Teddy Roosevelt

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

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 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.

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…

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.

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

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.

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

On the other hand, we have the right to expect from the representatives of the people a peculiar care for your interests.

Every friend of peace will join heartily in seeing that those arbitration treaties do become part of the supreme law of the land.

We are not trying to strike down the rich man; on the contrary, we will not tolerate any attack upon his rights.

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.

We must grow by evolution, not by revolution.

I am not surprised that you should show those traits, for I should be heartily ashamed of you if you did not.

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

I earnestly hope that our foreign policy shall be continued absolutely without regard to change of administration, to change of party.

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

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.

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

The institution of marriage is, of course, at the very foundation of our social organization.

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

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

If either the business world or the world of labor loses its head, then it has lost something which cannot be made good by any governmental effort.