mendations for administrative and legislative action.
It is now receiving the attention of the Secretary
of Commerce and Labor.

The special investigation of the subject of natural-
ization under the direction of the Attorney-General,
and the consequent prosecutions, reveal a condition
of affairs calling for the immediate attention of the
Congress. Forgeries and perjuries O'f shameless
and flagrant character have been perpetrated, not
only in the dense centres of population, but through-
out the country ; and it is established beyond doubt
that very many so-called citizens of the United
States have no title whatever to that right, and are
asserting and enjoying the benefits of the same
through the grossest frauds. It is never to be for-
gotten that citizenship is, to quote the words re-
cently used by the Supreme Court of the United
States, an "inestimable heritage," whether it pro-
ceeds from birth within the country or is obtained
by naturalization ; and we poison the sources of our
national character and strength at the fountain, if
the privilege is claimed and exercised without right,
and by means of fraud and corruption. The body
politic can not be sound and healthy if many of its
constituent members claim their standing through
the prostitution of the high right and calling of
citizenship. It should mean something to become
a citizen of the United States; and in the proc-



And State Papers 659

ess no loophole whate\'er should be left open to
fraud.

The methods by which these frauds — now under
full investigation with a view to meting out pun-
ishment and providing adequate remedies — are per-
petuated, include many variations of procedure by
which false certificates of citizenship are forged in
their entirety ; or genuine certificates fraudulently
or collusively obtained in blank are filled in by the
criminal conspirators ; or certificates are obtained on
fraudulent statements as to the time of arrival and
residence in this country ; or imposition and sub-
stitution of another party for the real petitioner
occur in court : or certificates are made the subject of
barter and sale and transferred from the rightful
holder to those not entitled to them ; or certificates
are forged by erasure of the original names and
the insertion of the names of other persons not en-
titled to the same.

It is not necessary for me to refer here at large
to the causes leading to this state of affairs. The de-
sire for naturalization is heartily to be commended
where it springs from a sincere and permanent in-
tention to become citizens, and a real appreciation of
the privilege. But it is a source of untold evil and
trouble where it is traceable to selfish and dishonest
motives, such as the effort by artificial and im-
proper means, in wholesale fashion to create voters
M^ho are ready-made tools of corrupt politicians, or
the desire to evade certain labor laws creating dis-
criminations against alien labor. All good citizens,



66o Presidential Addresses

whether naturahzed or native born, are equally in-
terested in protecting our citizenship against fraud
in any form, and, on the other hand, in affording
every facility for naturalization to those who in good
faith desire to share alike our privileges and our
responsibilities.

The Federal grand jury lately in session in New
York City dealt with this subject and made a pre-
sentment which states the situation briefly and forci-
bly and contains important suggestions for the con-
sideration of the Congress. This presentment is
included as an appendix to the report of the At-
torney-General.

In my last annual Message, in connection with the
subject of the due regulation of combinations of
capital which are or may become injurious to the
public, I recommended a special appropriation for
the better enforcement of the anti-trust law as it
now stands, to be expended under the direction of
the Attorney-General. Accordingly (by the legisla-
tive, executive, and judicial appropriation act of
February 25, 1903, 32 Stat., 854, 904), the Con-
gress appropriated, for the purpose of enforcing the
various Federal trust and interstate-commerce laws,
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, to be ex-
pended under the direction of the Attorney-General
in the employment of special counsel and agents in
the Department of Justice to conduct proceedings
and prosecutions under said laws in the courts of the
United States. I now recommend, as a matter of



