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jjflj MESSAGE, • „+nrt D C. —The President’s Washing *-' iead before both the tf essaS< Ld‘the House, following the S?naf e n Congress. It is, in part, open ]n as f llO t n . lt e and House of Itepre- To the ber . . standing of the Na- The /he*present time is excellent, tscn o , financial management of the and 1 rPSts by the Government Ration s i 1 geven years has shown durlDS JV'satisfactory results. But the c ' v s vstem is imperfect, and onr CUl1 ; V s *tiy’ to he hoped that the it is eal v r o mmission will be able to Curr p a" thoroughly good system will do away with the existing de K!- S ’ President’s Message then int fh t during the past seven years Bta i e ?hree months there has been a aD ? cnmlim of nearly one hundred Be . h Ic of receipts over expenditures, ® iSSction of the interest bearing a Ir-nv ninety millions, in spite of rte trao; ,!inary expense of the Pan tDe Canal and a saving of nearly ama millions on the annual interest ‘ Tills is an exceedingly satis fectorv Showing, especially In view of !J C ;■ f that during this period the Ittion lias never hesitated to under i vp anv expenditure that it regarded is necessary There have been no a • taces and no increases of taxes; DC V l Contrary some taxes have been takin off: there has been a reduction ot the great corporations interstate business, and especially the railroads. I can only what 1 have already again and lain said in my messages to the Con * i believe that under the inter- te clause of the Constitution the rnited States has complete and para mount right to control all agencies of interstate commerce, and I believe tii'Mhe National Government alone oar exercise this right with wisdom flI1( j effectiveness so as both to secure i.:, t joe from, and to do justice to, the great corporations which are the most important factors in modern business. I believe that it is worse than folly tn attempt to prohibit all combina tions as is done by the Sherman anti trust law, because such a law can be enforced only imperfectly and une qually, and its enforcement works al most as much hardship as good. 1 strongly advocate that instead of an unwise effort to prohibit all combina tions. there shall be substituted a law which shall expressly permit combin ations which are in the interest of the public, but shall at the same time give to some agency of the National Government full power of control and supervision over them. One of the chief features of this control should he securing entire publicity in all matters which the public has a right to know, and furthermore, the power, not by judicial but by executive ac tion, to prevent or put a stop to every form of improper favoritism or other wrongdoing. The railways of the country should he put completely under the Inter state Commerce Commission and re moved from the domain of the anti trust law, The power of the Com mission should be made thorough going. so that it could exercise com plete supervision and control over the issue of securities as well as over the raising and lowering of rates. As re gards rates, at least, this power should be summary. The power to investigate the financial operations and accounts of the railways has been one of the most valuable features in recent legislation. Power to make combinations and traffic agreements should be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the permission of the Commission being first gained and the combination or agreement being published in all its details. In the interest of the public the representa tives of the public should have com plete power to see that the railroads do their duty by the public, and as a matter of course this power should be exercised so as to see that no injustice is done to the railroads. The shareholders, the employes and the shippers all have interests that must be guarded. It is to the interest of a,! of them that no swindling stock speculation should be allowed, and uiat there should be no improper issuance of securities. The guiding intelligences necessary for the su'c-~ cessful building and successful man sgement o r railroads should receive a ,ttip!e remuneration, but no man ®nonld be allowed to make money in onnection with railroads out of frau- j Ul °nt over-capitalization and kin ttire' stock gambling performances; u>ip must he no defrauding of in ■J ors ' oppression of the farmers a business men wno ship freight, . c . a ”°us disregard of the rights and ' 11 3 ° f h■* sharehold e of the ship .ld all be guarded as against pond a J 10 ' iler : To give any one of them t V". ai . 1( ! improper consideration is m,, 0 Justice to the others. R?