It will, moreover, be readily seen that the Government could not refuse to pay out United States notes and Treasury notes in current transactions when demanded, and insist on paying out silver alone, and still maintain the parity between that metal and the currency representing gold. Besides, the accumulation in the Treasury of currency of any kind exacted from the people through taxation is justly regarded as an evil, and it can not proceed far without vigorous protest against an unjustifiable retention of money from the business of the country and a denunciation of a scheme of taxation which proves itself to be unjust when it takes from the earnings and income of the citizen money so much in excess of the needs of Government support that large sums can be gathered and kept in the Treasury. Such a condition has heretofore in times of surplus revenue led the Government to restore currency to the people by the purchase of its unmatured bonds at a large premium and by a large increase of its deposits in national banks, and we easily remember that the abuse of Treasury accumulation has furnished a most persuasive argument in favor of legislation radically reducing our tariff taxation.
Perhaps it is supposed that sufficient revenue receipts would in a sentimental way improve the situation by inspiring confidence in our solvency and allaying the fear of pecuniary exhaustion. And yet through all our struggles to maintain our gold reserve there never has been any apprehension as to our ready ability to pay our way with such money as we had, and the question whether or not our current receipts met our current expenses has not entered into the estimate of our solvency. Of course the general state of our funds, exclusive of gold, was entirely immaterial to the foreign creditor and investor. His debt could only be paid in gold, and his only concern was our ability to keep on hand that kind of money.
On July 1, 1892, more than a year and a half before the first bonds were issued to replenish the gold reserve, there was a net balance in the Treasury, exclusive of such reserve, of less than $13,000,000, but the gold reserve amounted to more than $114,000,000, which was the quieting feature of the situation. It was when the stock of gold began rapidly to fall that fright supervened and our securities held abroad were returned for sale and debts owed abroad were pressed for payment. In the meantime extensive shipments of gold and other unfavorable indications caused restlessness and fright among our people at home. Thereupon the general state of our funds, exclusive of gold, became also immaterial to them, and they too drew gold from the Treasury for hoarding against all contingencies. This is plainly shown by the large increase in the proportion of gold withdrawn which was retained by our own people as time and threatening incidents progressed. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, nearly $85,000,000 in gold was withdrawn from the Treasury and about $77,000,000 was sent abroad, while during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895, over $117,000,000 was drawn out, of which only about $66,000,000 was shipped, leaving the large balance of such withdrawals to be accounted for by domestic hoarding.
Inasmuch as the withdrawal of our gold has resulted largely from fright, there is nothing apparent that will prevent its continuance or recurrence, with its natural consequences, except such a change in our financial methods as will reassure the frightened and make the desire for gold less intense. It is not clear how an increase in revenue, unless it be in gold, can satisfy those whose only anxiety is to gain gold from the Government's store.
It can not, therefore, be safe to rely upon increased revenues as a cure for our present troubles.
It is possible that the suggestion of increased revenue as a remedy for the difficulties we are considering may have originated in an intimation or distinct allegation that the bonds which have been issued ostensibly to replenish our gold reserve were really issued to supply insufficient revenue. Nothing can be further from the truth. Bonds were issued to obtain gold for the maintenance of our national credit. As has been shown, the gold thus obtained has been drawn again from the Treasury upon United States notes and Treasury notes. This operation would have been promptly prevented if possible; but these notes having thus been passed to the Treasury, they became the money of the Government, like any other ordinary Government funds, and there was nothing to do but to use them in paying Government expenses when needed.
At no time when bonds have been issued has there been any consideration of the question of paying the expenses of Government with their proceeds. There was no necessity to consider that question. At the time of each bond issue we had a safe surplus in the Treasury for ordinary operations, exclusive of the gold in our reserve. In February, 1894, when the first issue of bonds was made, such surplus amounted to over $18,000,000; in November, when the second issue was made, it amounted to more than $42,000,000, and in February, 1895, when bonds for the third time were issued, such surplus amounted to more than $100,000,000. It now amounts to $98,072,420.30.
