University of Virginia Library

MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
SECOND SESSION OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH
CONGRESS

The country is to be congratulated on the amount of
substantial achievement which has marked the past year
both as regards our foreign and as regards our domestic
policy.

With a nation as with a man the most important things
are those of the household, and therefore the country is
especially to be congratulated on what has been accomplished
in the direction of providing for the exercise of
supervision over the great corporations and combinations
of corporations engaged in interstate commerce. The
Congress has created the Department of Commerce and
Labor, including the Bureau of Corporations, with for
the first time authority to secure proper publicity of such
proceedings of these great corporations as the public has
the right to know. It has provided for the expediting of
suits for the enforcement of the Federal anti-trust law;
and by another law it has secured equal treatment to all
producers in the transportation of their goods, thus taking
a long stride forward in making effective the work of the
Interstate Commerce Commission.

The establishment of the Department of Commerce
and Labor, with the Bureau of Corporations thereunder,
marks a real advance in the direction of doing all that is
possible for the solution of the questions vitally affecting

capitalists and wage workers. The act creating the Department
was approved on February 14, 1903, and two
days later the head of the Department was nominated,
and confirmed by the Senate. Since then the work of
organization has been pushed as rapidly as the initial appropriations
permitted, and with due regard to thoroughness
and the broad purposes which the Department is
designed to serve. After the transfer of the various
bureaus and branches to the Department at the beginning
of the current fiscal year, as provided for in the act, the
personnel comprised 1289 employees in Washington and
8836 in the country at large. The scope of the Department's
duty and authority embraces the commercial and
industrial interests of the Nation. It is not designed to
restrict or control the fullest liberty of legitimate business
action, but to secure exact and authentic information
which will aid the Executive in enforcing existing laws,
and which will enable the Congress to enact additional
legislation, if any should be found necessary, in order to
prevent the few from obtaining privileges at the expense
of diminished opportunities for the many.

The preliminary work of the Bureau of Corporations in
the Department has shown the wisdom of its creation.
Publicity in corporate affairs will tend to do away with
ignorance, and will afford facts upon which intelligent
action may be taken. Systematic, intelligent investigation
is already developing facts the knowledge of which is
essential to a right understanding of the needs and duties
of the business world. The corporation which is honestly
and fairly organized, whose managers in the conduct of
its business recognize their obligation to deal squarely
with their stockholders, their competitors, and the public,
has nothing to fear from such supervision. The purpose of
this Bureau is not to embarrass or assail legitimate business,
but to aid in bringing about a better industrial condition—a
condition under which there shall be obedience

to law and recognition of public obligation by all corporations,
great or small. The Department of Commerce
and Labor will be not only the clearing house for
information regarding the business transactions of the
Nation, but the executive arm of the Government to aid
in strengthening our domestic and foreign markets, in
perfecting our transportation facilities, in building up our
merchant marine, in preventing the entrance of undesirable
immigrants, in improving commercial and industrial
conditions, and in bringing together on common ground
those necessary partners in industrial progress—capital
and labor. Commerce between the nations is steadily
growing in volume, and the tendency of the times is
toward closer trade relations. Constant watchfulness is
needed to secure to Americans the chance to participate
to the best advantage in foreign trade; and we may confidently
expect that the new Department will justify the
expectation of its creators by the exercise of this watchfulness,
as well as by the businesslike administration of
such laws relating to our internal affairs as are intrusted
to its care.

In enacting the laws above enumerated the Congress
proceeded on sane and conservative lines. Nothing revolutionary
was attempted; but a common-sense and successful
effort was made in the direction of seeing that
corporations are so handled as to subserve the public
good. The legislation was moderate. It was characterized
throughout by the idea that we were not attacking
corporations, but endeavoring to provide for doing away
with any evil in them; that we drew the line against misconduct,
not against wealth; gladly recognizing the great
good done by the capitalist who alone, or in conjunction
with his fellows, does his work along proper and legitimate
lines. The purpose of the legislation, which purpose will
undoubtedly be fulfilled, was to favor such a man when
he does well, and to supervise his action only to prevent

him from doing ill. Publicity can do no harm to the
honest corporation. The only corporation that has cause
to dread it is the corporation which shrinks from the light,
and about the welfare of such corporations we need not
be over-sensitive. The work of the Department of Commerce
and Labor has been conditioned upon this theory,
of securing fair treatment alike for labor and for capital.
The consistent policy of the National Government, so
far as it has the power, is to hold in check the unscrupulous
man, whether employer or employee; but to refuse
to weaken individual initiative or to hamper or cramp the
industrial development of the country. We recognize
that this is an era of federation and combination, in
which great capitalistic corporations and labor unions
have become factors of tremendous importance in all
industrial centres. Hearty recognition is given the far-reaching,
beneficent work which has been accomplished
through both corporations and unions, and the line as between
different corporations, as between different unions,
is drawn as it is between different individuals—that is, it
is drawn on conduct, the effort being to treat both organized
capital and organized labor alike; asking nothing
save that the interest of each shall be brought into harmony
with the interest of the general public, and that the
conduct of each shall conform to the fundamental rules
of obedience to law, of individual freedom, and of justice
and fair dealing towards all. Whenever either corporation,
labor union, or individual disregards the law or acts
in a spirit of arbitrary and tyrannous interference with
the rights of others, whether corporations or individuals,
then, where the Federal Government has jurisdiction, it
will see to it that the misconduct is stopped, paying not
the slightest heed to the position or power of the corporation,
the union, or the individual, but only to one vital
fact—that is, the question whether or not the conduct of
the individual or aggregate of individuals is in accordance
with the law of the land. Every man must be guaranteed
his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property
or his labor, so long as he does not infringe the rights of
others. No man is above the law and no man is below
it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require
him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a
right; not asked as a favor.

We have cause as a nation to be thankful for the steps
that have been so successfully taken to put these principles
into effect. The progress has been by evolution, not
by revolution. Nothing radical has been done; the action
has been both moderate and resolute. Therefore the
work will stand. There shall be no backward step. If
in the working of the laws it proves desirable that they
shall at any point be expanded or amplified, the amendment
can be made as its desirability is shown. Meanwhile
they are being administered with judgment, but
with insistence upon obedience to them; and their need
has been emphasized in signal fashion by the events of
the past year.

From all sources, exclusive of the postal service, the
receipts of the Government for the last fiscal year aggregated
$560,396,674. The expenditures for the same period
were $506,099,007, the surplus for the fiscal year being
$54,297,667. The indications are that the surplus for the
present fiscal year will be very small, if indeed there be
any surplus. From July to November the receipts from
customs were, approximately, nine million dollars less
than the receipts from the same source for a corresponding
portion of last year. Should this decrease continue
at the same ratio throughout the fiscal year, the surplus
would be reduced by, approximately, thirty million dollars.
Should the revenue from customs suffer much
further decrease during the fiscal year, the surplus would
vanish A large surplus is certainly undesirable. Two
years ago the war taxes were taken off with the express

intention of equalizing the governmental receipts and
expenditures, and though the first year thereafter still
showed a surplus, it now seems likely that a substantial
equality of revenue and expenditure will be attained.
Such being the case it is of great moment both to exercise
care and economy in appropriations, and to scan sharply
any change in our fiscal revenue system which may reduce
our income. The need of strict economy in our expenditures
is emphasized by the fact that we can not afford to
be parsimonious in providing for what is essential to our
national well-being. Careful economy wherever possible
will alone prevent our income from falling below the point
required in order to meet our genuine needs.

The integrity of our currency is beyond question, and
under present conditions it would be unwise and unnecessary
to attempt a reconstruction of our entire monetary
system. The same liberty should be granted the Secretary
of the Treasury to deposit customs receipts as is
granted him in the deposit of receipts from other sources.
In my Message of December 2, 1902, I called attention
to certain needs of the financial situation, and I again ask
the consideration of the Congress for these questions.

