In my judgment immediate steps should be taken for the fortification of Hawaii.  This is the most important point in the Pacific to fortify in order to conserve the interests of this country.  It would be hard to overstate the importance of this need.  Hawaii is too heavily taxed.  Laws should be enacted setting aside for a period of, say, twenty years 75 per cent of the internal revenue and customs receipts from Hawaii as a special fund to be expended in the islands for educational and public buildings, and for harbor improvements and military and naval defenses.  It cannot be too often repeated that our aim must be to develop the territory of Hawaii on traditional American lines.  That territory has serious commercial and industrial problems to reckon with; but no measure of relief can be considered which looks to legislation admitting Chinese and restricting them by statute to field labor and domestic service.  The status of servility can never again be tolerated on American soil.  We cannot concede that the proper solution of its problems is special legislation admitting to Hawaii a class of laborers denied admission to the other States and Territories.  There are obstacles, and great obstacles, in the way of building up a representative American community in the Hawaiian Islands; but it is not in the American character to give up in the face of difficulty.  Many an American Commonwealth has been built up against odds equal to those that now confront Hawaii.

No merely half-hearted effort to meet its problems as other American communities have met theirs can be accepted as final.  Hawaii shall never become a territory in which a governing class of rich planters exists by means of coolie labor.  Even if the rate of growth of the Territory is thereby rendered slower, the growth must only take place by the admission of immigrants fit in the end to assume the duties and burdens of full American citizenship.  Our aim must be to develop the Territory on the same basis of stable citizenship as exists on this continent.

I earnestly advocate the adoption of legislation which will explicitly confer American citizenship on all citizens of Porto Rico.  There is, in my judgment, no excuse for failure to do this.  The harbor of San Juan should be dredged and improved.  The expenses of the Federal Court of Porto Rico should be met from the Federal Treasury and not from the Porto Rican treasury.  The elections in Porto Rico should take place every four years, and the Legislature should meet in session every two years.  The present form of government in Porto Rico, which provides for the appointment by the President of the members of the Executive Council or upper house of the Legislature, has proved satisfactory and has inspired confidence in property owners and investors.  I do not deem it advisable at the present time to change this form in any material feature.  The problems and needs of the island are industrial and commercial rather than political.