Besides all this, the Secretary of the Treasury had no authority whatever to issue bonds to increase the ordinary revenues or pay current expenses.
I can not but think there has been some confusion of ideas regarding the effects of the issue of bonds and the results of the withdrawal of gold. It was the latter process, and not the former, that, by substituting in the Treasury United States notes and Treasury notes for gold, increased by their amount the money which was in the first instance subject to ordinary Government expenditure.
Although the law compelling an increased purchase of silver by the Government was passed on the 14th day of July, 1890, withdrawals of gold from the Treasury upon the notes given in payment on such purchases did not begin until October, 1891. Immediately following that date the withdrawals upon both these notes and United States notes increased very largely, and have continued to such an extent that since the passage of that law there has been more than thirteen times as much gold taken out of the Treasury upon United States notes and Treasury notes issued for silver purchases as was thus withdrawn during the eleven and a half years immediately prior thereto and after the 1st day of January, 1879, when specie payments were resumed.
It is neither unfair nor unjust to charge a large share of our present financial perplexities and dangers to the operation of the laws of 1878 and 1890 compelling the purchase of silver by the Government, which not only furnished a new Treasury obligation upon which its gold could be withdrawn, but so increased the fear of an overwhelming flood of silver and a forced descent to silver payments that even the repeal of these laws did not entirely cure the evils of their existence.
While I have endeavored to make a plain statement of the disordered condition of our currency and the present dangers menacing our prosperity and to suggest a way which leads to a safer financial system, I have constantly had in mind the fact that many of my countrymen, whose sincerity I do not doubt, insist that the cure for the ills now threatening us may be found in the single and simple remedy of the free coinage of silver. They contend that our mints shall be at once thrown open to the free, unlimited, and independent coinage of both gold and silver dollars of full legal-tender quality, regardless of the action of any other government and in full view of the fact that the ratio between the metals which they suggest calls for 100 cents' worth of gold in the gold dollar at the present standard and only 50 cents in intrinsic worth of silver in the silver dollar.
Were there infinitely stronger reasons than can be adduced for hoping that such action would secure for us a bimetallic currency moving on lines of parity, an experiment so novel and hazardous as that proposed might well stagger those who believe that stability is an imperative condition of sound money.
No government, no human contrivance or act of legislation, has ever been able to hold the two metals together in free coinage at a ratio appreciably different from that which is established in the markets of the world.
Those who believe that our independent free coinage of silver at an artificial ratio with gold of 16 to 1 would restore the parity between the metals, and consequently between the coins, oppose an unsupported and improbable theory to the general belief and practice of other nations and to the teaching of the wisest statesmen and economists of the world, both in the past and present, and, what is far more conclusive, they run counter to our own actual experiences.
Twice in our earlier history our lawmakers, in attempting to establish a bimetallic currency, undertook free coinage upon a ratio which accidentally varied from the actual relative values of the two metals not more than 3 per cent. In both cases, notwithstanding greater difficulties and cost of transportation than now exist, the coins whose intrinsic worth was undervalued in the ratio gradually and surely disappeared from our circulation and went to other countries where their real value was better recognized.
Acts of Congress were impotent to create equality where natural causes decreed even a slight inequality.
Twice in our recent history we have signally failed to raise by legislation the value of silver. Under an act of Congress passed in 1878 the Government was required for more than twelve years to expend annually at least $24,000,000 in the purchase of silver bullion for coinage. The act of July 14, 1890, in a still bolder effort, increased the amount of silver the Government was compelled to purchase and forced it to become the buyer annually of 54,000,000 ounces, or practically the entire product of our mines. Under both laws silver rapidly and steadily declined in value. The prophecy and the expressed hope and expectation of those in the Congress who led in the passage of the last-mentioned act that it would reestablish and maintain the former parity between the two metals are still fresh in our memory.