*es vVi „. e . ma de as low as is compatible pmr , gIV:n S proper returns to all the liighfM 68 ra il roa( *’ from the t Urn s , lo the lowest, and proper re- m u?r , the shareholders, but they Sllc i f not ’. instance, be reduced in ! the. asa i° n as to necessitate a cut in iitio ag J s °' employes or the abo srnct , le proper and legitimate Teif,,? r shareholders. e Dea gra Ph and telephone companies be <mr 111 business should Interest lmf ‘ Gr jurisdiction of the It i at ? Commerce Commission, that m Cry earnestly to be wished s entatiL peo J >le, ,i hroush their re?)re ' It j s j e ! > should act in this matter. aj e tr ' lo say whether most dam (oiiip 0 country at large would tho -?n. en^re faif lire on the part Ike aAf? u ‘ IC to supervise and control ns of the great corporations, ~ Prominent People. ! sermon in New Terre 6 r“ Castro arrived at Basse object rf l , elou Pe; he said that the settle i s tri P to France was to D. r (U 5,1 °niatic questions. Greek r *ght, professor of * >r °fessr, , rvard University, and toany v ,„ George A. Bartlett, for dL,/, conuec ted with the Ger tanabri7io Ln ! ent at Harvard, died at Mass. or from the exercise of the necessary governmental power in * * av : S\ y would do injustice and wrong t * h £ corporations. Both the preachers of pre U a“ iC o f ed a n diVidUa,i : m and’the would deny to able'men^of"biiskie the just reward of their initiative and business sagacity, are advocating nol ices that would be fraught wUh the' the who!e country .. 11 Is !° b he interest of all of us that there should be a premium put upon capacity fl nl UiatiVe and individ "a> Rapacity, and an ample reward or coni net enf d i re< ' tins !nte,li S e! >ces alone ompetent to manage the great busi ness operations of to-day. It is well to keep in mind that exactly as the anaicmst is the worst enemv of lib erty and the reactionary tile worst enemy of order, so the men who de fend the rights of property have most to fear from the wrongdoers of great wealth, and the men who are cham pioning popular rights have most to fear from the damagogues who in the name of popular rights would do wrong to oppress honest business men, honest men of wealth; for the success of either type of wrongdoer necessarily invites a violent reaction against the cause the wrongdoer nom inally upholds. In point of danger to the Nation there is nothing to choose between on the one band the corrup tionist, the bribe-giver, the bribe-tak er, the man who employs his great talent to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and. on the other hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether from ignor ance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his ambition, persuades well meaning but wrong-headed men to try to destroy the instruments upon which our prosperity mainly rests. Let each group of men beware of and guard against the shortcom ings to which that group is itself most liable. The opposition to Government con trol of these great corporations makes its most effective effort in the shape of an appeal to the old doctrine of States’ rights. Of course there are many sincere men who now believe in unrestricted individualism in busi ness, just as there were formerly many sincere men w r ho believed in slavery—that is, in the unrestricted right of an individual to own another individual. These men do not by themselves have great weight, how ever. The effective fight against ade quate Government control and super vision of individual, and especially of corporate, wealth engaged in inter state business is chiefly done under cover, and especially under cover of an appeal to States’ rights. It is not at all infrequent to read in the same speech a denunciation of predatory wealth fostered by special privilege and defiant of both the public welfare and law of the land, and a denuncia tion of centralization in the Central Government of the power to deal with this centralized and organized wealth. Of course the policy set forth in such twin denunciations amounts to abso lutely nothing, for the first half is nullified by the second half. The chief reason, among the many sound and compelling reasons, that led to the formation of the National Govern ment, was the absolute need that the Union, and not the several States, should deal with interstate and for eign commerce; and the power to deal with interstate commerce was granted absolutely and plenarily to the Cen tral Government, and was exercised completely as regards the only in struments of interstate commerce known in those days—the waterways, the highroads, as well as the partner ships of individuals who then con ducted all of what business there was. Interstate commerce is now chiefly conducted by railroads, and the great corporation has supplanted the mass of small partnerships or individuals. The proposal to make the National Government supreme over, and there fore to give it complete control over, the railroads and other instruments of interstate commerce is merely a proposal to carry out to. the letter one of the prime purposes, if not the prime purpose, for which the Consti tution was founded. We do not object to the concentra tion of wealth and administration; hut we do believe in the distribution of the wealth in profits to the real in securing to the public the fuirStnefit of, the concentrated administraTfon. We believe that with concentration in administration there can come both the advantage of a larger ov/nership and of a more equit able distribution of profits, and at the same time a better service to the commonwealth. Many lav/s are needed. There should be regulation by the National Government .of the great interstate corporations, including a simple method of account