186 



CONGRESS. (THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



beginning lias been made, and, as the subject is fur- 

 ther considered and understood by capitalists and 

 shipping people, new lines will be ready to meet 

 future proposals, and we may date from the passage 

 of this law the revival of American shipping inter- 

 ests and the recovery of a fair share of the carrying 

 trade of the world. We were receiving for foreign 

 postage nearly $2,000,000 under the old system and 

 the outlay for ocean-mail service did not exceed 

 $600,000 p'er annum. It is estimated by the Post- 

 master-General that, if all the contracts proposed are 

 completed, it will require $247,354 for this year, in 

 addition to the appropriation for sea and inland post- 

 age already in the estimates, and that for the next 

 fiscal year, ending June 30, 1893, there would prob- 

 ably be needed about $560,000. 



"flie report of the Secretary of the Navy shows a 

 gratifying increase of new naval vessels in commis- 

 sion. The " Newark," " Concord," " Bennington," and 

 " Miantonomoh " have been added during the year, 

 with an aggregate of something more than 11,000 

 tons. Twenty-four warships of all classes are now 

 under construction in the navy yards and private 

 shops, but, while the work upon them is going for- 

 ward satisfactorily, the completion of the more im- 

 portant vessels mil yet require about a year's time. 

 Some of the vessels now under construction, it is be- 

 lieved, will be triumphs of naval engineering. When 

 it is recollected that the work of building a modern 

 navy was only initiated in the year 1883, that our 

 naval constructors and shipbuilders were practically 

 without experience in the construction of large iron or 

 steel ships, that our engine shops were unfamiliar with 

 great marine engines, and that the manufacture of steel 

 forgings for guns and plates was almost wholly a for- 

 eign industry, the progress that has been made is not 

 only highly satisfactory, but furnishes the assurance 

 that the United States will before long attain, in the 

 construction of such vessels, with their engines and 

 armaments, the same pre-eminence which it attained 

 when the best instrument of ocean commerce was the 

 clipper ship and the most impressive exhibit of naval 

 power the old wooden three-decker man-of-war. 

 The officers of the navy and the proprietors and en- 

 gineers of our great private shops have responded 

 with wonderful intelligence and professional zeal to 

 the confidence expressed by Congress in its liberal 

 legislation. We have now at Washington a gun 

 shop, organized and conducted by naval officers, that 

 in its system, economy, and product is unexcelled. 

 Experiments with armor plate have been conducted 

 during the, year with most important results. It is 

 now believed that a plate of higher resisting power 

 than any in use has been found, and that the tests 

 have demonstrated that cheaper methods of manu- 

 facture than those heretofore thought necessary can 

 be used. 



I commend to your favorable consideration the 

 recommendations of the Secretary, who has, I am 

 sure, given to them the most conscientious study. 

 There should be no hesitation in promptly complet- 

 ing a navy of the best modern type, large enough to 

 enable this country to display its flag in all seas for 

 the protection of its citizens and of its extending com- 

 merce. The world needs no assurance of the peaceful 

 purposes of the United States, but we shall probably 

 be in the future more largely a competitor in the com- 

 merce of the world, and it is essential to the dignity 

 of this nation and to that peaceful influence which it 

 should exercise on this hemisphere that its navy 

 should be adequate, both upon the shores of the At- 

 lantic and of the Pacific. 



The report of the Secretary of the Interior shows 

 that a very gratifying progress has been made in all 

 of the bureaus which make up that complex and diffi- 

 cult department. 



The work in the Bureau of Indian Affairs was per- 

 haps never so large as now, by reason of the numerous 

 negotiations which have been proceeding with the 

 tribes for a reduction of the reservations, with the 

 incident labor of making allotments, and was never 



more carefully conducted. The provision of adequate 

 school facilities for Indian children and the locating 

 of adult Indians upon farms involve the solution of 

 the "Indian question." Everything else rations, 

 annuities, and tribal negotiations, with the agents, 

 inspectors, and commissioners who distribute and 

 conduct them must pass away when the Indian has 

 become a citizen, secure in the individual ownership 

 of a farm from which he derives his subsistence by 

 his own labor, protected by and subordinate to the 

 laws which govern the white man, and provided by 

 the General Government or by the local communities 

 in which he lives with the means of educating his 

 children. When an Indian becomes a citizen in an 

 organized State or Territory his relation to the Gen- 

 eral Government ceases, in great measure, to be that 

 of a ward ; but the General Government ought not at 

 once to put upon the State or Territory the burden of 

 the education of his children. It has been my thought 

 that the Government schools and school "buildings 

 upon the reservations would be absorbed by the 

 school systems of the States and Territories ; but, as 

 it has been found necessary to protect the Indian 

 against the compulsory alienation of his land by ex- 

 empting him from taxation for a period of twenty-five 

 years, it would seem to be right that the General 

 Government, certainly where there are tribal funds 

 in its possession, should pay to the school fund of the 

 State what would be equivalent to the local school 

 tax upon the property of the Indian. It will be no- 

 ticed from the report of the Commissioner of Indian 

 Affairs that already some contracts have been made 

 with district schools for the education of Indian chil- 

 dren. There is great advantage, I think, in bringing 

 the Indian children into mixed schools. This process 

 will be gradual, and in the mean time the present edu- 

 cational provisions and arrangements, the result of 

 the best experience of those who have been charged 

 with this work, should be continued. This will en- 

 able those religious bodies that have undertaken the 

 work of Indian education with so much zeal, and with 

 results so restraining and beneficent, to place their 

 institutions in new and useful relations to the Indian 

 and to his white neighbors. 



The outbreak among the Sioux, which occurred in 

 December last, is as to its causes and incidents fully 

 reported upon by the War Department and the De- 

 partment of the Interior. That these Indians had 

 some just complaints, especially in the matter of the 

 reduction of the appropriation for rations and in the 

 delays attending the enactment of laws to enable the 

 department to perform the engagements entered into 

 with them, is probably true ; but the Sioux tribes are 

 naturally warlike and turbulent, and their warriors 

 were excited by their medicine men and chiefs, who 

 preached the coming of an Indian Messiah who was 

 to give them power to destroy their enemies. In view 

 of the alarm that prevailed among the white settlers 

 near the reservation and of the fatal consequences that 

 would have resulted from an Indian incursion, I 

 placed at the disposal of Gen. Miles, commanding the 

 Division of the Missouri, all ruch forces as were 

 thought by him to be required. He is entitled to the 

 credit of having given thorough protection to the 

 settlers and of bringing the hostiles into subjection 

 with the least possible loss of life. 



The appropriation of $2,991,450 for the Choctaws 

 and Chickasaws, contained in the general Indian ap- 

 propriation bill of March 3, 1891, has not been ex- 

 pended, for the reason that I have not yet approved a 

 release (to the Government) of the Indian claim to 

 the lands mentioned. This matter will be made the 

 subject of a special message, placing before Congress 

 all the facts which have come to my knowledge. 



The relation of the five civilized tribes now occupy- 

 ing the Indian Territory to the United States is not, I 

 believe, that best calculated to promote the highest 

 advancement of these Indians. That there should be 

 within our borders five independent States, having no 

 relations, except those growing out of treaties, with 

 the Government of the United States, no represeuta- 