In the light of these experiences, which accord with the experiences of other nations, there is certainly no secure ground for the belief that an act of Congress could now bridge an inequality of 50 per cent between gold and silver at our present ratio, nor is there the least possibility that our country, which has less than one-seventh of the silver money in the world, could by its action alone raise not only our own but all silver to its lost ratio with gold. Our attempt to accomplish this by the free coinage of silver at a ratio differing widely from actual relative values would be the signal for the complete departure of gold from our circulation, the immediate and large contraction of our circulating medium, and a shrinkage in the real value and monetary efficiency of all other forms of currency as they settled to the level of silver monometallism. Everyone who receives a fixed salary and every worker for wages would find the dollar in his hand ruthlessly scaled down to the point of bitter disappointment, if not to pinching privation.
A change in our standard to silver monometallism would also bring on a collapse of the entire system of credit, which, when based on a standard which is recognized and adopted by the world of business, is many times more potent and useful than the entire volume of currency and is safely capable of almost indefinite expansion to meet the growth of trade and enterprise. In a self-invited struggle through darkness and uncertainty our humiliation would be increased by the consciousness that we had parted company with all the enlightened and progressive nations of the world and were desperately and hopelessly striving to meet the stress of modern commerce and competition with a debased and unsuitable currency and in association with the few weak and laggard nations which have silver alone as their standard of value.
All history warns us against rash experiments which threaten violent changes in our monetary standard and the degradation of our currency. The past is full of lessons teaching not only the economic dangers but the national immorality that follow in the train of such experiments. I will not believe that the American people can be persuaded after sober deliberation to jeopardize their nation's prestige and proud standing by encouraging financial nostrums, nor that they will yield to the false allurements of cheap money when they realize that it must result in the weakening of that financial integrity and rectitude which thus far in our history has been so devotedly cherished as one of the traits of true Americanism.
Our country's indebtedness, whether owing by the Government or existing between individuals, has been contracted with reference to our present standard. To decree by act of Congress that these debts shall be payable in less valuable dollars than those within the contemplation and intention of the parties when contracted would operate to transfer by the fiat of law and without compensation an amount of property and a volume of rights and interests almost incalculable.
Those who advocate a blind and headlong plunge to free coinage in the name of bimetallism, and professing the belief, contrary to all experience, that we could thus establish a double standard and a concurrent circulation of both metals in our coinage, are certainly reckoning from a cloudy standpoint. Our present standard of value is the standard of the civilized world and permits the only bimetallism now possible, or at least that is within the independent reach of any single nation, however powerful that nation may be. While the value of gold as a standard is steadied by almost universal commercial and business use, it does not despise silver nor seek its banishment. Wherever this standard is maintained there is at its side in free and unquestioned circulation a volume of silver currency sometimes equaling and sometimes even exceeding it in amount, both maintained at a parity notwithstanding a depreciation or fluctuation in the intrinsic value of silver.
There is a vast difference between a standard of value and a currency for monetary use. The standard must necessarily be fixed and certain. The currency may be in divers forms and of various kinds. No silver-standard country has a gold currency in circulation, but an enlightened and wise system of finance secures the benefits of both gold and silver as currency and circulating medium by keeping the standard stable and all other currency at par with it. Such a system and such a standard also give free scope for the use and expansion of safe and conservative credit, so indispensable to broad and growing commercial transactions and so well substituted for the actual use of money. If a fixed and stable standard is maintained, such as the magnitude and safety of our commercial transactions and business require, the use of money itself is conveniently minimized.
Every dollar of fixed and stable value has through the agency of confident credit an astonishing capacity of multiplying itself in financial work. Every unstable and fluctuating dollar fails as a basis of credit, and in its use begets gambling speculation and undermines the foundations of honest enterprise.