And State Papers 66 1

the utmost importance and urgency, the extension
of the purposes of this appropriation, so that it may-
be available, under the direction of the Attorney-
General, and until used, for the due enforcement of
the laws of the United States in general and espe-
cially of the civil and criminal laws relating to pub-
lic lands and the laws relating to postal crimes and
offences and the subject of naturalization. Recent
investigations have shown a deplorable state of af-
fairs in these three matters of vital concern. By
various frauds and by forgeries and perjuries, thou-
sands of acres of the public domain, embracing
lands of different character and extending through
various sections of the country, have been dishon-
estly acquired. It is hardly necessary to urge the
importance of recovering these dishonest acquisi-
tions, stolen from the people, and of promptly and
duly punishing the offenders. I speak in another
part of this Message of the widespread crimes by
which the sacred right of citizenship is falsely as-
serted and that "inestimable heritage" perverted to
base ends. By similar means — that is, through
frauds, forgeries, and perjuries, and by shameless
briberies — the laws relating to the proper conduct
of the public service in general and to the due ad-
ministration of the Post-Office Department have
been notoriously violated, and many indictments
have been found, and the consequent prosecutions
are in course of hearing or on the eve thereof. For
the reasons thus indicated, and so that the govern-
ment may be prepared to enforce promptly and with



662 Presidential Addresses

the greatest effect the due penalties for such viola-
tions of law, and tO' this end may be furnished with
sufficient instrumentalities and competent legal as-
sistance for the investigations and trials which will
be necessary at many different points of the country,
I urge upon the Congress the necessity of making the
said appropriation available for immediate use for
all such purposes, to be expended under the direction
of the Attorney-General.

Steps have been taken by the State Department
looking to the making of bribery an extraditable
offence with foreign powers. The need of more
effective treaties covering this crime is manifest.
The exposures and prosecutions of official corrup-
tion in St. Louis, Mo., and other cities and States
have resulted in a number of givers and takers of
bribes becoming fugitives in foreign lands. Brib-
ery has not been included in extradition treaties here-
tofore, as the necessity for it has not arisen. While
there may have been as much official corruption in
former years, there has been more developed and
brought to -light in the immediate past than in the
preceding century of our country's history. It
should be the policy of the United States to leave
no place on earth where a corrupt man fleeing from
this country can rest in peace. There is no reason
why bribery should not be included in all treaties
as extraditable. The recent amended treaty with
Mexico, whereby this crime was put in the list of
extraditable offences, has established a salutary prec-
edent in this regard. Under this treaty the State



And State Papers 66^

Department has asked, and Mexico has granted, the
extradition of one of the St. Louis bribe givers.

There can be no crime more serious than bribery.
Other offences violate one law while corruption
strikes at the foundation of all law. Under our
form of government all authority is vested in the
people and by them delegated to those who repre-
sent them in official capacity. There can be no of-
fence heavier than that of him in whom such a
sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his
own gain and enrichment ; and no less heavy is the
offence of the bribe giver. He is worse than the
thief, for the thief robs the individual, while the
corrupt official plunders an entire city or State. He
is as wicked as the murderer, for the murderer may
only take one life against the law, while the corrupt
official and the man who corrupts the official alike
aim at the assassination of the commonwealth itself.
Government of the people, by the people, for the
people will perish from the face of the earth if brib-
ery is tolerated. The givers and takers of bribes
stand on an evil pre-eminence of infam5^ The ex-
posure and punishment of public corruption is an
honor to a nation, not a disgrace. The shame lies
in toleration, not in correction. No city or State,
still less the Nation, can be injured by the enforce-
ment of law. As long as public plunderers when
detected can find a haven of refuge in any foreign
land and avoid punishment, just so long encourage-
ment is given them to continue their practices. If
we: fail to do all that in us lies to stamp out corrup-



664 Presidential Addresses

tion we can not escape our share of responsibility
for the guilt. The first requisite of successful self-
government is unflinching enforcement of the law
and the cutting out of corruption.

