Teddy Roosevelt

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The engineers making the preliminary examinations continually emphasize this need and urge that the remaining public lands at the headwaters of the important streams of the West be reserved to insure permanency of water supply for…

The study of the opportunities of reclamation of the vast extent of arid land shows that whether this reclamation is done by individuals, corporations, or the State, the sources of water supply must be effectively protected and the…

The Nation as a whole is of course the gainer by the creation of these homes, adding as they do to the wealth and stability of the country, and furnishing a home market for the products of the East and South.

I renew and emphasize my recommendation of last year that so far as they are available for agriculture in its broadest sense, and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the national irrigation law, the remaining public lands should…

There is a tendency to mass in large holdings public lands, especially timber and grazing lands, and thereby to retard settlement.

Experience has shown that in the western States themselves, as well as in the rest of the country, there is widespread conviction that certain of the public-land laws and the resulting administrative practice no longer meet the present…

No one people ever benefited another people more than we have benefited the Filipinos by taking possession of the islands.

The condition of the islanders is in material things far better than ever before, while their governmental, intellectual, and moral advance has kept pace with their material advance.

Attention should be paid to the needs of the Alaska Indians; provision should be made for an officer, with deputies, to study their needs, relieve their immediate wants, and help them adapt themselves to the new conditions.

Wagon roads and trails should be built, and the building of railroads promoted in all legitimate ways.

Salmon hatcheries, exclusively under Government control, should be established.

Alaska is situated in the far north; but so are Norway and Sweden and Finland; and Alaska can prosper and play its part in the New World just as those nations have prospered and played their parts in the Old World.

The forests if properly guarded will form another great source of wealth.