I have ventured to express myself on this subject with earnestness and plainness of speech because I can not rid myself of the belief that there lurk in the proposition for the free coinage of silver, so strongly approved and so enthusiastically advocated by a multitude of my countrymen, a serious menace to our prosperity and an insidious temptation of our people to wander from the allegiance they owe to public and private integrity. It is because I do not distrust the good faith and sincerity of those who press this scheme that I have imperfectly but with zeal submitted my thoughts upon this momentous subject. I can not refrain from begging them to reexamine their views and beliefs in the light of patriotic reason and familiar experience and to weigh again and again the consequences of such legislation as their efforts have invited. Even the continued agitation of the subject adds greatly to the difficulties of a dangerous financial situation already forced upon us.
In conclusion I especially entreat the people's representatives in the Congress, who are charged with the responsibility of inaugurating measures for the safety and prosperity of our common country, to promptly and effectively consider the ills of our critical financial plight. I have suggested a remedy which my judgment approves. I desire, however, to assure the Congress that I am prepared to cooperate with them in perfecting any other measure promising thorough and practical relief, and that I will gladly labor with them in every patriotic endeavor to further the interests and guard the welfare of our countrymen, whom in our respective places of duty we have undertaken to serve.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 17, 1895.
To the Congress:
In my annual message addressed to the Congress on the 3d instant I called attention to the pending boundary controversy between Great Britain and the Republic of Venezuela and recited the substance of a representation made by this Government to Her Britannic Majesty's Government suggesting reasons why such dispute should be submitted to arbitration for settlement and inquiring whether it would be so submitted.28
The answer of the British Government, which was then awaited, has since been received, and, together with the dispatch to which it is a reply, is hereto appended.
Such reply is embodied in two communications addressed by the British prime minister to Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British ambassador at this capital. It will be seen that one of these communications is devoted exclusively to observations upon the Monroe doctrine, and claims that in the present instance a new and strange extension and development of this doctrine is insisted on by the United States; that the reasons justifying an appeal to the doctrine enunciated by President Monroe are generally inapplicable "to the state of things in which we live at the present day," and especially inapplicable to a controversy involving the boundary line between Great Britain and Venezuela.
Without attempting extended argument in reply to these positions, it may not be amiss to suggest that the doctrine upon which we stand is strong and sound, because its enforcement is important to our peace and safety as a nation and is essential to the integrity of our free institutions and the tranquil maintenance of our distinctive form of government. It was intended to apply to every stage of our national life and can not become obsolete while our Republic endures. If the balance of power is justly a cause for jealous anxiety among the Governments of the Old World and a subject for our absolute noninterference, none the less is an observance of the Monroe doctrine of vital concern to our people and their Government.
Assuming, therefore, that we may properly insist upon this doctrine without regard to "the state of things in which we live" or any changed conditions here or elsewhere, it is not apparent why its application may not be invoked in the present controversy.
If a European power by an extension of its boundaries takes possession of the territory of one of our neighboring Republics against its will and in derogation of its rights, it is difficult to see why to that extent such European power does not thereby attempt to extend its system of government to that portion of this continent which is thus taken. This is the precise action which President Monroe declared to be "dangerous to our peace and safety," and it can make no difference whether the European system is extended by an advance of frontier or otherwise.
It is also suggested in the British reply that we should not seek to apply the Monroe doctrine to the pending dispute because it does not embody any principle of international law which "is founded on the general consent of nations," and that "no statesman, however eminent, and no nation, however powerful, are competent to insert into the code of international law a novel principle which was never recognized before and which has not since been accepted by the government of any other country."
Practically the principle for which we contend has peculiar, if not exclusive, relation to the United States. It may not have been admitted in so many words to the code of international law, but since in international councils every nation is entitled to the rights belonging to it, if the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine is something we may justly claim it has its place in the code of international law as certainly and as securely as if it were specifically mentioned; and when the United States is a suitor before the high tribunal that administers international law the question to be determined is whether or not we present claims which the justice of that code of law can find to be right and valid.
The Monroe doctrine finds its recognition in those principles of international law which are based upon the theory that every nation shall have its rights protected and its just claims enforced.
