Any person in the classified departmental service may be transferred and appointed to any other place therein upon the following conditions:

But any person who has for three years last preceding served as a clerk in the office of the President of the United States may be transferred or appointed to any place in the classified service without examination.

The hardship has in some cases been remedied by the action of the courts.

This anomalous feature of the act should be reformed as speedily as possible...

It is sufficient that I should call the earnest attention of Congress to the circumstance that the statute makes no provision whatever for the somewhat numerous class of Chinese persons who, retaining their Chinese subjection in some countries other than China, desire to come from such countries to the United States.

The supposition should not be indulged that Congress...intended to make its protection depend upon the performance of conditions which it was physically impossible to perform.

To the House of Representatives: In response to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th of March, relative to the employment of substitutes in the Department of State, I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State on the subject.

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of the Interior and the accompanying report, submitted by the governor of Alaska in compliance with section 5 of the act of May 17, 1884, entitled 'An act providing a civil government for Alaska.'

The matter is commended to the favorable consideration of Congress.

I transmit herewith a copy of the reply of the Attorney-General to the letter of the Secretary of State of December 15, 1885.

This scheme for a reform in the methods of administering the Government is no longer an experiment.