During the last session of the Congress, at the suggestion
of a joint note from the Republic of Mexico and the
Imperial Government of China, and in harmony with an
act of the Congress appropriating $25,000 to pay the expenses
thereof, a commission was appointed to confer
with the principal European countries in the hope that
some plan might be devised whereby a fixed rate of exchange
could be assured between the gold-standard countries
and the silver-standard countries. This commission
has filed its preliminary report, which has been made
public. I deem it important that the commission be continued,
and that a sum of money be appropriated sufficient
to pay the expenses of its further labors.

A majority of our people desire that steps be taken in

the interests of American shipping, so that we may once
more resume our former position in the ocean carrying
trade. But hitherto the differences of opinion as to the
proper method of reaching this end have been so wide
that it has proved impossible to secure the adoption of
any particular scheme. Having in view these facts, I
recommend that the Congress direct the Secretary of the
Navy, the Postmaster-General, and the Secretary of Commerce
and Labor, associated with such a representation
from the Senate and House of Representatives as the
Congress in its wisdom may designate, to serve as a commission
for the purpose of investigating and reporting to
the Congress at its next session what legislation is desirable
or necessary for the development of the American
merchant marine and American commerce, and incidentally
of a national ocean mail service of adequate auxiliary
naval cruisers and naval reserves. While such a measure
is desirable in any event, it is especially desirable at this
time, in view of the fact that our present governmental
contract for ocean mail with the American Line will expire
in 1905. Our ocean mail act was passed in 1891. In
1895 our 20-knot transatlantic mail line was equal to any
foreign line. Since then the Germans have put on 23-knot
steamers, and the British have contracted for 24-knot
steamers. Our service should equal the best. If it does
not, the commercial public will abandon it. If we are to
stay in the business it ought to be with a full understanding
of the advantages to the country on one hand, and on
the other with exact knowledge of the cost and proper
methods of carrying it on. Moreover, lines of cargo ships
are of even more importance than fast mail lines; save so
far as the latter can be depended upon to furnish swift
auxiliary cruisers in time of war. The establishment of
new lines of cargo ships to South America, to Asia, and
elsewhere would be much in the interest of our commercial
expansion.

We can not have too much immigration of the right
kind, and we should have none at all of the wrong kind.
The need is to devise some system by which undesirable
immigrants shall be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants
are properly distributed throughout the country.
At present some districts which need immigrants have
none; and in others, where the population is already congested,
immigrants come in such numbers as to depress
the conditions of life for those already there. During
the last two years the immigration service at New York
has been greatly improved, and the corruption and inefficiency
which formerly obtained there have been eradicated.
This service has just been investigated by a
committee of New York citizens of high standing, Messrs.
Arthur v. Briesen, Lee K. Frankel, Eugene A. Philbin,
Thomas W. Hynes, and Ralph Trautmann. Their report
deals with the whole situation at length, and concludes
with certain recommendations for administrative and legislative
action. It is now receiving the attention of the
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.

The special investigation of the subject of naturalization
under the direction of the Attorney-General, and
the consequent prosecutions, reveal a condition of affairs
calling for the immediate attention of the Congress.
Forgeries and perjuries of shameless and flagrant character
have been perpetrated, not only in the dense centres of
population, but throughout the country; and it is established
beyond doubt that very many so-called citizens of
the United States have no title whatever to that right,
and are asserting and enjoying the benefits of the same
through the grossest frauds. It is never to be forgotten
that citizenship is, to quote the words recently used by
the Supreme Court of the United States, an "inestimable
heritage," whether it proceeds from birth within the
country or is obtained by naturalization; and we poison
the sources of our national character and strength at the

fountain, if the privilege is claimed and exercised without
right, and by means of fraud and corruption. The body
politic can not be sound and healthy if many of its constituent
members claim their standing through the prostitution
of the high right and calling of citizenship. It
should mean something to become a citizen of the United
States; and in the process no loophole whatever should
be left open to fraud.

The methods by which these frauds—now under full
investigation with a view to meting out punishment and
providing adequate remedies—are perpetrated, include
many variations of procedure by which false certificates
of citizenship are forged in their entirety; or genuine certificates
fraudulently or collusively obtained in blank
are filled in by the criminal conspirators; or certificates
are obtained on fraudulent statements as to the time
of arrival and residence in this country; or imposition
and substitution of another party for the real petitioner
occur in court; or certificates are made the subject
of barter and sale and transferred from the rightful holder
to those not entitled to them; or certificates are forged by
erasure of the original names and the insertion of the
names of other persons not entitled to the same.

It is not necessary for me to refer here at large to the
causes leading to this state of affairs. The desire for
naturalization is heartily to be commended where it
springs from a sincere and permanent intention to become
citizens, and a real appreciation of the privilege. But it
is a source of untold evil and trouble where it is traceable
to selfish and dishonest motives, such as the effort by
artificial and improper means, in wholesale fashion to
create voters who are ready-made tools of corrupt politicians,
or the desire to evade certain labor laws creating
discriminations against alien labor. All good citizens,
whether naturalized or native-born, are equally interested
in protecting our citizenship against fraud in any form,

and, on the other hand, in affording every facility for
naturalization to those who in good faith desire to share
alike our privileges and our responsibilities.

The Federal grand jury lately in session in New York
City dealt with this subject and made a presentment
which states the situation briefly and forcibly and contains
important suggestions for the consideration of the
Congress. This presentment is included as an appendix
to the report of the Attorney-General.

In my last annual Message, in connection with the
subject of the due regulation of combinations of capital
which are or may become injurious to the public, I recommended
a special appropriation for the better enforcement
of the anti-trust law as it now stands, to be expended
under the direction of the Attorney-General. Accordingly
(by the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation
act of February 25, 1903, 32 Stat., 854, 904), the
Congress appropriated, for the purpose of enforcing
the various Federal trust and interstate-commerce laws,
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, to be expended
under the direction of the Attorney-General in the employment
of special counsel and agents in the Department
of Justice to conduct proceedings and prosecutions under
said laws in the courts of the United States. I now
recommend, as a matter of the utmost importance and
urgency, the extension of the purposes of this appropriation,
so that it may be available, under the direction of
the Attorney-General, and until used, for the due enforcement
of the laws of the United States in general and
especially of the civil and criminal laws relating to public
lands and the laws relating to postal crimes and offences
and the subject of naturalization. Recent investigations
have shown a deplorable state of affairs in these three
matters of vital concern. By various frauds and by
forgeries and perjuries, thousands of acres of the public
domain, embracing lands of different character and extending

through various sections of the country, have
been dishonestly acquired. It is hardly necessary to urge
the importance of recovering these dishonest acquisitions,
stolen from the people, and of promptly and duly punishing
the offenders. I speak in another part of this Message
of the widespread crimes by which the sacred right of
citizenship is falsely asserted and that "inestimable heritage
"perverted to base ends. By similar means—that is,
through frauds, forgeries, and perjuries, and by shameless
briberies—the laws relating to the proper conduct of the
public service in general and to the due administration of
the Post-Office Department have been notoriously violated,
and many indictments have been found, and the
consequent prosecutions are in course of hearing or on the
eve thereof. For the reasons thus indicated, and so that
the Government may be prepared to enforce promptly
and with the greatest effect the due penalties for such
violations of law, and to this end may be furnished with
sufficient instrumentalities and competent legal assistance
for the investigations and trials which will be necessary
at many different points of the country, I urge upon the
Congress the necessity of making the said appropriation
available for immediate use for all such purposes, to be
expended under the direction of the Attorney-General.

Steps have been taken by the State Department looking
to the making of bribery an extraditable offence with
foreign powers. The need of more effective treaties
covering this crime is manifest. The exposures and
prosecutions of official corruption in St. Louis, Mo., and
other cities and States have resulted in a number of givers
and takers of bribes becoming fugitives in foreign lands.
Bribery has not been included in extradition treaties
heretofore, as the necessity for it has not arisen. While
there may have been as much official corruption in former
years, there has been more developed and brought to
light in the immediate past than in the preceding century

of our country's history. It should be the policy
of the United States to leave no place on earth where
a corrupt man fleeing from this country can rest in peace.
There is no reason why bribery should not be included
in all treaties as extraditable. The recent amended treaty
with Mexico, whereby this crime was put in the list of
extraditable offences, has established a salutary precedent
in this regard. Under this treaty the State Department
has asked, and Mexico has granted, the extradition of one
of the St. Louis bribe-givers.