Of course this Government is entirely confident that under the sanction of this doctrine we have clear rights and undoubted claims. Nor is this ignored in the British reply. The prime minister, while not admitting that the Monroe doctrine is applicable to present conditions, states:
In declaring that the United States would resist any such enterprise if it was contemplated, President Monroe adopted a policy which received the entire sympathy of the English Government of that date.
He further declares:
Though the language of President Monroe is directed to the attainment of objects which most Englishmen would agree to be salutary, it is impossible to admit that they have been inscribed by any adequate authority in the code of international law.
Again he says:
They [Her Majesty's Government] fully concur with the view which President Monroe apparently entertained, that any disturbance of the existing territorial distribution in that hemisphere by any fresh acquisitions on the part of any European State would be a highly inexpedient change.
In the belief that the doctrine for which we contend was clear and definite, that it was founded upon substantial considerations and involved our safety and welfare, that it was fully applicable to our present conditions and to the state of the world's progress, and that it was directly related to the pending controversy, and without any conviction as to the final merits of the dispute, but anxious to learn in a satisfactory and conclusive manner whether Great Britain sought under a claim of boundary to extend her possessions on this continent without right, or whether she merely sought possession of territory fairly included within her lines of ownership, this Government proposed to the Government of Great Britain a resort to arbitration as the proper means of settling the question, to the end that a vexatious boundary dispute between the two contestants might be determined and our exact standing and relation in respect to the controversy might be made clear.
It will be seen from the correspondence herewith submitted that this proposition has been declined by the British Government upon grounds which in the circumstances seem to me to be far from satisfactory. It is deeply disappointing that such an appeal, actuated by the most friendly feelings toward both nations directly concerned, addressed to the sense of justice and to the magnanimity of one of the great powers of the world, and touching its relations to one comparatively weak and small, should have produced no better results.
The course to be pursued by this Government in view of the present condition does not appear to admit of serious doubt. Having labored faithfully for many years to induce Great Britain to submit this dispute to impartial arbitration, and having been now finally apprised of her refusal to do so, nothing remains but to accept the situation, to recognize its plain requirements, and deal with it accordingly. Great Britain's present proposition has never thus far been regarded as admissible by Venezuela, though any adjustment of the boundary which that country may deem for her advantage and may enter into of her own free will can not of course be objected to by the United States.
Assuming, however, that the attitude of Venezuela will remain unchanged, the dispute has reached such a stage as to make it now incumbent upon the United States to take measures to determine with sufficient certainty for its justification what is the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana. The inquiry to that end should of course be conducted carefully and judicially, and due weight should be given to all available evidence, records, and facts in support of the claims of both parties.
In order that such an examination should be prosecuted in a thorough and satisfactory manner, I suggest that the Congress make an adequate appropriation for the expenses of a commission, to be appointed by the Executive, who shall make the necessary investigation and report upon the matter with the least possible delay. When such report is made and accepted it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.
In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow.
I am, nevertheless, firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors in the onward march of civilization and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, December 19, 1895.
To the Senate of the United States:
In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 4th instant, requesting the President, "if in his judgment not incompatible with the public interest, to communicate to the Senate all information which has been received by him or by the State Department in regard to injuries inflicted upon the persons or property of American citizens in Turkey and in regard to the condition of affairs there in reference to the oppression or cruelties practiced upon the Armenian subjects of the Turkish Government; also to inform the Senate whether all the American consuls in the Turkish Empire are at their posts of duty, and, if not, to state any circumstances which have interfered with the performance of the duties of such consuls," I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 20, 1895.
To the Congress:
In my last annual message the evils of our present financial system were plainly pointed out and the causes and means of the depletion of Government gold were explained. It was therein stated that after all the efforts that had been made by the executive branch of the Government to protect our gold reserve by the issuance of bonds amounting to more than $162,000,000, such reserve then amounted to but little more than $79,000,000; that about $16,000,000 had been withdrawn from such reserve during the month next previous to the date of that message, and that quite large withdrawals for shipment in the immediate future were predicted.