keeping, publicity, supervision of the issue of securities, abolition of rebates and of special privileges. There should be short time franchises for all corporations engaged in public business; includ ing the corporations which get power from water rights. There should he National as well as State guardian ship of mines and forests. There are many matters affecting labor and the status of the wage worker to which I should like to draw your attention, but an exhaustive dis cussion of the problem in all its as pects is not now necessary. This administration is nearing its end; and, moreover, under our form of government the solution of the prob lem depends upon the action of the States as much as upon the action of the Nation. Nevertheless, there are certain considerations which I wish to set before you. because I hope that our people will more and more keep them in mind. A blind and ig norant resistance to every effort for the reform of abuses and for the read justment of society to modern indus trial conditions represents not true conservatism but an incitement to the wildest radicalism; for wise radical ism and wise conservatism go hand $500,000 For Hebrew Charities. Almost the entire $500,000 estate of Tiieophilus Marc, who died at East Orange, N. J., September 20 last, is left to the United Hebrew Charities, of New York. The will shows only a few small bequests to relatives and friends. Former Ohio Mayor a Suicide. Former Mayor Adolphus Sebbohm, of Pomeroy, Ohio, committed suicide at a hotel at Gallipolis, Ohio, by shooting. in hand, ope bent on progress, the other bent on seeing that no change is made unless in the right direction. I believe in a steady effort, or per haps it would he more accurate to say in steady efforts in many different directions, to bring about a condition of affairs under which the men who work with hand or brain, the labor ers, the superintendents, the men who produce for the market and the men who find a market for the arti cles produced, shall own a far great er share than at present of the wealth they produce, and be enabled to in vest it in the tools and instruments by which all work is carried on. As far as possible I hope to see a frank recognition of the advantages con ferred by machinery, organization, and division of labor, accompanied by an effort to bring about a larger sharp in the ownership by wage-work er of railway, mill, and factory. In farming, this simply means that we wish to see the farmer own his own land; we do not wish to see the farms so large that they become the prop erty of absentee landlords who farm them by tenants, nor yet so small that the farmer becomes like a Eu ropean peasant. Again, the deposit ors in our savings banks now number over one-tenth of our entire popula tion. These are all capitalists, who through the savings banks loan their money to the workers—that is, in many cases to themselves—to carry on their various industries. The more we increase their number, the more we introduce the principles of co-op eration into our industry. Every in crease in the number of small stock holders in corporations is a good thing, for the same reasons; and where the employes are the stockhol ders the result is particularly good. Very much of this movement must be outside of anything that can he accomplished by legislation; but leg islation can do a good deal. Postal savings banks will make it easy for the poorest to keep their savings iu absolute safety. The regulation of the national highways must be such that they shall serve all people with equal justice. Corporate finances must be supervised so as to make it far safer than at present for the man of small means to invest his money in stocks. There must be prohibition of child labor, diminution of woman labor, shortening of hours of all me chanical labor; stock watering should be prohibited, and stock gambling so far as possible discouraged. There should he a progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes. Industrial ed ucation should be encouraged. As far as possible we should lighten the burden of taxation on the small man. We should put a premium upon thrift, hard work and business energy, hut these qualities cease to he the main factors in accumulating a fortune long before that fortune reaches a point where it would be seriously af fected by any inheritance tax such as I propose. It is eminently right that the Nation should fix the terms upon which the great fortunes are inherit ed. They rarely do good and they of ten do harm to those who inherit them in their entirety. The President then devotes a chap ter to “protection for wagework ers.” He says there should be no pal tering with the question of taking care of those who become crippled or worn out in our industrial system. He urges proper employers’ liability laws. He also calls attention to the steps toward providing old-age le sions that have been taken by rJrany private industries. He urges Con gress to pass a comprehensive em ployers’ liability law for the District of Columbia. The President devotes much space to the subject of the courts. First lie urges increased pay for our judges and then says: It is earnestly to be desired that