It is desirable to enact a proper National quarantine law.  It is most undesirable that a State should on its own initiative enforce quarantine regulations which are in effect a restriction upon interstate and international commerce.  The question should properly be assumed by the Government alone.  The Surgeon-General of the National Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service has repeatedly and convincingly set forth the need for such legislation.

I call your attention to the great extravagance in printing and binding Government publications, and especially to the fact that altogether too many of these publications are printed.  There is a constant tendency to increase their number and their volume.  It is an understatement to say that no appreciable harm would be caused by, and substantial benefit would accrue from, decreasing the amount of printing now done by at least one-half.  Probably the great majority of the Government reports and the like now printed are never read at all, and furthermore the printing of much of the material contained in many of the remaining ones serves no useful purpose whatever.

The attention of the Congress should be especially given to the currency question, and that the standing committees on the matter in the two Houses charged with the duty, take up the matter of our currency and see whether it is not possible to secure an agreement in the business world for bettering the system; the committees should consider the question of the retirement of the greenbacks and the problem of securing in our currency such elasticity as is consistent with safety.  Every silver dollar should be made by law redeemable in gold at the option of the holder.

I especially commend to your immediate attention the encouragement of our merchant marine by appropriate legislation.

The growing importance of the Orient as a field for American exports drew from my predecessor, President McKinley, an urgent request for its special consideration by the Congress.  In his message of 1898 he stated: 

“In this relation, as showing the peculiar volume and value of our trade with China and the peculiarly favorable conditions which exist for their expansion in the normal course of trade, I refer to the communication addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 14th of last June, with its accompanying letter of the Secretary of State, recommending an appropriation for a commission to study the industrial and commercial conditions in the Chinese Empire and to report as to the opportunities for and the obstacles to the enlargement of markets in China for the raw products and manufactures of the United States.  Action was not taken thereon during the last session.  I cordially urge that the recommendation receive at your hands the consideration which its importance and timeliness merit.”

In his annual message of 1889 he again called attention to this recommendation, quoting it, and stated further: