The necessity for perpetuating our forest resources, whether in public or private hands, is recognized now as never before.

The demand for forest reserves has become insistent in the West, because the West must use the water, wood, and summer range which only such reserves can supply.

Progressive lumbermen are striving, through forestry, to give their business permanence.

Other great business interests are awakening to the need of forest preservation as a business matter.

The Government's forest work should receive from the Congress hearty support, and especially support adequate for the protection of the forest reserves against fire.

No other class of our citizens deserves so well of the Nation as those to whom the Nation owes its very being, the veterans of the civil war.

We should not rest satisfied with what has been done, however.

The only people who are contented with a system of promotion by mere seniority are those who are contented with the triumph of mediocrity over excellence.

On the other hand, a system which encouraged the exercise of social or political favoritism in promotions would be even worse.

The quality of each year's work determines the standing of that year's class, the man being dropped or graduated into the next class in the relative position which his military superiors decide to be warranted by his merit.

Until this system is changed we can not hope that our officers will be of as high grade as we have a right to expect, considering the material upon which we draw.

We can not afford to consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether he is Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian, Scandinavian, Slav, or Magyar.

I heartily congratulate the Congress upon the steady progress in building up the American Navy.

We can not afford a let-up in this great work.

The best work ashore is indispensable, but the highest duty of a naval officer is to exercise command at sea.

Such a base is desirable in time of peace; in time of war it would be indispensable, and its lack would be ruinous.

But though under the excellent officers at their head, these boards and bureaus do good work, they have not the authority of a general staff, and have not sufficient scope to insure a proper readiness for emergencies.

We need the establishment by law of a body of trained officers, who shall exercise a systematic control of the military affairs of the Navy, and be authorized advisers of the Secretary concerning it.

The question now, therefore, is not by which route the isthmian canal shall be built, for that question has been definitely and irrevocably decided.

The question is simply whether or not we shall have an isthmian canal.

The progress of events has rendered the interoceanic route across the narrow portion of Central America vastly important to the commercial world, and especially to the United States, whose possessions extend along the Atlantic and Pacific…

The United States will, nevertheless, hold themselves ready to protect the transit trade across the Isthmus against invasion of either domestic or foreign disturbers of the peace of the State of Panama.

It is to alter the geography of a continent and the trade routes of the world.

We have done our duty to others in letter and in spirit, and we have shown the utmost forbearance in exacting our own rights.

The people of Panama have, by apparently unanimous movement, dissolved their political connection with the Republic of Colombia and resumed their independence.