some method should be devised for doing away with the long delays which now obtain in the administra tion of justice, and which operate with peculiar severity against persons of small means, and favor only the very criminals whom it is most desir able to punish. These long delays in the final decisions of cases make in the aggregate a crying evil, and a remedy should be devised. Much of this intolerable delay is due to im proper regard paid to technicalities which are a mere hindrance to .jus tice. In some noted recent cases this over-regard for technicalities has re sulted in a striking denial of justice, and flagrant wrong to the body poli tic. At the last election certain leaders of organized labor made a violent and sweeping attack upon the entire judi ciary of the country, an attack couched in such terms as to include the most upright, honest and broad minded judges, no less than those of narrower mind and more restricted outlook. It was the kind of attack admirably fitted to prevent any sue • cessful attempt to reform abuses of the judiciary, because it gave the champions of the unjust judge theii eagerly desired opportunity to shift their ground into a championship of just judges 'who were unjustly as sailed. Last year, before the House Committee on the Judiciary, these same labor leaders formulated their demands, specifying the bill that con tained them, refusing all compromise, stating they wished the principle of that hill or nothing. They insisted on a provision that in a labor dispute no injunction should issue except to protect a property right, and specifi cally provided that the right to c..iiy on business should not be construed as a property right, and in a second provision their hill made legal in a la bor dispute any act or agreement by or between two or more persons Inat would not have been unlawful if done by a single person. In other woras. this hill legalized blacklisting and boycotting in every form, legalizing, for instance, those forms of the sec ondary boycott which the anthracite coal strike commission so unreserv edly condemned; while the ngnt to News Notes From Mexico. Mexico’s mail matter in the first half of 1908 was 90,000,000 Pieces against 86,000,000 in the first baL of 1907. . . Mexico buys American mining, electrical, pumping, power and agri cultural machinery to the tune of $17,500,000 gold yearly. Mexico buys chiefly, in order * s _ named, from the United States, - manv, Great Britain, France, Spam. Belgium, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Hindustan - -- - carry on a business was explicitly taken out from under that protection which the law throws over property. The demand was made that there should be trial by jury in contempt cases, thereby most seriously impair ing the authority of the courts. All this represented a course of policy which, if carried out. would mean the enthronement of class privilege in its crudest and most brutal form, and the destruction of one of the most essen tial function of the judiciary in all civilized lands. The wageworkers,the workingmen, the laboring men of the country by the way in which they repudiated the effort to get them to cast their votes in response to an appeal to class ha tred, have emphasized their sound patriotism and Americanism. The whole country has cause to feel pride in this attitude of sturdy independ ence, in this uncompromising insist ence upon acting simply as good citi zens, as good Americans, without re gard to fancied—and improper—class interests. Such an attitude is an ob ject lesson in good citizenship to the entire nation. But the extreme reactionaries, the persons who blind themselves to the wrongs now and then committed by the courts on laboring men, should also think seriously as to what such a movement as this portends. The judges who have shown themselves able and willing effectively to check the dishonest activity of the very rich man who works iniquity by the mis management of corporations, who have shown themselves alert to do justice to the wageworker, and sym pathetic with the needs of the mass of our people, so that the dweller in the tenement houses, the man who practices a dangerous trade, the man who is crushed by excessive hours of labor, feel that their needs are under stood by the courts—these judges are the real bulwark of the courts; these judges, the judges of the stamp of the President-elect, who have been fearless in opposing labor when it has gone wrong, but fearless also in hold ing to Strict account corporations that work iniquity, and far sighted in see ing that the workingman gets his rights, are the men of all others to whom we owe it that the appeal for such violent and mistaken legislation has fallen on deaf ears, that the agitation for its passage Droved to he without substantial basis. The courts are jeoparded primarily by the action of these Federal and State judges who show inability or unwillingness to put a stop to the wrongdoing or very rich men under modern industrial conditions, and inability or unwilling ness to give relief to men of small means or wageworkers who are crushed down by these modern indus trial conditions; who, in other words, fail to understand