178 



CONGRESS. (THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



ing from wounds or disease having an origin in the 

 service and in the line of duty. Two of the three ne- 

 cessary facts, namely muster and disability, are usu- 

 ally susceptible of easy proof; but the third, origin in 

 the service, is often difficult and in many deserving 

 cases impossible to establish. That very many of 

 those who endured the hardships of our most bloody 

 and arduous campaigns are now disabled from dis- 

 eases that had a realbut not traceable origin in the 

 service, I do not doubt. Besides these there is an- 

 other class composed of men many of whom served 

 an enlistment of three full year*, and of re-enlisted 

 veterans who added a fourth year of service, who es- 

 caped the casualties of battle and the assaults of dis- 

 ease, who were always ready for any detail, who were 

 in every battle line of their command, and were mus- 

 tered out in sound health, and have since the close of 

 the war, while fighting with the same indomitable and 

 independent spirit the contests of civil life, been over- 

 come by disease or casualty. 



1 am not unaware that the pension roll already in- 

 volves a very large annual expenditure, neither am I 

 deterred by that fact from recommending that Con- 

 gress grant a pension to such honorably discharged 

 soldiers and Bailors of the civil war as, having ren- 

 dered substantial service during the war, are now de- 

 pendent upon their own labor for maintenance, and 

 by disease or casualty are incapacitated from earning 

 it. Many of the men who would be included in this 

 form of relief are now dependent upon public aid, 

 and it does not, in my judgment, consist with the na- 

 tional honor that they shall continue to subsist upon 

 the local relief given indiscriminately to paupers in- 

 stead of upon the special and generous provisibn of 

 the nation thev- served so gallantly and unselfishly. 

 Our people will, I am sure, very generally approve 

 such legislation. And I am equally sure that the 

 survivors of the Union army and navy will feel a 

 grateful sense of relief when this worthy and suffering 

 class of their comrades is fairly cared tor. 



There are some manifest inequalities in the existing 

 law that should be remedied. To some of these the 

 Secretary of the Interior has called attention. 



It is gratifying to be able to state that by the adop- 

 tion of new and better methods in the War Depart- 

 ment the calls of the Pension Office for information as 

 to the military and hospital records of pension claim- 

 ants are now promptly answered, and the injurious 

 and vexatious delays that have heretofore occurred are 

 entirely avoided. This will greatly facilitate the ad- 

 justment of all pending claims. 



. The advent of four new States, South Dakota, 

 North Dakota, Montana, and Washington, into the 

 Union under the Constitution, in the same month, and 

 the admission of their duly chosen representatives to 

 our national Congress at the same session, is an event 

 as unexampled as it is interesting. 



The certification of the votes cast and of the Consti- 

 tutions adopted in each of the States was filed with 

 mo as required by the eighth section of the act of Feb. 

 22, 1889, by the governors of said Territories, re- 

 spectively. Having, after a careful examination, 

 found that the several Constitutions and governments 

 were republican in form and not repugnant to the 

 Constitution of the United States, that all the provis- 

 ions of the act of Congress had been complied with, 

 and that a majority of the votes cast in each of said 

 proposed States was in favor of the adoption of the 

 Constitution submitted therein, I did so declare by a 

 separate proclamation as to each ; as to North Da- 

 kota and South Dakota on Saturday, Nov. 2 ; as to 

 Montana on Friday, Nov. 8 ; and as to Washington on 

 Monday, Nov. 11. 



Each of these States has within it resources the 

 development of which will employ the energies of, 

 and yield a comfortable subsistence to a great popu- 

 lation. The smallest of these new States, Wasniug- 

 ton, stands twelfth, and the largest, Montana, third, 

 among the forty- two in area. The people of these 

 States are already well-trained, intelligent, and patri- 

 otic American citizens, having common interests and 



sympathies with those of the older States, and a com- 

 mon purpose to defend the integrity and uphold the 

 honor of the nation. 



The attention of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 

 sion has been called to the urgent need of Congres- 

 sional legislation for the better protection of the lives 

 and limbs of those engaged in operating the great in- 

 terstate freight lines of the country, and especially of 

 the yard-men and brakemen. A petition, signed by 

 nearly ten thousand railway brakemen, was presented 

 to the commission, asking that steps might be taken 

 to bring about the use of automatic brakes and coup- 

 lers on freight cars. 



At a meeting of State railroad commissioners and 

 their accredited representatives, held at Washington 

 in March last, upon the invitation of the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission, a resolution was unanimously 

 adopted, urging the commission "to consider what 

 can be done to prevent the loss of life and limb in 

 coupling and uncoupling freight cars, and in handling 

 the brakes of such cars." During the year ending 

 June SO, 1888, over 2,000 railroad employe's were 

 killed in service, and more than 20,000 injured. It is 

 competent, I think, for Congress to require uniformity 

 in the construction of cars used in interstate com- 

 merce, and the use of improved safety appliances 

 upon such trains. Time will be necessary to make 

 the needed changes, but an earnest and intelligent 

 beginning should be made at once. It is a reproach 

 to our civilization that any class of American work- 

 men should, in the pursuit of a necessary and useful 

 vocation, be subjected to a peril of life and limb as great 

 as that of a soldier in time of war. 



The creation of an executive department, to he 

 known as the Department of Agriculture, by the act 

 of Feb. 9, last, was a wise and timely response to a 

 request which had long been respectfully urged by 

 the farmers of the countrv. But much remains to be 

 done to perfect the organization of the department so 

 that it may fairly rcali/e the expectations which its 

 creation excited. In this connection attention is 

 called to the suggestions contained in the report of 

 the Secretary, which is herewith submitted. The 

 need of a law officer for the department, such as is 

 provided for the other executive departments, is man- 

 ifest. The failure of the last Congress to make the 

 usual provision for the publication of the annual report 

 should be promptly remedied. The public interest 

 in the report and its value to the farming community 

 I am sure will not be diminished under the new or- 

 ganization of the department. 



I recommend that the Weather Service be separated 

 from the War Department and established as a bu- 

 reau in the Department of Agriculture. This will in- 

 volve an entire reorganization both of the W T eather 

 Bureau and of the Signal Corps, making of the first a 

 purely civil organization and of the other a purely 

 military staff corps. The report of the chief siirnal 

 officer shows that the work of the corps on its mili- 

 tary side has been deteriorating. 



The interests of the people of the District of Co- 

 lumbia should not be lost sight of in the pressure for 

 consideration of measures affecting the whole country. 

 Having no legislature of its own, either municipal or 

 general, its people must look to Congress for the 

 regulation of all those concerns that in the States are 

 the subject of local control. Our whole people have 

 an interest that the national capital should be made 

 attractive and beautiful, and above all that its repute 

 for social order should be well maintained. Tin 

 regulating the sale of intoxicating drinks in the District 

 should be revised with a view to bringing the traffic 

 under stringent limitations and control. 



In execution of the power conferred upon me by the 

 act making appropriations for the expenses of the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia for the year ending June 30, 1890, 1 

 did, on the 17th day of August lasCappoint Rudolph 

 Bering, of New York, Samuel M. Gray, of Rhode Is- 

 land, and Frederick P. Stearns, of 'Massachusetts, 

 three eminent sanitary engineers, to examine and re- 

 port upon the system of sewerage existing in the Dis- 