The contingency then feared has reached us, and the withdrawals of gold since the communication referred to and others that appear inevitable threaten such a depletion in our Government gold reserve as brings us face to face to the necessity of further action for its protection. This condition is intensified by the prevalence in certain quarters of sudden and unusual apprehension and timidity in business circles.
We are in the midst of another season of perplexity caused by our dangerous and fatuous financial operations. These may be expected to recur with certainty as long as there is no amendment in our financial system. If in this particular instance our predicament is at all influenced by a recent insistence upon the position we should occupy in our relation to certain questions concerning our foreign policy, this furnishes a signal and impressive warning that even the patriotic sentiment of our people is not an adequate substitute for a sound financial policy.
Of course there can be no doubt in any thoughtful mind as to the complete solvency of our nation, nor can there be any just apprehension that the American people will be satisfied with less than an honest payment of our public obligations in the recognized money of the world. We should not overlook the fact, however, that aroused fear is unreasoning and must be taken into account in all efforts to avert possible loss and the sacrifice of our people's interests.
The real and sensible cure for our recurring troubles can only be effected by a complete change in our financial scheme. Pending that the executive branch of the Government will not relax its efforts nor abandon its determination to use every means within its reach to maintain before the world American credit, nor will there be any hesitation in exhibiting its confidence in the resources of our country and the constant patriotism of our people.
In view, however, of the peculiar situation now confronting us, I have ventured to herein express the earnest hope that the Congress, in default of the inauguration of a better system of finance, will not take a recess from its labors before it has by legislative enactment or declaration done something not only to remind those apprehensive among our own people that the resources of their Government and a scrupulous regard for honest dealing afford a sure guaranty of unquestioned safety and soundness, but to reassure the world that with these factors and the patriotism of our citizens the ability and determination of our nation to meet in any circumstances every obligation it incurs do not admit of question.
I ask at the hands of the Congress such prompt aid as it alone has the power to give to prevent in a time of fear and apprehension any sacrifice of the people's interests and the public funds or the impairment of our public credit in an effort by Executive action to relieve the dangers of the present emergency.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, December 30, 1895.
To the Senate of the United States:
In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st instant, relative to the refusal of the Turkish Government to grant exequaturs to the vice-consuls of the United States at Erzerum and Harpoot, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 10, 1896.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, in response to the Senate resolution of December 18, 1895, addressed to the Secretary of State, a report of that officer, with the accompanying correspondence, in relation to the arrest and imprisonment of Victor Hugo McCord at Arequipa, Peru, requested by said resolution.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 17, 1896.
To the Congress:
I desire to invite attention to the necessity for prompt legislation in order to remove the limitation of the time within which suits may be brought by the Government to annul unlawful or unauthorized grants of public lands.
By the act of March 3, 1887 (24 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 556), the Secretary of the Interior is directed to adjust each of the railroad land grants which may be unadjusted, and it is provided, if it shall appear upon the completion of such adjustment or sooner that the lands have been from any cause erroneously certified or patented by the United States to or for the use of a company claiming under any of said grants, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to demand a reconveyance of the title to all lands so erroneously certified or patented, and on failure of the company to make such reconveyance within ninety days the Attorney-General is required to institute and prosecute in the proper courts necessary proceedings to restore title to said lands to the United States. The demands made under this act have been numerous, and in some cases have resulted in the reinvestment of title to the lands in the United States upon demand, but in most cases the demand has been refused and suits have been necessary.
The work of adjustment has been unavoidably slow. The said act makes provision for the reinstatement of entries erroneously canceled on account of railroad withdrawals, and, upon certain conditions, provides for the confirmation of titles derived by purchase from the companies of lands shown to be excepted from the grants. It contemplates a disposition of every tract, described by the granting act, situated within the primary or granted limits; an inspection of each tract certified or patented to the company within such limit, to determine whether such certification or patenting was proper; the listing of those tracts shown to be erroneously certified, and the determination for what tracts lost to the grant indemnity is to be allowed.