and apply the needed remedies for the new wrongs produced by the new and highly com plex social and industrial civilization which has grown up in the last half century. There are certain decisions by va rious courts which have been exceed ingly detrimental to the rights of wageworkers. This is true of all the decisions that decide that men and women are, by the Constitution, “guaranteed their liberty,” to con tract to enter a dangerous occupation, or to work an undesirable or impro per number of hours, or to work in unhealthy surroundings, and there fore can not recover damages when maimed in that occupation, and can not be forbidden to work what the Legislature decides is an excessive number of hours, or to carry on the work under conditions which the Legislature decides to be unhealthy. There is also, I think, ground for the belief that substantial injustice is often suffered by employes in conse quence of the custom or courts issu ing temporary injunctions without notice to them, and punishing them for contempt of court in instances where, as a matter of fact, they have no knowledge of any proceedings. Outside of organized labor there is a widespread feeling that this system often works great injustice to wage workers when their efforts to better their working condition results in in dustrial disputes. A temporary in junction procured ex parte may as a matter of fact have all the effect of a permanent injunction in causing dis aster to the wageworkers’ side in such a dispute. Organized labor is chafing under the unjust restraint which comes from repeated resort to this plan of procedure. Its discontent has been unwisely expressed, and of ten improperly expressed, but there is a sound basis for it, and the orderly and law abiding people of a commu nity would be in a far stronger posi tion for unholding the courts if the undoubtedly existing abuses could be provided against. The power of injunction is a great equitable remedy, which should on no account be destroyed. should be erected agai^^wKibuse. For many of of justice in om btfftmtry our people as a whole are themselves to blame, and the judges and juries merely hear their share together with the public as a whole. It is discreditable to us as a people that there should be diffi culty in convicting murderers, or in bringing to justice men who as pub lic servants have been guilty of cor ruption. or who have profited by the corruption of public servants. The result is equally unfortunate, whether due to hair-splitting technicaliHes in the interpretation of law by judges, to sentimentality and class conscious ness on the part of juries, or to hys teria and sensationalism in the daily press. For much of this failure of justice no responsibility whatever lies on rich men as such. We who make up th / mass of the people can not shift the responsibility from our own shoulders. But there is an important part of the failure which has specially to do with inability to hold to proper account men of wealth who behave badly. SIO,OOO Fine For Taking Rebates. Judge Knappen in the United States District Court, Grand Rapids, Mich., fined the Stearns Salt and Lumber Company, of Ludington, SIO,OOO for accepting rebates from the Pere Ma v Jtuette on shipments from Ludingtoi*o Toledo. Germany Adopts Submarine. • The German Admiralty has deter mined to gqj into the submarine branch of ’jjßal construction heavily with a ty T J mmat is the result of three years’ ey 'jßments Kiel. The chief breakdown is in dealing with the new relations that arise from the mutualism, the interdepen dence of our time. Every new social relation begets anew type of wrong doing— of sin, to use an old-fash ioned word—and many years always elapse before society is able to turn this sin into crime which can.be ef fectively punished at law. During the lifetime of the older men now alive the social relations have changed far more rapidly than in the preceding two centuries. The im mense growth of corporations, of business done by associations, and the extreme strain and pressure of mod ern life, have produced conditions which render the public confused as to who its really dangerous foes are; and among the public servants who have not only shared thi3 confusion, but by some of their acts have in creased it, are certain judges. Marked inefficiency has been shown in dealing with corporations and in re-settling the proper attitude to be taken by the public not only toward corporations, but toward labor, and toward the so cial questions arising out of the fac tory system, and the enormous growth of our great cities. The huge wealth that has been ac cumulated by a few individuals of re cent years, in what bas amounted to a social and industrial revolution, has been as regards some of these indi viduals made possible only by the im proper use of the modern corporation. A certain type of modern corpora tion, with its officers and agents, its many issues of securities, and its con stant consolidation with allied under takings, finally becomes an instru ment so complex as to contain a greater number of elements that, un der various judicial decisions, lend themselves to fraud and oppression than any device yet evolved