Some form of local self-government should be provided, as simple and inexpensive as possible; it is impossible for the Congress to devote the necessary time to all the little details of necessary Alaskan legislation.

Whisky selling to the natives should be made a felony.

Gradually, by reason of lack of proper laws, this industry is being ruined; it should now be taken in charge, and effectively protected, by the United States Government.

I again recommend that the rights of citizenship be conferred upon the people of Porto Rico.

At last the public mind is awake to the fact that many diseases, notably tuberculosis, are National scourges.

Under our form of government voting is not merely a right but a duty, and, moreover, a fundamental and necessary duty if a man is to be a good citizen.

It is well to provide that corporations shall not contribute to Presidential or National campaigns, and furthermore to provide for the publication of both contributions and expenditures.

There is, however, always danger in laws of this kind, which from their very nature are difficult of enforcement; the danger being lest they be obeyed only by the honest, and disobeyed by the unscrupulous, so as to act only as a penalty…

Moreover, no such law would hamper an unscrupulous man of unlimited means from buying his own way into office.

The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough…

This is important not merely to the artistic but to the material welfare of the country; and the people are to be congratulated on the fact that the movement to establish such a gallery is taking definite form under the guidance of the…

I recommend to Congress that this bureau, whose usefulness is seriously handicapped by lack of funds, be granted an appropriation in some degree commensurate with the importance of the work it is doing.

The time has come, in my judgment, to set to work seriously to make our ocean mail service correspond more closely with our recent commercial and political development.

To a greater extent than seemed probable even a dozen years ago, we may look to an American future on the sea worthy of the traditions of our past.

Briefly those theories are, that it is the duty of a first-class Power so far as practicable to carry its ocean mails under its own flag; that the fast ocean steamships and their crews, required for such mail service, are valuable…

That profit I believe should be devoted to strengthening maritime power in those directions where it will best promote our prestige.

The proposition involves no new principle, but permits the efficient discharge of public functions now inadequately performed or not performed at all.

Not only there is not now, but there never has been, any other nation in the world so wholly free from the evils of militarism as is ours.

There never has been any other large nation, not even China, which for so long a period has had relatively to its numbers so small a regular army as has ours.

Never at any time in our history has this Nation suffered from militarism or been in the remotest danger of suffering from militarism.

Never in our entire history has the Nation suffered in the least particular because too much care has been given to the Army, too much prominence given it, too much money spent upon it, or because it has been too large.

But again and again we have suffered because enough care has not been given to it, because it has been too small, because there has not been sufficient preparation in advance for possible war.

Every foreign war in which we have engaged has cost us many times the amount which, if wisely expended during the preceding years of peace on the Regular Army, would have insured the war ending in but a fraction of the time and but for a…

As a Nation we have always been shortsighted in providing for the efficiency of the Army in time of peace.

But there is not one evil that now exists, or that ever has existed in this country, which is, or ever has been, owing in the smallest part to militarism.