For several years past the rapid development of
Alaska and the establishment of growing American
interests in regions theretofore unsurveyed and im-
perfectly known brought into prominence the urgent
necessity of a practical demarcation of the bounda-
ries between the jurisdictions of the United States
and Great Britain. Although the treaty of 1825 be-
tween Great Britain and Russia, the provisions of
which were copied in the treaty of 1867, whereby
Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States, was
positive as to the control, first by Russia and later
by the United States, of a strip of territory along
the continental mainland from the western shore of
Portland Canal to Mount St. Elias, following and
surrounding the indentations of the coast and in-
cluding the islands to the westward, its description
of the landward margin of the strip was indefinite,
resting on the supposed existence of a continuous
ridge or range of mountains skirting the coast, as
figured in the charts of the early navigators. It had
at no time been possible for either party in interest
to lay down, under the authority of the treaty, a line
so obviously exact according to its provisions as to
command the assent of the other. For nearly three-
fourths of a century the absence of tangible local
interests demanding the exercise of positive jurisdic-



And State Papers 665

tion on either side of the border left the question
dormant. In 1878, questions of revenue adminis-
tration on the Stikine River led to the establishment
of a provisional demarcation, crossing the channel
between two high peaks on either side about twenty-
four miles above the river mouth. In 1899, similar
questions growing out of the extraordinary develop-
ment of mining interests in the region about the
head of Lynn Canal brought about a temporary
modus vivendi, by which a convenient separation
was made at the watershed divides of the White
and Chilkoot passes and to the north of Klukwan,
on the Klehini River. These partial and tentative
adjustments could not, in the very nature of things,
be satisfactory or lasting. A permanent disposition
of the matter became imperative.

After unavailing attempts to reach an understand-
ing through a Joint High Commission, followed by
prolonged negotiations, conducted in an amicable
spirit, a convention between the United States and
Great Britain was signed, January 24, 1903, pro-
viding for an examination of the subject by a mixed
tribunal of six members, three on a side, with a view
to its final disposition. Ratifications were exchanged
on March 3 last, whereupon the two governments
appointed their respective members. Those on be-
half of the United States were Elihu Root. Secretary
of War; Henry Cabot Lodge, a Senator of the
United States, and George Turner, an ex-Senator
of the United States, while Great Britain named the
Right Honorable Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Jus-

12— Vol. XIV



666 Presidential Addresses

tice of England; Sir Louis Amable Jette, K.C.M.G.,
retired judge of the Supreme Court of Quebec, and
A. B. Aylesworth, K.C., of Toronto. This Tribunal
met in London on September 3. under the Presi-
dency of Lord Alverstone. The proceedings were
expeditious, and marked by a friendly and conscien-
tious spirit. The respective cases, counter cases,
and arguments presented the issues clearly and fully.
On the 20th of October a majority of the Tribunal
reached and signed an agreement on all the ques-
tions submitted by the terms of the Convention. By
this award the right of the United States to the
control of a continuous strip or border of the main-
land shore, skirting all the tide-water inlets and sin-
uosities of the coast, is confirmed ; the entrance to
Portland Canal (concerning which legitimate doubt
appeared) is defined as passing by Tongass Inlet
and to the northwestward of Wales and Pearse Isl-
ands; a line is drawn from the head of Portland
Canal to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude ; and
the interior border line of the strip is fixed by lines
connecting certain mountain summits lying between
Portland Canal and Mount St. Elias, and running
along the crest of the divide separating the coast
slope from the inland watershed at the only part of
the frontier where the drainage ridge approaches the
coast within the distance of ten marine leagues stip-
ulated by the treaty as the extreme width of the
strip around the heads of Lynn Canal and its
branches.

While the line so traced follows the provisional



And State Papers 667

demarcation of 1878 at the crossing of the Stikine
River, and that of 1899 at the summits of the White
and Chilkoot passes, it runs much further inland
from the Klehini than the temporary Hne of the
later modus vivendi, and leaves the entire mining
district of the Porcupine River and Glacier Creek
within the jurisdiction of the United States.

