Historical voices

To invention we must turn as one of the most powerful aids to the accomplishment of such a result.

Our future progress and prosperity depend upon our ability to equal, if not surpass, other nations in the enlargement and advance of science, industry, and commerce.

The Navy has maintained the spirit and high efficiency which have always characterized that service, and has lost none of the gallantry in heroic action which has signalized its brilliant and glorious past.

The reform thus suggested, in the opinion of the Postmaster-General, would not only put the postal service at once on a self-sustaining basis, but would permit great and valuable improvements, and I commend the subject to the consideration…

Fortunately, since the revival of prosperous times the revenues have grown much faster than the expenditures, and there is every indication that a short period will witness the obliteration of the annual deficit.

It is thus not only a vital agency of industrial, social, and business progress, but an important influence in diffusing a just understanding of the true spirit and character of American administration.

It has moved forward on American lines, with free delivery, money order, and registry systems, and has given the people mail facilities far greater and more reliable than any they have ever before enjoyed.

I cannot withhold from officers and men the highest commendation for their soldierly conduct in trying situations, their willing sacrifices for their country, and the integrity and ability with which they have performed unusual and…

I recommend that the Congress provide a special medal of honor for the volunteers, regulars, sailors, and marines on duty in the Philippines who voluntarily remained in the service after their terms of enlistment had expired.

Thus interpreted, the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Conflicts may be regarded as realizing the earnest desire of great numbers of American citizens, whose deep sense of justice, expressed in numerous resolutions…

In these, as in all instances, wherever occurring, when American products may be subjected in a foreign country, upon specious pretexts, to discrimination compared with the like products of another country, this Government will use its…

Our statutes do not allow this Government to admit any distinction between the treatment of native and naturalized Americans abroad, so that ceaseless controversy arises in cases where persons owing in the eye of international law a dual…

The greatest blessing which can come to Cuba is the restoration of her agricultural and industrial prosperity, which will give employment to idle men and re-establish the pursuits of peace.

Whatever be the outcome, we must see to it that free Cuba be a reality, not a name, a perfect entity, not a hasty experiment bearing within itself the elements of failure.

Whether those ties shall be organic or conventional, the destinies of Cuba are in some rightful form and manner irrevocably linked with our own, but how and how far is for the future to determine in the ripeness of events.

The new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past must needs be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy and strength if its enduring welfare is to be assured.

We have accepted a trust the fulfillment of which calls for the sternest integrity of purpose and the exercise of the highest wisdom.

This nation has assumed before the world a grave responsibility for the future good government of Cuba.

The pledge contained in this resolution is of the highest honorable obligation and must be sacredly kept.

To withdraw from the agreement and abandon the islands to Germany and Great Britain would not be compatible with our interests in the archipelago.

The arrangement under which Samoa was administered had proved impracticable and unacceptable to all the powers concerned.

The situation had become far more intricate and embarrassing from every point of view than it was when my predecessor, in 1894, summed up its perplexities and condemned the participation in it of the United States.

Claims growing out of the seizure of American sealing vessels in Bering Sea have been under discussion with the Government of Russia for several years, with the recent happy result of an agreement to submit them to the decision of a single…

This will obviate in future the embarrassing controversies which have heretofore arisen through Mexico's assertion of a claim to try and punish an American citizen for an offense committed within the jurisdiction of the United States.