In pursuance of the plan originally adopted certain papers were omitted from the earlier volumes of this work.  Referring to these papers, the following statement occurs in the Prefatory Note to Volume I:  “In executing the commission with which I have been charged I have sought to bring together in the several volumes of the series all Presidential proclamations, addresses, messages, and communications to Congress excepting those nominating persons to office and those which simply transmit treaties, and reports of heads of Departments which contain no recommendation from the Executive.”  In the Prefatory Note to Volume IX the statement was made that this course was a mistake, and “that the work to be exhaustive should comprise every message of the Presidents transmitting reports of heads of Departments and other communications, no matter how brief or unintelligible the papers were in themselves, and that to make them intelligible I should insert editorial footnotes explaining them.  Having acted upon the other idea in making up Volume I and a portion of Volume II, quite a number of such brief papers were intentionally omitted.  Being convinced that all the papers of the Executives should be inserted, the plan was modified accordingly, and the endeavor was thereafter made to publish all of them.  In order, however, that the compilation maybe ‘accurate and exhaustive,’ I have gone back and collected all the papers—­those which should have appeared in Volumes I and II as well as such as were unintentionally omitted from the succeeding volumes—­excepting those simply making nominations, and shall publish them in an appendix in the last volume.”  These omitted papers, with editorial footnotes, have been inserted in the Appendix, and appear in the Index in alphabetical order, so that no serious inconvenience will result to the reader.

The compilation properly closed with President Cleveland’s second Administration, March 4, 1897, but as the Spanish-American War excited great interest I determined, after conferring with the Joint Committee on Printing, to publish the official papers of President McKinley which relate exclusively to that war.  These will be found in the Appendix.

I have been greatly assisted in the work of compilation by Mr. A.P.  Marston, of the Proof Room of the Government Printing Office.  Without his valuable assistance in searching for and obtaining the various papers and his painstaking care in the verification of data the work would not have been so complete.  Mr. Charles T. Hendler, of the State Branch of the Government Printing Office, rendered timely aid in procuring proclamations from the archives of the State Department.  To these gentlemen I make proper acknowledgments.

The work has met with public favor far beyond all expectations, and words of praise for it have come from all classes and callings.  Those who possess it may be assured that they have in their libraries all the official utterances of the Presidents of the United States from 1789 to 1897 that could possibly be found after the most diligent search, and that these utterances are not to be found complete in any other publication.