There can be no crime more serious than bribery.
Other offences violate one law, while corruption strikes
at the foundation of all law. Under our form of government
all authority is vested in the people and by them
delegated to those who represent them in official capacity.
There can be no offence heavier than that of him in whom
such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his
own gain and enrichment; and no less heavy is the offence
of the bribe-giver. He is worse than the thief, for the
thief robs the individual, while the corrupt official plunders
an entire city or State. He is as wicked as the murderer,
for the murderer may only take one life against the law,
while the corrupt official and the man who corrupts the
official alike aim at the assassination of the commonwealth
itself. Government of the people, by the people, for the
people will perish from the face of the earth if bribery is
tolerated. The givers and takers of bribes stand on an
evil pre-eminence of infamy. The exposure and punishment
of public corruption is an honor to a nation, not a
disgrace. The shame lies in toleration, not in correction.
No city or State, still less the Nation, can be injured by
the enforcement of law. As long as public plunderers
when detected can find a haven of refuge in any foreign
land and avoid punishment, just so long encouragement is
given them to continue their practices. If we fail to do
all that in us lies to stamp out corruption we cannot

escape our share of responsibility for the guilt. The
first requisite of successful self-government is unflinching
enforcement of the law and the cutting out of
corruption.

For several years past the rapid development of Alaska
and the establishment of growing American interests in
regions theretofore unsurveyed and imperfectly known
brought into prominence the urgent necessity of a practical
demarcation of the boundaries between the jurisdictions
of the United States and Great Britain. Although
the treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia, the
provisions of which were copied in the treaty of 1867,
whereby Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States,
was positive as to the control, first by Russia and later
by the United States, of a strip of territory along the
continental mainland from the western shore of Portland
Canal to Mount St. Elias, following and surrounding the
indentations of the coast and including the islands to
the westward, its description of the landward margin of the
strip was indefinite, resting on the supposed existence of a
continuous ridge or range of mountains skirting the coast,
as figured in the charts of the early navigators. It had
at no time been possible for either party in interest to lay
down, under the authority of the treaty, a line so obviously
exact according to its provisions as to command the
assent of the other. For nearly three-fourths of a century
the absence of tangible local interests demanding
the exercise of positive jurisdiction on either side of the
border left the question dormant. In 1878 questions of
revenue administration on the Stikine River led to the
establishment of a provisional demarcation, crossing the
channel between two high peaks on either side about
twenty-four miles above the river mouth. In 1899 similar
questions growing out of the extraordinary development
of mining interests in the region about the head of Lynn
Canal brought about a temporary modus vivendi, by which

a convenient separation was made at the watershed divides
of the White and Chilkoot Passes and to the north of
Klukwan, on the Klehini River. These partial and tentative
adjustments could not, in the very nature of things,
be satisfactory or lasting. A permanent disposition of
the matter became imperative.

After unavailing attempts to reach an understanding
through a Joint High Commission, followed by prolonged
negotiations, conducted in an amicable spirit, a
convention between the United States and Great Britain
was signed, January 24, 1903, providing for an examination
of the subject by a mixed tribunal of six members,
three on a side, with a view to its final disposition. Ratifications
were exchanged on March 3d last whereupon
the two Governments appointed their respective members.
Those on behalf of the United States were Elihu Root,
Secretary of War, Henry Cabot Lodge, a Senator of the
United States, and George Turner, an ex-Senator of the
United States, while Great Britain named the Right
Honorable Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England,
Sir Louis Amable Jetté, K. C. M. G., retired judge
of the Supreme Court of Quebec, and A. B. Aylesworth,
K. C., of Toronto. This tribunal met in London on
September 3d, under the presidency of Lord Alverstone.
The proceedings were expeditious, and marked by a
friendly and conscientious spirit. The respective cases,
counter cases, and arguments presented the issues clearly
and fully. On the 20th of October a majority of the
tribunal reached and signed an agreement on all the
questions submitted by the terms of the convention. By
this award the right of the United States to the control
of a continuous strip or border of the mainland shore,
skirting all the tide-water inlets and sinuosities of the
coast, is confirmed; the entrance to Portland Canal (concerning
which legitimate doubt appeared) is defined as
passing by Tongass Inlet and to the northwestward of

Wales and Pearse Islands; a line is drawn from the head
of Portland Canal to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude;
and the interior border-line of the strip is fixed by
lines connecting certain mountain summits lying between
Portland Canal and Mount St. Elias, and running along
the crest of the divide separating the coast slope from the
inland watershed at the only part of the frontier where
the drainage ridge approaches the coast within the distance
of ten marine leagues stipulated by the treaty as
the extreme width of the strip around the heads of Lynn
Canal and its branches.

While the line so traced follows the provisional demarcation
of 1878 at the crossing of the Stikine River, and
that of 1899 at the summits of the White and Chilkoot
Passes, it runs much farther inland from the Klehini than
the temporary line of the later modus vivendi, and leaves
the entire mining district of the Porcupine River and
Glacier Creek within the jurisdiction of the United States.
The result is satisfactory in every way. It is of great
material advantage to our people in the far Northwest.
It has removed from the field of discussion and possible
danger a question liable to become more acutely accentuated
with each passing year. Finally, it has furnished a
signal proof of the fairness and good-will with which two
friendly nations can approach and determine issues involving
national sovereignty and by their nature incapable
of submission to a third power for adjudication.

The award is self-executing on the vital points. To
make it effective as regards the others it only remains
for the two Governments to appoint, each on its own
behalf, one or more scientific experts, who shall, with
all convenient speed, proceed together to lay down
the boundary line in accordance with the decision of
the majority of the tribunal. I recommend that the
Congress make adequate provision for the appointment,
compensation, and expenses of the members to serve

on this joint boundary commission on the part of the
United States.

It will be remembered that during the second session
of the last Congress Great Britain, Germany, and Italy
formed an alliance for the purpose of blockading the ports
of Venezuela and using such other means of pressure as
would secure a settlement of claims due, as they alleged,
to certain of their subjects. Their employment of force
for the collection of those claims was terminated by an
agreement brought about through the offices of the diplomatic
representatives of the United States at Caracas and
the Government at Washington, thereby ending a situation
which was bound to cause increasing friction, and
which jeoparded the peace of the continent. Under this
agreement Venezuela agreed to set apart a certain percentage
of the customs receipts of two of her ports to be
applied to the payment of whatever obligations might be
ascertained by mixed commissions appointed for that
purpose to be due from her, not only to the three powers
already mentioned, whose proceedings against her had
resulted in a state of war, but also to the United States,
France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and
Norway, and Mexico, who had not employed force for
the collection of the claims alleged to be due to certain
of their citizens.

A demand was then made by the so-called blockading
powers that the sums ascertained to be due to their citizens
by such mixed commissions should be accorded payment
in full before anything was paid upon the claims of
any of the so-called peace powers. Venezuela, on the
other hand, insisted that all her creditors should be paid
upon a basis of exact equality. During the efforts to
adjust this dispute it was suggested by the powers in
interest that it should be referred to me for decision, but
I was clearly of the opinion that a far wiser course would
be to submit the question to the Permanent Court of

Arbitration at The Hague. It seemed to me to offer
an admirable opportunity to advance the practice of
the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations
and to secure for The Hague Tribunal a memorable
increase of its practical importance. The nations interested
in the controversy were so numerous and in
many instances so powerful as to make it evident that
beneficent results would follow from their appearance
at the same time before the bar of that august tribunal
of peace.

Our hopes in that regard have been realized. Russia
and Austria are represented in the persons of the learned
and distinguished jurists who compose the Tribunal,
while Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Mexico,
the United States, and Venezuela are represented by
their respective agents and counsel. Such an imposing
concourse of nations presenting their arguments to and
invoking the decision of that high court of international
justice and international peace can hardly fail to secure a
like submission of many future controversies. The nations
now appearing there will find it far easier to appear
there a second time, while no nation can imagine its just
pride will be lessened by following the example now presented.
This triumph of the principle of international
arbitration is a subject of warm congratulation and offers
a happy augury for the peace of the world.

