Recent developments have given new urgency to the need for such changes as will fit these laws to actual present conditions.

The iniquitous methods by which the monopolizing of the public lands is being brought about under the present laws are becoming more generally known, but the existing laws do not furnish effective remedies.

The creation of small irrigated farms under the Reclamation act is a powerful offset to the tendency of certain other laws to foster or permit monopoly of the land.

Under that act the construction of great irrigation works has been proceeding rapidly and successfully, the lands reclaimed are eagerly taken up, and the prospect that the policy of National irrigation will accomplish all that was expected…

This provision has excited active and powerful hostility, but the success of the law itself depends on the wise and firm enforcement of it.

This is obviously true, but neither can a family be supported on 640 acres of much of the land to which it is proposed to apply the grazing homestead.

It would probably result on the one hand in enlarging the holdings of some of the great land owners, and on the other in needless suffering and failure on the part of a very considerable proportion of the bona fide settlers who give faith…

The best use of the public grazing lands requires the careful examination and classification of these lands in order to give each settler land enough to support his family and no more.

While this work is being done, and until the lands are settled, the Government should take control of the open range, under reasonable regulations suited to local needs, following the general policy already in successful operation on the…

It is probable that the present grazing value of the open public range is scarcely more than half what it once was or what it might easily be again under careful regulation.

Since the consolidation of all Government forest work in the National Forest Service there has been a rapid and notable gain in the usefulness of the forest reserves to the people and in public appreciation of their value.

The National Government already does something in connection with the construction and maintenance of the great system of levees along the lower course of the Mississippi; in my judgment it should do much more.

We should have ships of our own and seamen of our own to convey our goods to neutral markets, and in case of need to reinforce our battle line.

It cannot but be a source of regret and uneasiness to us that the lines of communication with our sister republics of South America should be chiefly under foreign control.

It is not a good thing that American merchants and manufacturers should have to send their goods and letters to South America via Europe if they wish security and dispatch.

Even on the Pacific, where our ships have held their own better than on the Atlantic, our merchant flag is now threatened through the liberal aid bestowed by other Governments on their own steam lines.

It is a matter of unmixed satisfaction once more to call attention to the excellent work of the Pension Bureau; for the veterans of the civil war have a greater claim upon us than any other class of our citizens.

The question of immigration is of vital interest to this country.

In other words, in the single year that has just elapsed there came to this country a greater number of people than came here during the one hundred and sixty-nine years of our Colonial life which intervened between the first landing at…

These agents are distributed throughout Europe, and by the offer of all kinds of inducements they wheedle and cajole many immigrants, often against their best interest, to come here.

As I said in my last message to the Congress, we cannot have too much immigration of the right sort and we should have none whatever of the wrong sort.

The prime need is to keep out all immigrants who will not make good American citizens.

The laws now existing for the exclusion of undesirable immigrants should be strengthened.

Adequate means should be adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies engaged in the passenger business to observe in good faith the law which forbids them to encourage or solicit immigration to the United…

It should be made possible to inflict a sufficiently heavy penalty on any employer violating this law to deter him from taking the risk.