CONGRESS. (PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.) 



oflicers until Congress shall provide a government 

 for the incorporated territory, subject to my 

 power to remove such officers and to fill vacan- 

 cies. The President, oflicers, and troops of the 

 republic thereupon took the oath of allegiance 

 to the United States, thus providing for the un- 

 interrupted continuance of all the administrative 

 and municipal functions of the annexed territory 

 until Congress shall otherwise enact. 



Following the further provision of the joint 

 resolution, 1 appointed the lions. Shelby M. Cul- 

 loin, of Illinois. John T. Morgan, of Alabama, 

 Robert U. llitt. of Illinois, Sanford B. Dole, of 

 Hawaii, and Walter F. Frear, of Hawaii, as com- 

 missioners to confer and recommend to Congress 

 such legislation concerning the Hawaiian Islands 

 as they should deem necessary or proper. The 

 commissioners having fulfilled the mission con- 

 fided to them, their report will be laid before you 

 at an early day. It is believed that their recom- 

 mendations will have the earnest consideration 

 due to the magnitude of the responsibility rest- 

 ing upon you to give such shape to the relation- 

 ship of those mid-Pacific lands to our home Union 

 as will benefit both in the highest degree, realiz- 

 ing the aspirations of the community that has 

 cast its lot with us and elected to share our polit- 

 ical heritage, while at the same time justifying 

 the foresight of those who for three quarters of a 

 century have looked to the assimilation of Hawaii 

 as a natural and inevitable consummation, in 

 harmony with our needs and in fulfillment of our 

 cherished traditions. 



The questions heretofore pending between Ha- 

 waii and Japan, growing out of the alleged mis- 

 treatment of Japanese treaty immigrants, were, 

 1 am pleased to say, adjusted before the act of 

 transfer by the payment of a reasonable indem- 

 nity to the Government of Japan. 



Under the provisions of the joint resolution, 

 the existing customs relations of the Hawaiian 

 Islands with the United States and with other 

 countries remain unchanged until legislation shall 

 otherwise provide. The consuls of Hawaii, here 

 and in foreign countries, continue to fulfill their 

 commercial agencies, while the United States con- 

 sulate at Honolulu is maintained for all appro- 

 priate services pertaining to trade and the rev- 

 enue. It would be desirable that all foreign con- 

 suls in the Hawaiian Islands should receive new 

 exequaturs from this Government. 



The attention of Congress is called to the fact 

 that our consular offices having ceased to exist 

 in Hawaii, and being about to cease in other 

 countries coming under the sovereignty of the 

 United States, the provisions for the relief and 

 transportation of destitute American seamen in 

 these countries under our consular regulations 

 will in consequence terminate. It is proper, there- 

 fore, that new legislation should be enacted upon 

 this subject, in order to meet the changed con- 

 ditions. 



The interpretation of certain provisions of the 

 extradition convention of Dec. 11, 1861, has been 

 at various times the occasion of controversy with 

 the Government of Mexico. An acute difference 

 arose in the case of the Mexican demand for the 

 delivery of Jesus Guerra, who, having led a 

 marauding expedition near the. border with the 

 proclaimed purpose of initiating an insurrection 

 against President Diaz, escaped into Texas. Ex- 

 tradition was refused on the ground that the 

 alleged offense was political in its character, and 

 therefore came within the treaty proviso of non- 

 surrender. The Mexican contention was that the 

 exception only related to purely political offenses, 

 and that, as Guerra's acts were admixed with the 



common crime of murder, arson, kidnaping, and 

 robbery, the option of nondelivery became void, 

 a position which this Government was unable to 

 admit in view of the received international doc- 

 trine and practice in the matter. The Mexican 

 Government, in view of this, gave notice Jan. 24, 

 1898, of the termination of the convention, to take 

 eifect twelve months from that date, at the same 

 time inviting the conclusion of a new conven- 

 tion, toward which negotiations are on foot. 



In this relation I may refer to the necessity of 

 some amendment of our existing extradition stat- 

 ute. It is a common stipulation of such treaties 

 that neither party shall be bound to give up its 

 own citizens, with the added proviso in one of 

 our treaties that with Japan that it may sur- 

 render if it see fit. It is held in this country by 

 an almost uniform course of decisions that where 

 a treaty negatives the obligation to surrender the 

 President is not invested with legal authority to 

 act. The conferment of such authority would 

 be in the line of that sound morality which 

 shrinks from affording secure asylum to the au- 

 thor of a heinous crime. Again, statutory pro- 

 vision might well be made for what is styled 

 extradition by way of transit, whereby a fugitive 

 surrendered by one foreign government to an- 

 other may be conveyed across the territory of 

 the United States to the jurisdiction of the de- 

 manding state. A recommendation in this be- 

 half, made in the President's message of 1886, 

 was not acted upon. The matter is presented for 

 your consideration. 



The problem of the Mexican free zone has 

 been often discussed with regard to its incon- 

 venience as a provocative of smuggling into the 

 United States along an extensive and thinly 

 guarded land border. The effort made by the 

 joint resolution of March 1, 1895, to remedy the 

 abuse charged by suspending the privilege of free 

 transportation in bond across the territory of 

 the United States to Mexico failed of good re- 

 sult, as is stated in Report No. 702 of the House 

 of Representatives, submitted in the last session, 

 March 11, 1898. As the question is one to be 

 conveniently met by wise concurrent legislation 

 of the two countries looking to the protection 

 of the revenues by harmonious measures operat- 

 ing equally on either side of the boundary, rather 

 than by conventional arrangements, I suggest 

 that Congress consider the advisability of au- 

 thorizing and inviting a conference of representa- 

 tives of the Treasury Departments of the United 

 States and Mexico to consider the subject in all 

 its complex bearings and make report with perti- 

 nent recommendations to the respective govern- 

 ments for the information and consideration of 

 their Congresses. 



The Mexican Water Boundary Commission has 

 adjusted all matters submitted to it to the satis- 

 faction of both governments save in three im- 

 portant cases that of the " Chamizal " at El 

 Paso, Texas, where the two commissioners faile.d 

 to agree, and wherein, for this case only, this Gov- 

 ernment has proposed to Mexico the addition of 

 a third member; the proposed elimination of what 

 are known as " Bancos," small isolated islands 

 formed by the cutting off of bends in the Rio 

 Grande, from the operation of the treaties of 

 1884 and 1889, recommended by the commission- 

 ers and approved by this Government, but still 

 under consideration by Mexico; and the subject 

 of the " equitable distribution of the waters of 

 the Rio Grande," for which the commissioners 

 recommended an international dam and reservoir, 

 approved by Mexico, but still under considera- 

 tion by this Government. Pending these ques- 