There seems good ground for the belief that there has
been a real growth among the civilized nations of a sentiment
which will permit a gradual substitution of other
methods than the method of war in the settlement of disputes.
It is not pretended that as yet we are near a position
in which it will be possible wholly to prevent war,
or that a just regard for national interest and honor will
in all cases permit of the settlement of international disputes
by arbitration; but by a mixture of prudence and

firmness with wisdom we think it is possible to do away
with much of the provocation and excuse for war, and at
least in many cases to substitute some other and more
rational method for the settlement of disputes. The
Hague Court offers so good an example of what can be
done in the direction of such settlement that it should be
encouraged in every way.

Further steps should be taken. In President McKinley's
annual Message of December 5, 1898, he made the
following recommendation:

I cordially renew this recommendation.

The Supreme Court, speaking on December 11, 1899,
through Peckham, J., said:

I advocate this as a matter of humanity and morals.
It is anachronistic when private property is respected on
land that it should not be respected at sea. Moreover,
it should be borne in mind that shipping represents, internationally
speaking, a much more generalized species of
private property than is the case with ordinary property
on land—that is, property found at sea is much less apt
than is the case with property found on land really to
belong to any one nation. Under the modern system of
corporate ownership the flag of a vessel often differs from
the flag which would mark the nationality of the real
ownership and money control of the vessel; and the cargo
may belong to individuals of yet a different nationality.
Much American capital is now invested in foreign ships;
and among foreign nations it often happens that the
capital of one is largely invested in the shipping of another.
Furthermore, as a practical matter, it may be
mentioned that while commerce destroying may cause
serious loss and great annoyance, it can never be more
than a subsidiary factor in bringing to terms a resolute
foe. This is now well recognized by all of our naval experts.
The fighting ship, not the commerce destroyer, is
the vessel whose feats add renown to a nation's history,
and establish her place among the great powers of the
world.

Last year the Interparliamentary Union for International
Arbitration met at Vienna, six hundred members
of the different legislatures of civilized countries attending.

It was provided that the next meeting should be in
1904 at St. Louis, subject to our Congress extending an
invitation. Like The Hague Tribunal, this Interparliamentary
Union is one of the forces tending towards peace
among the nations of the earth, and it is entitled to our
support. I trust the invitation can be extended.

Early in July, having received intelligence, which happily
turned out to be erroneous, of the assassination of
our vice-consul at Beirut, I dispatched a small squadron
to that port for such service as might be found necessary
on arrival. Although the attempt on the life of our vice-consul
had not been successful, yet the outrage was
symptomatic of a state of excitement and disorder which
demanded immediate attention. The arrival of the vessels
had the happiest result. A feeling of security at
once took the place of the former alarm and disquiet;
our officers were cordially welcomed by the consular body
and the leading merchants, and ordinary business resumed
its activity. The Government of the Sultan gave a considerate
hearing to the representatives of our minister;
the official who was regarded as responsible for the disturbed
condition of affairs was removed. Our relations
with the Turkish Government remain friendly; our claims
founded on inequitable treatment of some of our schools
and missions appear to be in process of amicable adjustment.

The signing of a new commercial treaty with China,
which took place at Shanghai on the 8th of October, is a
cause for satisfaction. This act, the result of long discussion
and negotiation, places our commercial relations
with the great Oriental Empire on a more satisfactory
footing than they have ever heretofore enjoyed. It provides
not only for the ordinary rights and privileges of
diplomatic and consular officers, but also for an important
extension of our commerce by increased facility of access
to Chinese ports, and for the relief of trade by the

removal of some of the obstacles which have embarrassed
it in the past. The Chinese Government engages, on fair
and equitable conditions, which will probably be accepted
by the principal commercial nations, to abandon the levy
of "liken" and other transit dues throughout the Empire,
and to introduce other desirable administrative reforms.
Larger facilities are to be given to our citizens who desire
to carry on mining enterprises in China. We have secured
for our missionaries a valuable privilege, the recognition
of their right to rent and lease in perpetuity such property
as their religious societies may need in all parts of the
Empire. And, what was an indispensable condition for
the advance and development of our commerce in Manchuria,
China, by treaty with us, has opened to foreign
commerce the cities of Mukden, the capital of the province
of Manchuria, and Antung, an important port on
the Yalu River, on the road to Korea. The full measure
of development which our commerce may rightfully expect
can hardly be looked for until the settlement of the
present abnormal state of things in the Empire; but the
foundation for such development has at last been laid.

I call your attention to the reduced cost in maintaining
the consular service for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1903, as shown in the annual report of the Auditor for the
State and other Departments, as compared with the year
previous. For the year under consideration the excess
of expenditures over receipts on account of the consular
service amounted to $26,125.12, as against $96,972.50, for
the year ending June 30, 1902, and $147,040.16 for the
year ending June 30, 1901. This is the best showing
in this respect for the consular service for the past fourteen
years, and the reduction in the cost of the service
to the Government has been made in spite of the fact
that the expenditures for the year in question were more
than $20,000 greater than for the previous year.

The rural free-delivery service has been steadily extended.

The attention of the Congress is asked to the
question of the compensation of the letter-carriers and
clerks engaged in the postal service, especially on the
new rural free-delivery routes. More routes have been installed
since the first of July last than in any like period in
the Department's history. While a due regard to economy
must be kept in mind in the establishment of new
routes, yet the extension of the rural free-delivery system
must be continued, for reasons of sound public policy.
No governmental movement of recent years has resulted
in greater immediate benefit to the people of the country
districts. Rural free delivery, taken in connection with
the telephone, the bicycle, and the trolley, accomplishes
much toward lessening the isolation of farm life and making
it brighter and more attractive. In the immediate
past the lack of just such facilities as these has driven
many of the more active and restless young men and
women from the farms to the cities; for they rebelled at
loneliness and lack of mental companionship. It is unhealthy
and undesirable for the cities to grow at the expense
of the country; and rural free delivery is not only
a good thing in itself, but is good because it is one of the
causes which check this unwholesome tendency towards
the urban concentration of our population at the expense
of the country districts. It is for the same reason that
we sympathize with and approve of the policy of building
good roads. The movement for good roads is one
fraught with the greatest benefit to the country districts.

I trust that the Congress will continue to favor in all
proper ways the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. This
Exposition commemorates the Louisiana purchase, which
was the first great step in the expansion which made us a
continental nation. The expedition of Lewis and Clark
across the continent followed thereon, and marked the
beginning of the process of exploration and colonization
which thrust our national boundaries to the Pacific. The

acquisition of the Oregon country, including the present
States of Oregon and Washington, was a fact of immense
importance in our history; first giving us our place on
the Pacific seaboard, and making ready the way for our
ascendency in the commerce of the greatest of the oceans.
The centennial of our establishment upon the western
coast by the expedition of Lewis and Clark is to be celebrated
at Portland, Oregon, by an exposition in the summer
of 1905, and this event should receive recognition and
support from the National Government.

I call your special attention to the Territory of Alaska.
The country is developing rapidly, and it has an assured
future. The mineral wealth is great, and has as yet hardly
been tapped. The fisheries, if wisely handled and kept
under national control, will be a business as permanent
as any other, and of the utmost importance to the people.
The forests if properly guarded will form another great
source of wealth. Portions of Alaska are fitted for farming
and stock raising, although the methods must be
adapted to the peculiar conditions of the country.
Alaska is situated in the far north; but so are Norway
and Sweden and Finland; and Alaska can prosper and
play its part in the New World just as those nations have
prospered and played their parts in the Old World.
Proper land laws should be enacted, and the survey of
the public lands immediately begun. Coal-land laws
should be provided whereby the coal-land entryman may
make his location and secure patent under methods kindred
to those now prescribed for homestead and mineral
entrymen. Salmon hatcheries, exclusively under Government
control, should be established. The cable should
be extended from Sitka westward. Wagon roads and
trails should be built, and the building of railroads promoted
in all legitimate ways. Light-houses should be
built along the coast. Attention should be paid to the
needs of the Alaska Indians; provision should be made

for an officer, with deputies, to study their needs, relieve
their immediate wants, and help them adapt themselves
to the new conditions.

