The improvement of the Ohio River is not alone to improve the Ohio River and help the States along its border.

You have six locks now completed, and where those six locks operate, the success of the system of slack water has been demonstrated.

You may insist that a policy ought to be adopted, and you have insisted, and I do not doubt that you have—indeed I know you have—made that distinguished member of Congress, the head of the Rivers and Harbors Committee, sit up nights to…

You are getting, as the boys and girls used to say in 'finding the button'—you are getting warm.

I venture to say that in your whole experience you have never met men of a higher standard of character, of a higher devotion to public duty, and of greater skill in their profession than those same army engineers.

You have done it wisely, first, because when you want a thing done it is just as well to get close to the men who are to do it.

I think that a wise platform to take.

I recognize the gentlemen who applaud, as coming from the Columbia River district.

They have not come to a definite conclusion as to the policy that ought to be adopted, but they have come to the conclusion that some policy must be adopted.

I am still a consistent advocate of that theory.

Then when the time comes that political exigency shall prevent the appropriation of sufficient amounts from the current revenues to put the proper part of the project through the coming year or the coming two years as economy requires, the…

One of the things that I think we ought to do is not to decry the past.

I don't know that I have any right to be here to talk about waterways, unless it makes a man an expert on the subject to have gone down the Mississippi River.

This is the first case involving such great international questions which has been submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

This Government was among the foremost in the great work of uplifting the uncivilized regions of Africa.

Negotiations for an international conference to consider and reach an arrangement providing for the preservation and protection of the fur seals in the North Pacific are in progress.

The attitude of the United States is one of benevolent encouragement, coupled with a hopeful trust that the good work, responsibly undertaken and zealously perfected to the accomplishment of the results so ardently desired, will soon…

Mindful of the advantages to accrue to our artisans and producers in competition with their Continental rivals, I renew the recommendation heretofore made that provision be made for acceptance of the invitation and adequate representation…