During the last session of the Congress legislation was introduced looking to the payment of the remaining claims generally referred to as the French spoliation claims.  The Congress has provided for the payment of many similar claims.  Those that remain unpaid have been long pending.  The beneficiaries thereunder have every reason to expect payment.  These claims have been examined by the Court of Claims and their validity and amount determined.  The United States ought to pay its debts.  I recommend action by the Congress which will permit of the payment of these remaining claims.

THE WAGE EARNER

Two very important policies have been adopted by this country which, while extending their benefits also in other directions, have been of the utmost importance to the wage earners.  One of these is the protective tariff, which enables our people to live according to a better standard and receive a better rate of compensation than any people, any time, anywhere on earth, ever enjoyed.  This saves the American market for the products of the American workmen.  The other is a policy of more recent origin and seeks to shield our wage earners from the disastrous competition of a great influx of foreign peoples.  This has been done by the restrictive immigration law.  This saves the American job for the American workmen.  I should like to see the administrative features of this law rendered a little more humane for the purpose of permitting those already here a greater latitude in securing admission of members of their own families.  But I believe this law in principle is necessary and sound, and destined to increase greatly the public welfare.  We must maintain our own economic position, we must defend our own national integrity.

It is gratifying to report that the progress of industry, the enormous increase in individual productivity through labor-saving devices, and the high rate of wages have all combined to furnish our people in general with such an abundance not only of the necessaries but of the conveniences of life that we are by a natural evolution solving our problems of economic and social justice.

THE NEGRO

These developments have brought about a very remarkable improvement in the condition of the negro race.  Gradually, but surely, with the almost universal sympathy of those among whom they live, the colored people are working out their own destiny.  I firmly believe that it is better for all concerned that they should be cheerfully accorded their full constitutional rights, that they should be protected from all of those impositions to which, from their position, they naturally fall a prey, especially from the crime of lynching and that they should receive every encouragement to become full partakers in all the blessings of our common American citizenship.

CIVIL SERVICE