person whose business it shall be to speak with authority on her behalf to the Congress.  The natural resources of Alaska are great.  Some of the chief needs of the peculiarly energetic, self-reliant, and typically American white population of Alaska were set forth in my last message.  I also earnestly ask your attention to the needs of the Alaskan Indians.  All Indians who are competent should receive the full rights of American citizenship.  It is, for instance, a gross and indefensible wrong to deny to such hard-working, decent-living Indians as the Metlakahtlas the right to obtain licenses as captains, pilots, and engineers; the right to enter mining claims, and to profit by the homestead law.  These particular Indians are civilized and are competent and entitled to be put on the same basis with the white men round about them.

I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma be admitted as one State and that New Mexico and Arizona be admitted as one State.  There is no obligation upon us to treat territorial subdivisions, which are matters of convenience only, as binding us on the question of admission to Statehood.  Nothing has taken up more time in the Congress during the past few years than the question as to the Statehood to be granted to the four Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration of all that has been developed in the discussions of the question, I recommend that they be immediately admitted as two States.  There is no justification for further delay; and the advisability of making the four Territories into two States has been clearly established.

In some of the Territories the legislative assemblies issue licenses for gambling.  The Congress should by law forbid this practice, the harmful results of which are obvious at a glance.

The treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama, under which the construction of the Panama Canal was made possible, went into effect with its ratification by the United States Senate on February 23, 1904.  The canal properties of the French Canal Company were transferred to the United States on April 23, 1904, on payment of $40,000,000 to that company.  On April 1, 1905, the Commission was reorganized, and it now consists of Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman; Charles E. Magoon, Benjamin M. Harrod, Rear Admiral Mordecai T. Endicott, Brig.  Gen. Peter C. Hains, and Col.  Oswald H. Ernst.  John F. Stevens was appointed Chief Engineer on July 1 last.  Active work in canal construction, mainly preparatory, has been in progress for less than a year and a half.  During that period two points about the canal have ceased to be open to debate:  First, the question of route; the canal will be built on the Isthmus of Panama.  Second, the question of feasibility; there are no physical obstacles on this route that American engineering skill will not be able to overcome without serious difficulty, or that will prevent the completion of the canal within a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost.  This is virtually the unanimous testimony of the engineers who have investigated the matter for the Government.