
of the lot.

I also inclose a copy of a report of the Commissioner of the General
Land Office to the Secretary of the Interior, setting forth that under
the decision of Mr. Muldrow the tract of land known as the "Cuartel"
lot belongs to the United States by conquest and by treaty, and is in a
state of reservation for national purposes, and respectfully submitting
that Congress may continue its status as fixed by said decision or enact
appropriate laws providing for its disposition as public land.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 19, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a report of the International American Conference,
recently in session at this capital, recommending the survey of a route
for an intercontinental line of railroad to connect the systems of North
America with those of the southern continent, and to be conducted under
the direction of a board of commissioners representing the several
American Republics.

Public attention has chiefly been attracted to the subject of improved
water communication between the ports of the United States and those of
Central and South America. The creation of new and improved steamship
lines undoubtedly furnishes the readiest means of developing an
increased trade with the Latin-American nations. But it should not be
forgotten that it is possible to travel by land from Washington to the
southernmost capital of South America, and that the opening of railroad
communication with these friendly States will give to them and to us
facilities for intercourse and the exchanges of trade that are of
special value.

The work contemplated is vast, but entirely practicable. It will be
interesting to all, and perhaps surprising to most of us, to notice how
much has already been done in the way of railroad construction in Mexico
and South America that can be utilized as part of an intercontinental
line.

I do not hesitate to recommend that Congress make the very moderate
appropriation for surveys suggested by the conference and authorize the
appointment of commissioners and the detail of engineer officers to
direct and conduct the necessary preliminary surveys.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 21, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 20th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior and accompanying correspondence in the matter
of the request of the Seminole Nation of Indians for negotiations with
the Creek Nation of Indians for the purchase of an additional quantity
of land, being about 25,000 acres, for the use of the Seminoles. The
request is based upon the fact that former purchases do not embrace all
of the lands upon which the Seminole Indians have made improvements, and
which by the corrected survey were given to the Creeks. The money to be
paid for these lands is to be reimbursed to the Government by the
Seminoles.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 26, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In compliance with the resolutions of the House of Representatives of
the 23d instant, the Senate concurring, I return herewith the bills
H.R. Nos. 380 and 2007, entitled, respectively, "An act to amend an act
entitled 'An act to authorize the Cairo and Tennessee River Railroad
Company to construct bridges across the Tennessee and Cumberland
rivers,' approved January 8, 1889," and "An act granting a pension to
the widow of Adam Shrake."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 27, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing
a report adopted by the International American Conference, recently
in session at this capital, recommending the establishment of an
international American bank, with its principal offices in the city of
New York and branches in the commercial centers of the several other
American Republics.

The advantages of such an institution to the merchants of the United
States engaged in trade with Central and South America and the purposes
intended to be accomplished are fully set forth in the letter of the
Secretary of State and the accompanying report. It is not proposed to
involve the United States in any financial responsibility, but only to
give to the proposed bank a corporate franchise, and to promote public
confidence by requiring that its condition and transactions shall be
submitted to a scrutiny similar to that which is now exercised over our
domestic banking system.

The subject is submitted for the consideration of Congress in the belief
that it will be found possible to promote the end desired by legislation
so guarded as to avoid all just criticism.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 28, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 26th instant from the
Secretary of the Interior, and accompanying item of appropriation, to
enable the President to continue the negotiations authorized by sections
14 and 15 of the Indian appropriation act approved March 2, 1889, with
the Cherokee Indians and with all other Indians owning or claiming lands
west of the ninety-sixth degree of longitude in the Indian Territory,
for the cession to the United States of all their title, claim, or
interest of every kind or character in and to said lands, etc.

The matter is presented for the favorable action of Congress.

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 2, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the
29th ultimo, the Senate concurring, I return herewith the bill (H.R.
7345) entitled "An act authorizing and directing the Secretary of War
to establish new harbor lines in Portage Lake, Houghton County, Mich."

BENJ. HARRISON.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 2, 1890_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

The International American Conference, recently in session at this
capital, recommended for adoption by the several American Republics--

1. A uniform system of customs regulations for the classification and
valuation of imported merchandise;

2. A uniform nomenclature for the description of articles of merchandise
imported and exported; and

3. The establishment at Washington of an international bureau of
information.

The conference also at its final session decided to establish
in the city of Washington, as a fitting memorial of its meeting, a
Latin-American library, to be formed by contributions from the several
nations, of historical, geographical, and literary works, maps,
manuscripts, and official documents relating to the history and
civilization of America, and expressed a desire that the Government of
the United States should provide a suitable building for the shelter
of such a library, to be solemnly dedicated upon the f

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