The result is satisfactory in every way. It is of
great material advantage to our people in the Far
Northwest. It has removed from the field of dis-
cussion and possible danger a cjuestion liable to be-
come more acutely accentuated with each passing
year. Finally, it has furnished a signal proof of
the fairness and good-will with which two friendly
nations can approach and determine issues involving
national sovereignty and by their nature incapable
of submission to a third power for adjudication.

The award is self-executing on the vital points.
To make it effective as regards the others it only re-
mains for the two governments to appoint, each on
its own behalf, one or more scientific experts, who
shall, with all convenient speed, proceed together to
lay down the boundary line in accordance with the
decision of the majority of the Tribunal. I recom-
mend that the Congress make adequate provision
for the appointment, compensation, and expenses of
the members to serve on this joint boundary com-
mission on the part of the United States.

It will be remembered that during the second ses-
sion of the last Congress Great Britain, Germany,



668 Presidential Addresses

and Italy formed an alliance for the purpose of
blockading the ports of Venezuela and using such
other means of pressure as would secure a settle-
ment of claims due, as they alleged, to certain of
their subjects. Their employment of force for the
collection of these claims was terminated by an
agreement brought about through the offices of the
diplomatic representatives of the United States at
Caracas and the Government at Washington, there-
by ending a situation which was bound to cause in-
creasing friction, and which jeoparded the peace of
the continent. Under this agreement Venezuela
agreed to set apart a certain percentage of the cus-
toms receipts of two of her ports to be applied to
the payment of whatever obligations might be ascer-
tained by mixed commissions appointed for that pur-
pose to be due from her, not only to the three powers
already mentioned, whose proceedings against her
had resulted in a state of war, but also to the United
States. France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Sweden and Norway, and Mexico, who had not
employed force for the collection of the claims al-
leged to be due to certain of their citizens.

A demand was then made by the so-called block-
ading powers that the sums ascertained to be due
to their citizens by such mixed commissions should
be accorded payment in full before anything was
paid upon the claims of any of the so-called peace
powers. Venezuela, on the other hand, insisted
that all her creditors should be paid upon a basis of
exact equality. During the efforts to adjust this



And State Papers 669

dispute it was suggested by the powers in interest
that it should be referred to me for decision, but I
was clearly of the opinion that a far wiser course
would be to submit the question to the Permanent
Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It seemed to
me to offer an admirable opportunity to advance the
practice of the peaceful settlement of disputes be-
tween nations and to secure for The Hague Trit>unal
a memorable increase of its practical importance.
The nations interested in the controversy were so
numerous, and in many instances so powerful, as to
make it evident that beneficent results would follow
from their appearance at the same time before the
bar of that august tribunal of peace.

Our hopes in that regard have been realized.
Russia and Austria are represented in the persons of
the learned and distinguished jurists who compose
the Tribunal, while Great Britain, Germany, France,
Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and
Norway, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela
are represented by their respective agents and coun-
sel. Such an imposing concourse of nations present-
ing their arguments to and invoking the decision of
that high court of international justice and interna-
tional peace can hardly fail to secure a like submis-
sion of many future controversies. The nations now
appearing there will find it far easier to appear there
a second time, while no nation can imagine its just
pride will be lessened by following the example now
presented. This triumph of the principle of inter-
national arbitration is a subject of warm congratu-



.



670 Presidential Addresses

lation and offers a happy augury for the peace of
the world.

There seems good ground for the behef that there
has been a real growth among the civilized nations
of a sentiment which will permit a gradual substitu-
tion of other methods than the method of war in
the settlement of disputes. It is not pretended that
as yet we are near a position in which it will be pos-
sible wholly to prevent war, or that a just regard
for national interest and honor will in all cases per-
mit of the settlement of international disputes by
arbitration ; but by a mixture of prudence and firm-
ness with wisdom we think it is possible to do away
with much of the provocation and excuse for war,
and at least in many cases to substitute some other
and more rational method for the settlement of dis-
putes. The Hague Court offers so good an example
of what can be done in the direction of such settle-
ment that it should be encouraged in every way.