It is necessary in making such an adjustment that all questions of conflicting claims, either between settlers and the road or between two roads the grants for which conflict or overlap, be finally disposed of, so that a proper disposition of the land can be shown in the adjustment. While adjustments have proceeded with the utmost rapidity consistent with a due regard for the rights of the settlers, of the United States, and the railroad companies, and while to this end the force of adjusters has been largely augmented in the General Land Office, many of the grants yet remain unadjusted.
In some of the grants, notably the corporation grants, the lack of surveys up to the present time made the completion of the work impossible.
Decisions rendered by the Interior Department in numerous conflicts have been carried into the courts. The construction of the Interior Department has generally been sustained when final determination has been reached, but many of the cases are still pending in the courts, not yet having been decided. Some of these cases, while involving immediately the title to only one particular tract, will when decided furnish a rule of construction to control the disposition of the title to thousands of acres of other lands in the same situation. Until the courts pass upon these questions final adjustments can not be made.
By section 8 of the act of March 3, 1891 (26 U.S. Statutes at Large, p. 1099), it is expressly enacted that suits by the United States to vacate and annul any patent theretofore issued "shall only be brought within five years from the passage of this act." This period of five years will expire on the 3d of March, 1896. Of course no suit by the United States to secure the cancellation of a patent in this class of cases after that date would be effective. Indeed, it is now too late to initiate proceedings looking to any such suit, inasmuch as demand has to be first made on the company, and thereafter ninety days must be allowed for compliance or refusal, in accordance with the provisions of the act of March 3, 1887. Before the expiration of this period the statute would bar the right of recovery by the Government, and the benefits of anticipated favorable decisions of the courts would be lost so far as they might determine the character and disposition of grants similar to those directly involved in pending cases.
It will be readily seen that if this act of limitations is to remain on the statute books the portion of the adjustment act referred to would be rendered nugatory. Indeed, there would be but little use in continuing the adjustment of many of the land grants, inasmuch as ascertained rights of the United States or of settlers could not be enforced by law.
Legislation establishing limitations against the right of the Government to sue is an innovation not entirely consistent with the general history of the rights of the Government, for it has uniformly been held that time did not bar the sovereign power from the assertion of a right.
The early adjudications of the Land Department construed the grants with a degree of liberality toward the grantees which later decisions of the courts and of the Department have not sustained. It seems clear that the further progress of adjustments will develop facts and transactions in connection with these land grants which ought to be the subjects of legal examination and scrutiny before they are allowed to become final and conclusive. The Government should not be prevented from going into the courts to right wrongs perpetrated by its agents or any other parties, and by which much of the public domain may be diverted from the people at large to corporate uses.
In these circumstances it seems to me that the act of 1891 should be so amended as not to apply to suits brought to recover title to lands certified or patented on account of railroad or other grants; and I respectfully urge upon Congress speedy action to the end suggested, so that the adjustment of these grants may proceed without the interposition of a bar, through lapse of time, against the right of recovery by the Government in proper cases.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 20, 1896.
To the House of Representatives:
In response to the resolution of the House of Representatives of December 28, 1895, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and accompanying papers, relating to certain speeches made by Thomas F. Bayard, ambassador of the United States to Great Britain.
In response to that part of said resolution which requests information as to the action taken by the President concerning the speeches therein referred to, I reply that no action has been taken thereon by the President except such as is indicated in the report and correspondence herewith submitted.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 22, 1896.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith, in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of December 28, 1895, a report from the Secretary of State, with copies of all the correspondence of record in the Department of State in relation to the schooner Henry Crosby, fired upon while at anchor at Azua, Santo Domingo, December 10, 1893.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 22, 1896.
