Only preliminary explorations have yet been made in the archipelago, and it should be a matter of pride to the Government of the United States fully to investigate and to describe the entire region.

It should not be under the control of the authorities of the Philippine Islands, for it should be undertaken as a national work and subject to a board to be appointed by Congress or the President.

I recommend, therefore, that provision be made for the appointment of a board of surveys to superintend the national surveys and explorations to be made in the Philippine Islands.

No such organized surveys have ever yet been attempted anywhere; but the idea is in harmony with modern, scientific, and industrial methods.

It is not probable that the survey would be completed in a less period than that of eight or ten years, but it is well that it should be begun in the near future.

The surveys, while of course beneficial to the people of the Philippine Islands, should be undertaken as a national work for the information not merely of the people of the Philippine Islands, but of the people of this country and of the…

Circumstances have placed under the control of this Government the Philippine Archipelago.

The scientific surveys which should be undertaken go far beyond any surveys or explorations which the government of the Philippine Islands, however completely self-supporting, could be expected to make.

The islands of that group present as many interesting and novel questions with respect to their ethnology, their fauna and flora, and their geology and mineral resources as any region of the world.

In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives dated the 4th instant (the Senate concurring), I return herewith House bill No. 3286, entitled 'An act granting an increase of pension to Jacob F. French.'

I doubt not that Congress has already seen the necessity of replacing these vicious incorporation laws by those which are governed by sounder principles.

He will not and cannot do this if our laws are so defective that in the sharp competition of the business world the conscientious man is put at a disadvantage by his less scrupulous fellows.

Our faith in the future of the republic is firm, because we believe that on the whole and in the long run our people think clearly and act rightly.

On the one hand we have the right to expect a peculiar measure of self-sacrificing service from you.

No finally satisfactory result can be expected from merely State action.

We must grow by evolution, not by revolution.

There must be no hurry, but there must also be no halt; and those who are anxious that there should be no sudden and violent changes must remember that precisely these sudden and violent changes will be rendered likely if we refuse to make…

I deem the matter of sufficient general importance to recommend that the Director of the Census be authorized by appropriate legislation to collect and publish statistics pertaining to that subject covering the period from 1886 to the…

I should be ashamed to see this nation play the part of a weakling.

There is a widespread conviction that the divorce laws are dangerously lax and indifferently administered in some of the States, resulting in a diminishing regard for the sanctity of the marriage relation.

It is idle to talk of our faith in the Monroe Doctrine if we are not able to make that faith evident.

Justice—so far as it is humanly possible to give and to get justice—is the foundation of our government.

I fail to see how any good American can be other than a better American when he comes here to Annapolis.

The case calls for the most radical remedy.

The evil growing out of these laws is of such magnitude and the necessity for action is so urgent that I recommend to Congress the immediate consideration of the subject.