The commission appointed to investigate, during the
season of 1903, the condition and needs of the Alaskan
salmon fisheries, has finished its work in the field, and is
preparing a detailed report thereon. A preliminary report
reciting the measures immediately required for the
protection and preservation of the salmon industry has
already been submitted to the Secretary of Commerce
and Labor for his attention and for the needed action.

I recommend that an appropriation be made for building
light-houses in Hawaii, and taking possession of those
already built. The Territory should be reimbursed for
whatever amounts it has already expended for lighthouses.
The governor should be empowered to suspend
or remove any official appointed by him, without submitting
the matter to the legislature.

Of our insular possessions, the Philippines and Porto
Rico, it is gratifying to say that their steady progress has
been such as to make it unnecessary to spend much time
in discussing them. Yet the Congress should ever keep
in mind that a peculiar obligation rests upon us to further
in every way the welfare of these communities. The
Philippines should be knit closer to us by tariff arrangements.
It would, of course, be impossible suddenly to
raise the people of the islands to the high pitch of industrial
prosperity and of governmental efficiency to which
they will in the end by degrees attain; and the caution
and moderation shown in developing them have been
among the main reasons why this development has
hitherto gone on so smoothly. Scrupulous care has been
taken in the choice of governmental agents and the entire
elimination of partisan politics from the public service.
The condition of the islanders is in material things
far better than ever before, while their governmental,

intellectual, and moral advance has kept pace with their
material advance. No one people ever benefited another
people more than we have benefited the Filipinos by
taking possession of the islands.

The cash receipts of the General Land Office for the
last fiscal year were $11,024,743.65, an increase of $4,762,816.47
over the preceding year. Of this sum, approximately,
$8,461,493 will go to the credit of the fund for
the reclamation of arid land, making the total of this
fund, up to the 30th of June, 1903, approximately,
$16,191,836.

A gratifying disposition has been evinced by those
having unlawful inclosures of public land to remove their
fences. Nearly two million acres so inclosed have been
thrown open on demand. In but comparatively few
cases has it been necessary to go into court to accomplish
this purpose. This work will be vigorously prosecuted
until all unlawful inclosures have been removed.

Experience has shown that in the Western States themselves,
as well as in the rest of the country, there is widespread
conviction that certain of the public-land laws and
the resulting administrative practice no longer meet the
present needs. The character and uses of the remaining
public lands differ widely from those of the public lands
which Congress had especially in view when these laws
were passed. The rapidly increasing rate of disposal of
the public lands is not followed by a corresponding increase
in home building. There is a tendency to mass in
large holdings public lands, especially timber and grazing
lands, and thereby to retard settlement. I renew and
emphasize my recommendation of last year that so far as
they are available for agriculture in its broadest sense,
and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the
national irrigation law, the remaining public lands should
be held rigidly for the home builder. The attention of
the Congress is especially directed to the timber and

stone law, the desert-land law, and the commutation
clause of the homestead law, which in their operation
have in many respects conflicted with wise public-land
policy. The discussions in the Congress and elsewhere
have made it evident that there is a wide divergence of
opinions between those holding opposite views on these
subjects; and that the opposing sides have strong and
convinced representatives of weight both within and
without the Congress; the differences being not only as
to matters of opinion but as to matters of fact. In order
that definite information may be available for the use of
the Congress, I have appointed a commission composed
of W. A. Richards, Commissioner of the General Land
Office; Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Bureau of Forestry
of the Department of Agriculture, and F. H. Newell,
Chief Hydrographer of the Geological Survey, to report
at the earliest practicable moment upon the condition,
operation, and effect of the present land laws and on
the use, condition, disposal, and settlement of the public
lands. The commission will report especially what changes
in organization, laws, regulations, and practice affecting
the public lands are needed to effect the largest practicable
disposition of the public lands to actual settlers who will
build permanent homes upon them, and to secure in permanence
the fullest and most effective use of the resources
of the public lands; and it will make such other reports
and recommendations as its study of these questions may
suggest. The commission is to report immediately upon
those points concerning which its judgment is clear; on
any point upon which it has doubt it will take the time
necessary to make investigation and reach a final judgment.

The work of reclamation of the arid lands of the West
is progressing steadily and satisfactorily under the terms
of the law setting aside the proceeds from the disposal
of public lands. The corps of engineers known as the

Reclamation Service, which is conducting the surveys and
examinations, has been thoroughly organized, especial
pains being taken to secure under the civil-service rules a
body of skilled, experienced, and efficient men. Surveys
and examinations are progressing throughout the arid
States and Territories, plans for reclaiming works being
prepared and passed upon by boards of engineers before
approval by the Secretary of the Interior. In Arizona
and Nevada, in localities where such work is pre-eminently
needed, construction has already been begun. In other
parts of the arid West various projects are well advanced
towards the drawing up of contracts, these being delayed
in part by necessities of reaching agreements or understanding
as regards rights of way or acquisition of real
estate. Most of the works contemplated for construction
are of national importance, involving interstate questions
or the securing of stable, self-supporting communities in
the midst of vast tracts of vacant land. The Nation as a
whole is of course the gainer by the creation of these
homes, adding as they do to the wealth and stability of
the country, and furnishing a home market for the products
of the East and South. The reclamation law, while
perhaps not ideal, appears at present to answer the larger
needs for which it is designed. Further legislation is not
recommended until the necessities of change are more
apparent.

The study of the opportunities of reclamation of the
vast extent of arid land shows that whether this reclamation
is done by individuals, corporations, or the State,
the sources of water supply must be effectively protected
and the reservoirs guarded by the preservation of the
forests at the headwaters of the streams. The engineers
making the preliminary examinations continually emphasize
this need and urge that the remaining public lands at
the headwaters of the important streams of the West be
reserved to insure permanency of water supply for irrigation.

Much progress in forestry has been made during
the past year. The necessity for perpetuating our forest
resources, whether in public or private hands, is recognized
now as never before. The demand for forest reserves
has become insistent in the West, because the West
must use the water, wood, and summer range which only
such reserves can supply. Progressive lumbermen are
striving, through forestry, to give their business permanence.
Other great business interests are awakening to
the need of forest preservation as a business matter. The
Government's forest work should receive from the Congress
hearty support, and especially support adequate for
the protection of the forest reserves against fire. The
forest-reserve policy of the Government has passed beyond
the experimental stage and has reached a condition
where scientific methods are essential to its successful
prosecution. The administrative features of forest reserves
are at present unsatisfactory, being divided between
three Bureaus of two Departments. It is therefore
recommended that all matters pertaining to forest reserves
except those involving or pertaining to land titles,
be consolidated in the Bureau of Forestry of the Department
of Agriculture.

The cotton-growing States have recently been invaded
by a weevil that has done much damage and threatens
the entire cotton industry. I suggest to the Congress
the prompt enactment of such remedial legislation as its
judgment may approve.

In granting patents to foreigners the proper course for
this country to follow is to give the same advantages to
foreigners here that the countries in which these foreigners
dwell extend in return to our citizens; that is, to
extend the benefits of our patent laws on inventions and
the like where in return the articles would be patentable
in the foreign countries concerned—where an American
could get a corresponding patent in such countries.

The Indian agents should not be dependent for their
appointment or tenure of office upon considerations of
partisan politics; the practice of appointing, when possible,
ex-army officers or bonded superintendents to the
vacancies that occur is working well. Attention is invited
to the widespread illiteracy due to lack of public
schools in the Indian Territory. Prompt heed should
be paid to the need of education for the children in this
Territory.