Further steps should be taken. In President Mc-
Kinley's annual Message of December 5, 1898, he
made the following recommendation :

"The experiences of the last year bring forcibly
home to us a sense of the burdens and the waste of
war. We desire, in common with most civilized
nations, to reduce to the lowest possible poinrt the
damage sustained in time of war by peaceable trade
and commerce. It is true we may suffer in such
cases less than other communities, but all nations
are damaged more or less by the state of uneasiness
and apprehension into which an outbreak of hostili-



And State Papers 671

ties throws the entire commercial world. It should
be our object, therefore, to minimize, so far as prac-
ticable, this inevitable loss and disturbance. This
purpose can probably best be accomplished by an
international agreement to regard all private prop-
erty at sea as exempt from capture or destruction
by the forces of belligerent powers. The United
States Government has for many years advocated
this humane and beneficent principle, and is now in
a position to recommend it to other powers without
the imputation of selfish motives. I therefore sug-
gest for your consideration that the Executive be
authorized to correspond with the governments of
the principal maritime powers with a view of incor-
porating into the permanent law of civilized nations
the principle of the exemption of all private property
at sea, not contraband of war, from capture or de-
struction by belligerent powers."

I cordially renew this recommendation.

The Supreme Court, speaking on December 11,
1899, through Peckham, J., said :

"It is, we think, historically accurate to say that
this Government has always been, in its views,
among the most advanced of the governments of the
world in favor of mitigating, as to all non-combat-
ants, the hardships and horrors of war. To accom-
plish that object it has always advocated those rules
which would in most cases do away with the right
to capture the private property of an enemy on the
high seas."

I advocate this as a matter of humanity and



672 Presidential Addresses

morals. It is anachronistic when private property
is respected on land that it should not be respected
at sea. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that
shipping rq^resents, internationally speaking, a much
more generahzed species of private property than
is the case with ordinary property on land — that is,
property found at sea is much less apt than is the
case with property found on land really to belong
to any one nation. Under the modern system of
corporate ownership the flag of a vessel often differs
from the flag which would mark the nationality of
the real ownership and money control of the vessel ;
and the cargo may belong to individuals of yet a
different nationality. Much American capital is now
invested in foreign ships ; and among foreign na-
tions it often happens that the capital of one is large-
ly invested in the shipping of another. Further-
more, as a practical matter, it may be mentioned that
while commerce destroying may cause serious loss
and great anno5^ance, it can never be more than a
subsidiary factor in bringing to terms a resolute foe.
This is now well recognized by all of our naval ex-
perts. The fighting ship, not the commerce de-
stroyer, is the vessel whose feats add renown to a
nation's history, and establish her place among the
great powers of the world.

Last year the Interparliamentary Union for In-
ternational Arbitration met at Vienna, six hundred
members of the different legislatures of civilized
countries attending. It was provided that the next
meeting should be in 1904 at St. Louis, subject to



And State Papers 673

our Congress extending an invitation. Like The
Hague Tribunal, this JnterparHamentary Union is
one of the forces tending toward peace among the
nations of the earth, and it is entitled to our support.
I trust the invitation can be extended.

Early in July, having received intelligence, which
happily turned out to be erroneous, of the assassina-
tion of our vice-consul at Beirut, I despatched a
small squadron to that port for such service as
might be found necessary on arrival. Although the
attempt on the life of our vice-consul had not been
successful, yet the outrage was symptomatic of a
state of excitement and disorder which demanded
immediate attention. The arrival of the vessels
had the happiest result. A feeling of security at
once took the place of the former alarm and dis-
quiet; our officers were cordially welcomed by the
consular body and the leading merchants, and or-
dinary business resumed its activity. The govern-
ment of the Sultan gave a considerate hearing to
the representations of our minister ; the official who
was regarded as responsible for the disturbed condi-
tion of affairs was removed. Our relations with the