To the Senate of the United States:
In response to the resolution adopted by the Senate on December 16, 1895, respecting what action had been taken in regard to the payment of the appropriation for the bounty on sugar contained in the sundry civil bill approved March 2, 1895, I herewith transmit a communication received from the Secretary of the Treasury, which contains all the information I have upon the subject.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 23, 1896.
To the Senate:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolution of the Senate of the 16th instant, requesting information in regard to the treatment of naturalized citizens of the United States of Armenian origin, and their families, by the Turkish Government.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 27, 1896.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with copies of all correspondence of record relating to the failure of the scheme for the colonization of negroes in Mexico, necessitating their return to their home in Alabama.
I referred to this matter in my message to Congress at the beginning of the present session, and for the reasons then given29 I again urge the propriety of making an appropriation to cover the cost of transportation furnished by the railroad companies.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, January 30, 1896.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of State, accompanying the reports of the consuls of the United States on trade and commerce. In view of the evident value of this compilation to our business interests, I indorse the recommendation of the Secretary that Congress authorize the printing of a special edition of 10,000 copies of the General Summary of the Commerce of the World for distribution by the Department of State, and of 2,500 copies of Commercial Relations (including this summary) to enable the Department to meet the increasing demand for commercial information.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 3, 1896.
To the Congress:
In my last annual message allusion was made to the lawless killing of certain Italian laborers in the State of Colorado,30 and it was added that "the dependent families of some of the unfortunate victims invite by their deplorable condition gracious provision for their needs."
It now appears that in addition to three of these laborers who were riotously killed two others, who escaped death by flight, incurred pitiable disabilities through exposure and privation.
Without discussing the question of the liability of the United States for these results, either by reason of treaty obligations or under the general rules of international law, I venture to urge upon the Congress the propriety of making from the public Treasury prompt and reasonable pecuniary provision for those injured and for the families of those who were killed.
To aid in the consideration of the subject I append hereto a report of the Secretary of State, accompanied by certain correspondence which quite fully presents all the features of the several cases.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
To the House of Representatives:
Pursuant to the request made in a House resolution passed on the 30th day of January, 1896, I herewith transmit the report, with accompanying maps and exhibits, of the board of engineers under the provisions of chapter 189 of laws of 1895, for the purpose of ascertaining the feasibility, permanence, and cost of the construction and completion of the Nicaragua Canal by the route contemplated and provided for by the act which passed the Senate January 28, 1895, entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua,' approved February 20, 1889."
GROVER CLEVELAND.
FEBRUARY 7, 1896.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 10, 1896.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of December 18, 1895, a report by the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of correspondence touching the establishment or attempted establishment of post routes by Great Britain or the Dominion of Canada over or upon United States territory in Alaska; also as to the occupation or attempted occupation by any means of any portion of that territory by the military or civil authorities of Great Britain or of Canada.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 10, 1896.
To the Senate:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to its ratification, a convention signed at Washington the 8th instant between the Governments of the United States of America and of Her Britannic Majesty, providing for the settlement of the claims presented by Great Britain against the United States in virtue of the convention of February 29, 1892, and of the findings of the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration pursuant to article 8 of said convention, as well as of the additional claims specified in paragraph 5 of the preamble of the present convention.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 11, 1896.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of December 9, 1895, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies of correspondence and other papers in regard to the case of John L. Waller, a citizen of the United States, at present in the custody of the French Government.
It will be seen upon examination, as would of course be expected, that there is a slight conflict of evidence upon some of the features of Mr. Waller's case. Nevertheless, upon a fair and just consideration of all the facts and circumstances as presented, and especially in view of Mr. Waller's own letters, the conclusions set forth in the report of the Secretary of State do not appear to admit of any reasonable doubt nor to leave open to the Executive any other course of action than that adopted and acted upon as therein stated.
It is expected that Mr. Waller's release from imprisonment will be immediately forthcoming.
GROVER CLEVELAND.