In my last annual Message the attention of the Congress
was called to the necessity of enlarging the safety-appliance
law, and it is gratifying to note that this law
was amended in important respects. With the increasing
railway mileage of the country, the greater number of
men employed, and the use of larger and heavier equipment
the urgency for renewed effort to prevent the loss
of life and limb upon the railroads of the country, particularly
to employees, is apparent. For the inspection
of water craft and the Life-Saving Service upon the water
the Congress has built up an elaborate body of protective
legislation and a thorough method of inspection and is
annually spending large sums of money. It is encouraging
to observe that the Congress is alive to the interests
of those who are employed upon our wonderful arteries
of commerce—the railroads—who so safely transport
millions of passengers and billions of tons of freight.
The Federal inspection of safety appliances, for which
the Congress is now making appropriations, is a service
analogous to that which the Government has upheld for
generations in regard to vessels, and it is believed will
prove of great practical benefit, both to railroad employees
and the travelling public. As the greater part of commerce
is interstate and exclusively under the control of
the Congress, the needed safety and uniformity must be
secured by national legislation.

No other class of our citizens deserves so well of the

Nation as those to whom the Nation owes its very being,
the veterans of the Civil War. Special attention is asked
to the excellent work of the Pension Bureau in expediting
and disposing of pension claims. During the fiscal year
ending July 1, 1903, the Bureau settled 251,982 claims,
an average of 825 claims for each working day of the
year. The number of settlements since July 1, 1903, has
been in excess of last year's average, approaching 1000
claims for each working day, and it is believed that the
work of the Bureau will be current at the close of the
present fiscal year.

During the year ended June 30th last 25,566 persons
were appointed through competitive examinations under
the civil-service rules. This was 12,672 more than during
the preceding year, and forty per cent. of those who
passed the examinations. This abnormal growth was
largely occasioned by the extension of classification to
the rural free-delivery service and the appointment last
year of over nine thousand rural carriers. A revision of
the civil-service rules took effect on April 15th last, which
has greatly improved their operation. The completion of
the reform of the civil service is recognized by good citizens
everywhere as a matter of the highest public importance,
and the success of the merit system largely depends
upon the effectiveness of the rules and the machinery
provided for their enforcement. A very gratifying spirit
of friendly co-operation exists in all the Departments of
the Government in the enforcement and uniform observance
of both the letter and spirit of the civil-service act.
Executive orders of July 3, 1902; March 26, 1903, and
July 8, 1903, require that appointments of all unclassified
laborers, both in the Departments at Washington and in
the field service, shall be made with the assistance of the
United States Civil Service Commission, under a system of
registration to test the relative fitness of applicants for appointment
or employment. This system is competitive,

and is open to all citizens of the United States qualified
in respect to age, physical ability, moral character,
industry, and adaptability for manual labor; except that
in case of veterans of the Civil War the element of age is
omitted. This system of appointment is distinct from
the classified service and does not classify positions of
mere laborer under the civil-service act and rules. Regulations
in aid thereof have been put in operation in
several of the departments and are being gradually extended
in other parts of the service. The results have
been very satisfactory, as extravagance has been checked
by decreasing the number of unnecessary positions and
by increasing the efficiency of the employees remaining.

The Congress, as a result of a thorough investigation
of the charities and reformatory institutions in the District
of Columbia, by a joint select committee of the two
Houses which made its report in March, 1898, created
in the act approved June 6, 1900, a board of charities for
the District of Columbia, to consist of five residents of
the District, appointed by the President of the United
States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
each for a term of three years, to serve without compensation.
President McKinley appointed five men who
had been active and prominent in the public charities of
Washington, all of whom upon taking office July 1, 1900,
resigned from the different charities with which they had
been connected. The members of the board have been
reappointed in successive years. The board serves under
the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The
board gave its first year to a careful and impartial study
of the special problems before it, and has continued that
study every year in the light of the best practice in public
charities elsewhere. Its recommendations in its annual
reports to the Congress through the Commissioners of the
District of Columbia "for the economical and efficient administration
of the charities and reformatories of the District

of Columbia," as required by the act creating it, have
been based upon the principles commended by the joint
select committee of the Congress in its report of March,
1898, and approved by the best administrators of public
charities, and make for the desired systematization and
improvement of the affairs under its supervision. They
are worthy of favorable consideration by the Congress.

The effect of the laws providing a General Staff for the
Army and for the more effective use of the National
Guard has been excellent. Great improvement has been
made in the efficiency of our Army in recent years. Such
schools as those erected at Fort Leavenworth and Fort
Riley and the institution of fall manœuvre work accomplish
satisfactory results. The good effect of these
manœuvres upon the National Guard is marked, and
ample appropriation should be made to enable the guardsmen
of the several States to share in the benefit. The
Government should as soon as possible secure suitable
permanent camp sites for military manœuvres in the
various sections of the country. The service thereby
rendered not only to the Regular Army, but to the National
Guard of the several States, will be so great as to
repay many times over the relatively small expense. We
should not rest satisfied with what has been done, however,
The only people who are contented with a system
of promotion by mere seniority are those who are contented
with the triumph of mediocrity over excellence.
On the other hand, a system which encouraged the exercise
of social or political favoritism in promotions would
be even worse. But it would surely be easy to devise a
method of promotion from grade to grade in which the
opinion of the higher officers of the service upon the candidates
should be decisive upon the standing and promotion
of the latter. Just such a system now obtains at
West Point. The quality of each year's work determines
the standing of that year's class, the man being dropped

or graduated into the next class in the relative position
which his military superiors decide to be warranted by
his merit. In other words, ability, energy, fidelity, and
all other similar qualities determine the rank of a man
year after year in West Point, and his standing in the
army when he graduates from West Point; but from
that time on, all effort to find which man is best or worst,
and reward or punish him accordingly, is abandoned; no
brilliancy, no amount of hard work, no eagerness in the
performance of duty, can advance him, and no slackness
or indifference that falls short of a court-martial offence
can retard him. Until this system is changed we cannot
hope that our officers will be of as high grade as we have
a right to expect, considering the material upon which we
draw. Moreover, when a man renders such service as
Captain Pershing rendered last spring in the Moro campaign,
it ought to be possible to reward him without at
once jumping him to the grade of brigadier-general.

Shortly after the enunciation of that famous principle
of American foreign policy now known as the "Monroe
Doctrine," President Monroe, in a special Message to
Congress on January 30, 1824, spoke as follows: "The
Navy is the arm from which our Government will always
derive most aid in support of our . . . rights. Every
power engaged in war will know the strength of our naval
power, the number of our ships of each class, their condition,
and the promptitude with which we may bring
them into service, and will pay due consideration to that
argument."

I heartily congratulate the Congress upon the steady
progress in building up the American Navy. We cannot
afford a let-up in this great work. To stand still means
to go back. There should be no cessation in adding to
the effective units of the fighting strength of the fleet.
Meanwhile the Navy Department and the officers of the
Navy are doing well their part by providing constant

service at sea under conditions akin to those of actual
warfare. Our officers and enlisted men are learning to
handle the battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats with
high efficiency in fleet and squadron formations, and the
standard of marksmanship is being steadily raised. The
best work ashore is indispensable, but the highest duty
of a naval officer is to exercise command at sea.

The establishment of a naval base in the Philippines
ought not to be longer postponed. Such a base is desirable
in time of peace; in time of war it would be indispensable,
and its lack would be ruinous. Without it our
fleet would be helpless. Our naval experts are agreed
that Subig Bay is the proper place for the purpose. The
national interests require that the work of fortification
and development of a naval station at Subig Bay be begun
at an early date; for under the best conditions it is a
work which will consume much time.

It is eminently desirable, however, that there should
be provided a naval general staff on lines similar to those
of the General Staff lately created for the Army. Within
the Navy Department itself the needs of the service have
brought about a system under which the duties of a general
staff are partially performed; for the Bureau of Navigation
has under its direction the War College, the Office
of Naval Intelligence, and the Board of Inspection, and
has been in close touch with the General Board of the
Navy. But though under the excellent officers at their
head, these boards and bureaus do good work, they have
not the authority of a general staff, and have not sufficient
scope to insure a proper readiness for emergencies. We
need the establishment by law of a body of trained
officers, who shall exercise a systematic control of the
military affairs of the Navy, and be authorized advisers
of the Secretary concerning it.