in the hu man brain. Corporations are neces sary instruments of modern business. They have been permitted to become a menace largely because the govern mental representatives of the people have worked slowly in providing for adequate control over them. The chief offender in any given case may be an executive, a Legislat ure or a judge. Every executive head who advises violent, instead of grad ual, action, or who advocates ill-con sidered and sweeping measures of re form (especially if they are tainted with vindictiveness, and disregard for the rights of the minority) is particu larly blameworthy. The several leg islatures are responsible for the fact that our laws are often prepared with slovenly haste and lack of considera tion. Moreover, they are often pre pared, and still more frequently amended during passage, at the sug gestion of the very parties against whom they are afterward enforced. Our great clusters of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy multimillionaires, employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to pick flaws in these statutes after their passage, but they also employ a class of secret agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to render hostile legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, often through the insertion of what appear on their face to be drastic and sweeping provisions against the interests of the parties inspiring them; while the dema gogues, the corrupt creatures who in troduce blackmailing schemes to “strike” corporations, and all who de mand extreme, and undesirably radi cal, measures, show themselves to be the worst enemies of the very public whose loud mouthed champions they profess to be. Real damage has been done by the manifold and conflicting interpreta tions of the interstate commerce law. Control over the great corporations doing interstate business can be ef fective only if it is vested with full power in an administrative depart ment, a branch of the Federal execu tive, carrying out a Federal law; it can never be effective if a divided re sponsibility is left in both the States and the Nation; it can never be ef fective if left in the hands of the courts to be decided by lawsuits. In no other nation in the world do the courts wield such vast and far reaching power as in the United States. All that is necessary is that the courts as a whole should exercise this power with the far sighted wis dom already shown by those judges who scan the future while they act in the present. Let them exercise this great, power not only honestly and bravely, but with wise insight into the needs and fixed purposes of the people, so that they may do justice, and work equity, so that they may protect all persons in their rights, and yet break down the barriers of privilege, which is the foe of right. The President devotes a long chap ter to the subject of forests, declaring that if there is one duty which more than another we owe to our children and our children’s children, it is to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most im portant element in the conservation of our natural resources. Message then turns to inland and maintains that action for their imnrovement should begin forthwith. It is also urged that all our National parks adjacent to Na tional forests be placed under the con trol of the forest service ot the Agri cultural Department. lam happy to say, continues Mr. Roosevelt, that I have been able to set aside in various parts of the country small, well chosen tracts of ground to serve as sanctuaries and nurseries for wild creatures. The Message announces that the use in the arts and industries of de natured alcohol is making fair progress and the law making it pos sible is entitled to further support from the Congress. According to the President, the pure food legislation has already worked a to overestimate. In the on the Indian service the Message tells how it has been completely removed M’omrn in the Day’s News. MiSs Ruth H. Northrop, of Nor wich, Conn., has won the scholarship offered by the Norwich Art Students' Association. Members of Dr. Parkhurst’s con gregation in New York City approved the doctor’s objections to “Merry Widow” hats iu church. A men's league for women suff rage has been formed in Hollahd, and the Lutheran Church in that country lias given women a vote in ail church affairs. from the atmosphere oT political ac tivity and the ground cleared for larger constructive work to prepare the Indians for responsible citizen ship. The President regrets that an amendment was incorporated in the measure providing for the Secret §6r vice forbidding details and transfers therefrom. He declares it is of ben efit only to the criminal classes. He renews his recommendations for pos tal savings banks and urges an excep tion of the parcel post on the rural routes. He declares that thv. unfor tunate state of affairs as regards the National educational office be reme died by adequate appropriations, lie strongly urges that the supervisors and enumerators for the approaching Census he not appointed under the Civil Service law, but. that apspipt ments to the force be done under that law, geographical requirements