Grover Cleveland: “It is plain, therefore, that the bill herewith returned ought not to become a law unless it is proposed to duplicate the…”

I transmit herewith, in reply to the resolution of the Senate of January 23, 1897, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of the correspondence therein requested, relating to the Nicaraguan Canal or the Maritime Canal…

I have not thought it compatible with the public interest that the correspondence referred to in the resolution should be communicated pending the public and exhaustive investigation about to be instituted.

The time is quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.

This requirement proceeds upon the assumption that the foreign relatives coming here are in every case, by reason of poverty, liable to become a public charge unless the immigrant is capable of their support.