By the act of June 28, 1902, the Congress authorized
the President to enter into treaty with Colombia for the

building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama; it
being provided that in the event of failure to secure such
treaty after the lapse of a reasonable time, recourse should
be had to building a canal through Nicaragua. It has
not been necessary to consider this alternative, as I am
enabled to lay before the Senate a treaty providing for
the building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama.
This was the route which commended itself to the deliberate
judgment of the Congress, and we can now
acquire by treaty the right to construct the canal over
this route. The question now, therefore, is not by which
route the isthmian canal shall be built, for that question
has been definitely and irrevocably decided. The question
is simply whether or not we shall have an isthmian canal.

When the Congress directed that we should take the
Panama route under treaty with Colombia, the essence of
the condition, of course, referred not to the Government
which controlled that route, but to the route itself; to
the territory across which the route lay, not to the name
which for the moment the territory bore on the map.
The purpose of the law was to authorize the President to
make a treaty with the power in actual control of the
Isthmus of Panama. This purpose has been fulfilled.

In the year 1846 this Government entered into a treaty
with New Granada, the predecessor upon the Isthmus of
the Republic of Colombia and of the present Republic of
Panama, by which treaty it was provided that the Government
and citizens of the United States should always
have free and open right of way or transit across the
Isthmus of Panama by any modes of communication that
might be constructed, while in return our Government
guaranteed the perfect neutrality of the above-mentioned
Isthmus with the view that the free transit from the one
to the other sea might not be interrupted or embarrassed.
The treaty vested in the United States a substantial
property right carved out of the rights of sovereignty and

property which New Granada then had and possessed
over the said territory. The name of New Granada has
passed away and its territory has been divided. Its successor,
the Government of Colombia, has ceased to own
any property in the Isthmus. A new Republic, that of
Panama, which was at one time a sovereign state, and at
another time a mere department of the successive confederations
known as New Granada and Colombia, has
now succeeded to the rights which first one and then the
other formerly exercised over the Isthmus. But as long
as the Isthmus endures, the mere geographical fact of its
existence, and the peculiar interest therein which is required
by our position, perpetuate the solemn contract
which binds the holders of the territory to respect our
right to freedom of transit across it, and binds us in return
to safeguard for the Isthmus and the world the exercise
of that inestimable privilege. The true interpretation of
the obligations upon which the United States entered in
this treaty of 1846 has been given repeatedly in the utterances
of Presidents and Secretaries of State. Secretary
Cass in 1858 officially stated the position of this Government
as follows:

Seven years later, in 1865, Mr. Seward in different
communications took the following position:

Attorney-General Speed, under date of November 7,
1865, advised Secretary Seward as follows:

For four hundred years, ever since shortly after the discovery
of this hemisphere, the canal across the Isthmus

has been planned. For two-score years it has been
worked at. When made it is to last for the ages. It is
to alter the geography of a continent and the trade routes
of the world. We have shown by every treaty we have
negotiated or attempted to negotiate with the peoples in
control of the Isthmus and with foreign nations in reference
thereto our consistent good faith in observing our
obligations; on the one hand to the peoples of the
Isthmus, and on the other hand to the civilized world
whose commercial rights we are safeguarding and guaranteeing
by our action. We have done our duty to others
in letter and in spirit, and we have shown the utmost
forbearance in exacting our own rights.

Last spring, under the act above referred to, a treaty
concluded between the representatives of the Republic of
Colombia and of our Government was ratified by the Senate.
This treaty was entered into at the urgent solicitation
of the people of Colombia and after a body of experts
appointed by our Government especially to go into the
matter of the routes across the Isthmus had pronounced
unanimously in favor of the Panama route. In drawing
up this treaty every concession was made to the people
and to the Government of Colombia. We were more
than just in dealing with them. Our generosity was such
as to make it a serious question whether we had not gone
too far in their interest at the expense of our own; for in
our scrupulous desire to pay all possible heed, not merely
to the real but even to the fancied rights of our weaker
neighbor, who already owed so much to our protection
and forbearance, we yielded in all possible ways to her
desires in drawing up the treaty. Nevertheless the Government
of Colombia not merely repudiated the treaty,
but repudiated it in such manner as to make it evident
by the time the Colombian Congress adjourned that not
the scantiest hope remained of ever getting a satisfactory
treaty from them. The Government of Colombia made

the treaty, and yet when the Colombian Congress was
called to ratify it the vote against ratification was unanimous.
It does not appear that the Government made
any real effort to secure ratification.

Immediately after the adjournment of the Congress a
revolution broke out in Panama. The people of Panama
had long been discontented with the Republic of Colombia,
and they had been kept quiet only by the prospect of
the conclusion of the treaty, which was to them a matter
of vital concern. When it became evident that the treaty
was hopelessly lost, the people of Panama rose literally as
one man. Not a shot was fired by a single man on the
Isthmus in the interest of the Colombian Government.
Not a life was lost in the accomplishment of the revolution.
The Colombian troops stationed on the Isthmus,
who had long been unpaid, made common cause with the
people of Panama, and with astonishing unanimity the
new Republic was started. The duty of the United
States in the premises was clear. In strict accordance
with the principles laid down by Secretaries Cass and
Seward in the official documents above quoted, the
United States gave notice that it would permit the landing
of no expeditionary force, the arrival of which would
mean chaos and destruction along the line of the railroad
and of the proposed canal, and an interruption of transit
as an inevitable consequence. The de facto Government
of Panama was recognized in the following telegram to
Mr. Ehrman:

The Government of Colombia was notified of our action
by the following telegram to Mr. Beaupré:

When these events happened, fifty-seven years had
elapsed since the United States had entered into its treaty
with New Granada. During that time the Governments
of New Granada and of its successor, Colombia, have been
in a constant state of flux. The following is a partial list
of the disturbances on the Isthmus of Panama during the
period in question as reported to us by our consuls. It is
not possible to give a complete list, and some of the reports
that speak of "revolutions" must mean unsuccessful
revolutions.

• May 22, 1850.—Outbreak; two Americans killed.
  War vessel demanded to quell outbreak.
• October, 1850.—Revolutionary plot to bring about
  independence of the Isthmus.
• July 22, 1851.—Revolution in four southern provinces.

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420




• November 14, 1851.—Outbreak at Chagres. Man-of-war
  requested for Chagres.
• June 27, 1853.—Insurrection at Bogota, and consequent
  disturbance on Isthmus. War vessel demanded.
• May 23, 1854.—Political disturbances; war vessel requested.


• June 28, 1854.—Attempted revolution.
• October 24, 1854.—Independence of Isthmus demanded
  by provincial legislature.
• April, 1856.—Riot, and massacre of Americans.
• May 4, 1856.—Riot.
• May 18, 1856.—Riot.
• June 3, 1856.—Riot.
• October 2, 1856.—Conflict between two native parties.
  United States forces landed.
• December 18, 1858.—Attempted secession of Panama.
• April, 1859.—Riots.
• September, 1860.—Outbreak.
• October 4, 1860.—Landing of United States forces in
  consequence.
• May 23, 1861.—Intervention of the United States
  forces required by intendente.
• October 2, 1861.—Insurrection and civil war.
• April 4, 1862.—Measures to prevent rebels crossing
  Isthmus.
• June 13, 1862.—Mosquera's troops refused admittance
  to Panama.
• March, 1865.—Revolution, and United States troops
  landed.
• August, 1865.—Riots; unsuccessful attempt to invade
  Panama.
• March, 1866.—Unsuccessful revolution.
• April, 1867.—Attempt to overthrow Government.
• August, 1867.—Attempt at revolution.
• July 5, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government
  inaugurated.

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421




• August 29, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government
  overthrown.
• April, 1871.—Revolution; followed apparently by
  counter–revolution.
• April, 1873.—Revolution and civil war which lasted to
  October, 1875.
• August, 1876.—Civil war which lasted until April, 1877.
• July, 1878.—Rebellion.
• December, 1878.—Revolt.
• April, 1879.—Revolution.
• June, 1879.—Revolution.
• March, 1883.—Riot.
• May, 1883.—Riot.
• June, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.
• December, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.
• January, 1885.—Revolutionary disturbances.
• March, 1885.—Revolution.
• April, 1887.—Disturbance on Panama Railroad.
• November, 1887.—Disturbance on line of canal.
• January, 1889.—Riot.
• January, 1895.—Revolution which lasted until April.
• March, 1895.—Incendiary attempt.
• October, 1899.—Revolution.
• February, 1900, to July, 1900.—Revolution.
• January, 1901.—Revolution.
• July, 1901.—Revolutionary disturbances.
• September, 1901.—City of Colon taken by rebels.
• March, 1902.—Revolutionary disturbances.
• July, 1902.—Revolution.

