184 



CONGRESS. (PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



spective commissioners were unable to agree 

 being in course of reference to her Britannic 

 Majesty for determination. A residual difference 

 touching the northern boundary line across the 

 Atacama Desert, for which existing treaties pro- 

 vided no adequate adjustment, bids fair to be 

 settled in like manner by a joint commission, 

 upon which the United States minister at Buenos 

 Ayres has been invited to serve as umpire in the 

 last resort. 



1 have found occasion to approach the Argen- 

 tine Government with a view to removing differ- 

 ences of rate charges imposed upon the cables 

 of an American corporation in the transmission 

 between Buenos Ayres and the cities of Uruguay 

 and Brax.il of through messages passing from and 

 to the United States. Although the matter is 

 complicated by exclusive concessions by Uru- 

 guay and Brazil to foreign companies, there is 

 strong hope that a good understanding will be 

 reached, and that the important channels of com- 

 mercial communication between the United States 

 and the Atlantic cities of South America may be 

 freed from an almost prohibitory discrimination. 



In this relation I may be permitted to express 

 my sense of the fitness of an international agree- 

 ment whereby the interchange of messages over 

 connecting cables may be regulated on a fair 

 basis of uniformity. " The world has seen the 

 postal system developed from a congeries of in- 

 dependent and exclusive services into a well- 

 ordered union, of which all countries enjoy the 

 manifold benefits. It would be strange were the 

 nations not in time brought to realize that mod- 

 ern civilization, which owes so much of its prog- 

 ress to the annihilation of space by the electric 

 force, demands that this all-important means of 

 communication be a heritage of all peoples, to 

 be administered and regulated in their common 

 behoof. A step in this direction was taken when 

 the international convention of 1884 for the pro- 

 tection of submarine cables was signed, and the 

 day is, I trust, not far distant when this medium 

 for the transmission of thought from land to land 

 may be brought within the domain of interna- 

 tional concert as completely as is the material 

 carriage of commerce and correspondence upon 

 the face of the waters that divide them. 



The claim of Thomas Jefferson Page against 

 Argentina, which has been pending many years, 

 has been adjusted. The sum awarded by the 

 Congress of Argentina was $4,242.35. 



The sympathy of the American people has just- 

 ly been offered to the ruler and the people of 

 Austria-Hungary by reason of the affliction that 

 has lately befallen them in the assassination of 

 the Empress-Queen of that historic realm. 



On the 10th of September, 1897, a conflict took 

 place at Latimer, Pa., between a body of striking 

 miners and the sheriff of Luzerne County and 

 his deputies, in which 22 miners were killed and 

 44 wounded, of whom 10 of the killed and 12 

 of the wounded were Austrian and Hungarian 

 subjects. This deplorable event naturally aroused 

 the solicitude of the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 

 ment, which, on the assumption that the killing 

 and wounding involved the unjustifiable misuse 

 of authority, claimed reparation for the sufferers. 

 Apart from the searching investigation and per- 

 emptory action of the authorities of Pennsyl- 

 vania, the Federal Executive took appropriate 

 steps to learn the merits of the case, in order to 

 be in a position to meet the urgent complaint 

 of a friendly power. The sheriff and his deputies, 

 having been indicted for murder, were tried and 

 acquitted, after protracted proceedings and the 

 hearing of hundreds of witnesses, on the ground 



that the killing was in the line of their official 

 duty to uphold law and preserve public order in 

 the State. A representative of the Department 

 of Justice attended the trial and reported its 

 course fully. With all the facts in its posse^- 

 sion, this Government expects' to reach a har- 

 monious understanding on the subject with that 

 of Austria-Hungary, notwithstanding the renewed 

 C'airn of the latter, after learning the result of 

 the trial, for indemnity for its injured subjects. 



Despite the brief time allotted for preparation, 

 the exhibits of this country at the Universal 

 Exposition at Brussels in 1897 enjoyed the sin- 

 gular distinction of a larger proportion of awards, 

 having regard to the number and classes of arti- 

 cles entered, than those of other countries. The 

 worth of such a result in making known our na- 

 tipnal capacity to supply the world's markets is 

 obvious. 



Exhibitions of this international character are 

 becoming more frequent as the exchanges of com- 

 mercial countries grow more intimate and varied. 

 Hardly a year passes that this Government is 

 not invited to national participation at some im- 

 portant foreign center, but often on too short 

 notice to permit of recourse to Congress for the 

 power and means to do so. My predecessors have 

 suggested the advisability of providing by a gen- 

 eral enactment and a standing appropriation for 

 accepting such invitations and for representation 

 of this country by a commission. This plan has 

 my cordial approval. 



I trust that the Belgian restrictions on. the, im- 

 portation of cattle from the United States, origi- 

 nally adopted as a sanitary precaution, will at 

 an early day be relaxed as to their present fea- 

 tures of hardship and discrimination, so as to 

 admit live cattle under due regulation of their 

 slaughter after landing. I am hopeful, too, of 

 favorable change in the Belgian treatment of our 

 preserved and salted meats. The growth of di- 

 rect trade between the two countries, not alone 

 for Belgian consumption and Belgian products, 

 but by way of transit from and to other conti- 

 nental states, has been both encouraging and 

 beneficial. No effort will be spared to enlarge 

 its advantages by seeking the removal of needless 

 impediments and by arrangements for increased 

 commercial exchange. 



The year's events in Central America deserve 

 more than passing mention. 



A menacing rupture between Costa Rica and 

 Nicaragua was happily composed by the signa- 

 ture of a convention between the parties, with 

 the concurrence of the Guatemalan representative 

 as a mediator, the act being negotiated and signed 

 on board the United States steamship Alert, then 

 lying in Central American waters. It is believed 

 that the good offices of our envoy and of the 

 commander of that vessel contributed toward this 

 gratifying outcome. 



In my last annual message the situation was 

 presented with respect to the diplomatic repre- 

 sentation of this Government in Central America," 

 created by the association of Nicaragua, Hon- 

 duras, and Salvador, under the title of the Greater 

 Republic of Central America, and the delegation 

 of their international functions to the Diet there- 

 of. While the representative character of the 

 Diet was recognized by my predecessor, and has 

 been confirmed during my administration by re- 

 ceiving its accredited envoy and granting exe- 

 quaturs to consuls commissioned under its au- 

 thority, that recognition was qualified by the 

 distinct understanding that the responsibility of 

 each of the component sovereign republics toward 

 the United States remained wholly unaffected. 



