of the country.  The charitable and correctional systems of the District should receive consideration at the hands of the Congress to the end that they may embody the results of the most advanced thought in these fields.  Moreover, while Washington is not a great industrial city, there is some industrialism here, and our labor legislation, while it would not be important in itself, might be made a model for the rest of the Nation.  We should pass, for instance, a wise employer’s-liability act for the District of Columbia, and we need such an act in our navy-yards.  Railroad companies in the District ought to be required by law to block their frogs.

The safety-appliance law, for the better protection of the lives and limbs of railway employees, which was passed in 1893, went into full effect on August 1, 1901.  It has resulted in averting thousands of casualties.  Experience shows, however, the necessity of additional legislation to perfect this law.  A bill to provide for this passed the Senate at the last session.  It is to be hoped that some such measure may now be enacted into law.

There is a growing tendency to provide for the publication of masses of documents for which there is no public demand and for the printing of which there is no real necessity.  Large numbers of volumes are turned out by the Government printing presses for which there is no justification.  Nothing should be printed by any of the Departments unless it contains something of permanent value, and the Congress could with advantage cut down very materially on all the printing which it has now become customary to provide.  The excessive cost of Government printing is a strong argument against the position of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate the Government’s doing any work which can with propriety be left in private hands.

Gratifying progress has been made during the year in the extension of the merit system of making appointments in the Government service.  It should be extended by law to the District of Columbia.  It is much to be desired that our consular system be established by law on a basis providing for appointment and promotion only in consequence of proved fitness.

Through a wise provision of the Congress at its last session the White House, which had become disfigured by incongruous additions and changes, has now been restored to what it was planned to be by Washington.  In making the restorations the utmost care has been exercised to come as near as possible to the early plans and to supplement these plans by a careful study of such buildings as that of the University of Virginia, which was built by Jefferson.  The White House is the property of the Nation, and so far as is compatible with living therein it should be kept as it originally was, for the same reasons that we keep Mount Vernon as it originally was.  The stately simplicity of its architecture is an expression of the character of the period in which it was built, and is in accord with the purposes it was designed to serve.  It is a good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuity with the Nation’s past.