The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebellions,
insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have
occurred during the period in question; yet they number
fifty-three for the fifty-seven years. It will be noted
that one of them lasted for nearly three years before it
was quelled; another for nearly a year. In short, the

experience of over half a century has shown Colombia to
be utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus.
Only the active interference of the United States has enabled
her to preserve so much as a semblance of sovereignty.
Had it not been for the exercise by the United
States of the police power in her interest, her connection
with the Isthmus would have been sundered long ago. In
1856, in 1860, in 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and again in 1902,
sailors and marines from United States warships were
forced to land in order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect
life and property, and to see that the transit across the
Isthmus was kept open. In 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in
1900, the Colombian Government asked that the United
States Government would land troops to protect its interests
and maintain order on the Isthmus. Perhaps the
most extraordinary request is that which has just been
received and which runs as follows:

Knowing that revolution has already commenced in Panama
[an eminent Colombian] says that if the Government of the
United States will land troops to preserve Colombian sovereignty,
and the transit, if requested by Colombian chargé
d'affaires, this Government will declare martial law; and, by
virtue of vested constitutional authority, when public order is
disturbed, will approve by decree the ratification of the canal
treaty as signed; or, if the Government of the United States
prefers, will call extra session of the Congress—with new and
friendly members—next May to approve the treaty. [An
eminent Colombian] has the perfect confidence of vice-president,
he says, and if it became necessary will go to the Isthmus
or send representative there to adjust matters along above lines
to the satisfaction of the people there.

This dispatch is noteworthy from two standpoints. Its
offer of immediately guaranteeing the treaty to us is in
sharp contrast with the positive and contemptuous refusal
of the Congress which has just closed its sessions to

consider favorably such a treaty; it shows that the Government
which made the treaty really had absolute control
over the situation, but did not choose to exercise this
control. The dispatch further calls on us to restore order
and secure Colombian supremacy in the Isthmus from
which the Colombian Government has just by its action
decided to bar us by preventing the construction of the
canal.

The control, iathe interest of the commerce and traffic
of the whole civilized world, of the means of undisturbed
transitacrossthe Isthmus of Panama has become of
transcendent importance to the United States. We have
repeatedly exercised this control by intervening in the
course of domestic dissension, and by protecting the territory
from foreign invasion. In 1853 Mr. Everett assured
the Peruvian minister that we should not hesitate to maintain
the neutrality of the Isthmus in the case of war between
Peru and Colombia. In 1864 Colombia, which has
always been vigilant to avail itself of its privileges conferred
by the treaty, expressed its expectation that in the
event of war between Peru and Spain the United States
would carry into effect the guaranty of neutrality. There
have been few administrations of the State Department
in which this treaty has not, either by the one side or the
other, been used as a basis of more or less important demands.
It was said by Mr. Fish in 1871 that the Department
of State had reason to believe that an attack upon
Colombian sovereignty on the Isthmus had, on several
occasions, been averted by warning from this Government.
In 1886, when Colombia was under the menace of
hostilities from Italy in the Cerruti case, Mr. Bayard expressed
the serious concern that the United States could
not but feel, that a European power should resort to
force against a sister republic of this hemisphere, as to the
sovereign and uninterrupted use of a part of whose territory
we are guarantors under the solemn faith of a treaty.

The above recital of facts establishes beyond question:
First, that the United States has for over half a century
patiently and in good faith carried out its obligations
under the treaty of 1846; second, that when for the first
time it became possible for Colombia to do anything in
requital of the services thus repeatedly rendered to it for
fifty-seven years by the United States, the Colombian
Government peremptorily and offensively refused thus to
do its part, even though to do so would have been to
its advantage and immeasurably to the advantage of the
State of Panama, at that time under its jurisdiction;
third, that throughout this period revolutions, riots, and
factional disturbances of every kind have occurred one
after the other in almost uninterrupted succession, some
of them lasting for months and even for years, while the
central government was unable to put them down or to
make peace with the rebels; fourth, that these disturbances
instead of showing any sign of abating have tended
to grow more numerous and more serious in the immediate
past; fifth, that the control of Colombia over the
Isthmus of Panama could not be maintained without the
armed intervention and assistance of the United States.
In other words, the Government of Colombia, though
wholly unable to maintain order on the Isthmus, has
nevertheless declined to ratify a treaty the conclusion of
which opened the only chance to secure its own stability
and to guarantee permanent peace on, and the construction
of a canal across, the Isthmus.

Under such circumstances the Government of the
United States would have been guilty of folly and weakness,
amounting in their sum to a crime against the
Nation, had it acted otherwise than it did when the
revolution of November 3d last took place in Panama.
This great enterprise of building the interoceanic canal
cannot be held up to gratify the whims, or out of respect
to the governmental impotence, or to the even more sinister

and evil political peculiarities, of people who, though
they dwell afar off, yet, against the wish of the actual
dwellers on the Isthmus, assert an unreal supremacy over
the territory. The possession of a territory fraught with
such peculiar capacities as the Isthmus in question carries
with it obligations to mankind. The course of events
has shown that this canal cannot be built by private
enterprise, or by any other nation than our own; therefore
it must be built by the United States.

Every effort has been made by the Government of the
United States to persuade Colombia to follow a course
which was essentially not only to our interests and to the
interests of the world, but to the interests of Colombia
itself. These efforts have failed; and Colombia, by her
persistence in repulsing the advances that have been made,
has forced us, for the sake of our own honor, and of the
interest and well-being, not merely of our own people,
but of the people of the Isthmus of Panama arid the people
of the civilized countries of the world, to take decisive
steps to bring to an end a condition of affairs which had
become intolerable. The new Republic of Panama immediately
offered to negotiate a treaty with us. This
treaty I herewith submit. By it our interests are better
safeguarded than in the treaty with Colombia which was
ratified by the Senate at its last session. It is better in
its terms than the treaties offered to us by the Republics
of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. At last the right to begin
this great undertaking is made available. Panama has
done her part. All that remains is for the American
Congress to do its part and forthwith this Republic will
enter upon the execution of a project colossal in its size
and of well-nigh incalculable possibilities for the good of
this country and the nations of mankind.

By the provisions of the treaty the United States guarantees
and will maintain the independence of the Republic
of Panama. There is granted to the United States in

perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a strip ten
miles wide and extending three nautical miles into the sea
at either terminal, with all lands lying outside of the zone
necessary for the construction of the canal or for its
auxiliary works, and with the islands in the Bay of Panama.
The cities of Panama and Colon are not embraced
in the canal zone, but the United States assumes their
sanitation and, in case of need, the maintenance of order
therein; the United States enjoys within the granted
limits all the rights, power, and authority which it would
possess were it the sovereign of the territory to the exclusion
of the exercise of sovereign rights by the Republic.
All railway and canal property rights belonging to
Panama and needed for the canal pass to the United
States, including any property of the respective companies
in the cities of Panama and Colon; the works,
property, and personnel of the canal and railways are
exempted from taxation as well in the cities of Panama
and Colon as in the canal zone and its dependencies.
Free immigration of the personnel and importation of
supplies for the construction and operation of the canal
are granted. Provision is made for the use of military
force and the building of fortifications by the United
States for the protection of the transit. In other details,
particularly as to the acquisition of the interests of the
New Panama Canal Company and the Panama Railway
by the United States and the condemnation of private
property for the uses of the canal, the stipulations of the
Hay-Herran treaty are closely followed, while the compensation
to be given for these enlarged grants remains
the same, being ten millions of dollars payable on exchange
of ratification; and, beginning nine years from
that date, an annual payment of $250,000 during the life
of the convention.