be ing waived. The President main tains that there should be intelligent action on the question of preserving the health of the country and sug gests a redistribution of the health bureaus. He recommends the plac ing of the Government Printing Office under the Department of Commerce and Labor anu the various Soldiers* Homes under the War Department. He advocates the immediate admis sion of New Mexico and Arizona as separate States. Mr. Roosevelt then writes of the interstate fisheries prob lem, saying that those matters which no particular State can control Con gress ought to control. The statute regarding game should include fish, and the fur-seal service should be vested in the Bureau of Fisheries. In regard to our foreign policy he announces that it is based on the theory that right must prevail be tween nations as between individuals and then urges the special claims of Latin-American Republics to our at tention. The Message states that the Panama Canal is being dug with speed and efficiency and then recom mends the extension of ocean mail lines to South America, Asia, tho Philippines and Australasia. Atten tion is called to the admirable condi tion of Hawaii, where coolie labor has practically ceased and Pearl Har bor is being made a Laval base with the necessary military fortfications. Real progress, the President contin ues, toward self-government is being made in the Philippines, but it would be worse than folly to prophesy the exact date when it will be wise to consider independence as a fixed and definite policy. It is recommended that American citizenship be conferred upon the people of Porto Rico and announcement is made that our occu pancy of Cuba will end in about two months’ time. The Cubans are warned that they must govern them selves within in order to avoid gov ernment from without. The Presi dent hopes Americans will do what is possible to make the Japanese Ex position of '1917 a success and then thanks Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the States of South America for their hospitality to the battle fleet. Mr. Roosevelt urges the passage of the bill to promote army officers at reasonable ages through a process of selection and declares the cavalry arm should be reorganized upon modern lines. We have not enough infantry, and artillery and attention should bo centred on the machine gun. A gen eral service corps should be estab lished. It behooves the Government to perfect the efficiency of the Na tional Guard as a part of the National forces and Congressional aid should be extended to those who are pro moting rifle practice—teaching our men to shoot. In regards to the navy, the Presi dent recommends the increase sug gested by the General Board and thinks the General Board should be turned into a General Staff. He urges that two hospital ships be provided and then concludes his Message as follows: Nothing better for the Navy from every standpoint has ever occurred than the cruise of the battle fleet around the world. The improvement of the ships in every way has been, extraordinary, and they have gained far more experience in battle tactics than they would have gained if they; had stayed in the Atlantic waters. The American people have cause for profound gratification, both in view of the excellent condition of the fleet as shown by this cruise, and in view of the improvement the cruise ha3 worked in this already high condi tion. I do not believe that there is any other service in the world in which the average of character and efficiency in the enlisted men is as high as is now the case in our own. I believe that the same statement can be made as to our officers, taken as a whole; but there must be a reserva tion made in regard to those in the highest ranks —as to which I have already spoken—and in regard to those who have just entered the ser vice; because we do not now get full benefit from our excellent naval school at Annapolis. It is absurd not to graduate the midshipmen as en signs; to keep them for two years in such an anomalous position as at present the law requires is detri mental to them and to the service. In the academy itself, every first class man should be required in turn to serve as petty officer and officer; his ability to discharge his duties as such should be a prerequisite to his going into the line, and his success in com manding determine his standing at The Board of Visitors should be ml in January, and each member should bo required tc give at least six days’ service, only from one to three days* to be performed during week, which is the least desirable time for the board to be at Annapolis so far as benefiting the navy by their observa tions is concerned. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. The White House, The Field of Labor. The building trades unions of Syd ney, Australia, are taking steps to federate. The report of the Amalgamated So ciety of Carpenters and Joiners shojvs a total membership of 65,310. The Luxemburg Government is treating incorrigible vagabonds to bread and water for the first four days of their imprisonment, and to the lowest scale of ordinary diet twice a week afterward. The prisons are said to be emptying fast.