Nothing just now is more important than to provide every guaranty for the absolutely fair and free choice by an equal suffrage within the respective States of al: the officers of the National Government, whether that suffrage is applied directly, as in the choice of members of the House of Representatives, or indirectly, as in the choice of Senators and electors of President. Respect for public officers and obedience to law will not cease to be the characteristics of our people until our elections cease to declare the will of majorities fairly ascertained without fraud, suppression, or gerrymander. If I were called upon to declare wherein our chief national danger lies, I should say without hesitation in the overthrow of majority control by the suppression or perversion of the popular suffrage. That there is a real danger here all must agree; but the energies of those who see it have been chiefly expended in trying to fix responsibility upon the opposite party rather than in efforts to make such practices impossible by either party. Is it not possible now to adjourn that interminable and inconclusive debate while we take by consent one step in the direction of reform by eliminating the gerrymander, which has been denounced by all parties as an influence in the selection of electors of President and members of Congress? All the States have, acting freely and separately, determined that the choice of electors by a general ticket is the wisest and safest method, and it would seem there could be no objection to a constitutional amendment making that method permanent. If a legislature chosen in one year upon purely local questions should, pending a Presidential contest, meet, rescind the law for a choice upon a general ticket, and provide for the choice of electors by the legislature, and this trick should determine the result, it is not too much to say that the public peace might be seriously and widely endangered. I have alluded to the "gerrymander" as affecting the method of selecting electors of President by Congressional districts, but the primary intent and effect of this form of political robbery have relation to the selection of members of the House of Representatives. The power of Congress is ample to deal with this threatening and intolerable abuse. The unfailing test of sincerity in election reform will be found in a willingness to confer as to remedies and to put into force such measures as will most effectually preserve the right of the people to free and equal representation. An attempt was made in the last Congress to bring to bear the constitutional powers of the General Government for the correction of fraud against the suffrage. It is important to know whether the opposition to such measures is really rested in particular features supposed to be objectionable or includes any proposition to give to the election laws of the United States adequacy to the correction of grave and acknowledged evils. I must yet entertain the hope that it is possible to secure a calm, patriotic consideration of such constitutional or statutory changes as may be necessary to secure the choice of the officers of the Government to the people by fair apportionments and free elections. I believe it would be possible to constitute a commission, nonpartisan in its membership and composed of patriotic, wise, and impartial men, to whom a consideration of the question of the evils connected with our election system and methods might be committed with a good prospect of securing unanimity in some plan for removing or mitigating those evils. The Constitution would permit the selection of the commission to be vested in the Supreme Court if that method would give the best guaranty of impartiality. This commission should be charged with the duty of inquiring into the whole subject of the law of elections as related to the choice of officers of the National Government, with a view to securing to every elector a free and unmolested exercise of the suffrage and as near an approach to an equality of value in each ballot cast as is attainable. While the policies of the General Government upon the tariff, upon the restoration of our merchant marine, upon river and harbor improvements, and other such matters of grave and general concern are liable to be turned this way or that by the results of Congressional elections and administrative policies, sometimes involving issues that tend to peace or war, to be turned this way or that by the results of a Presidential election, there is a rightful interest in all the States and in every Congressional district that will not be deceived or silenced by the audacious pretense that the question of the right of any body of legal voters in any State or in any Congressional district to give their suffrages freely upon these general questions is a matter only of local concern or control. The demand that the limitations of suffrage shall be found in the law, and only there, is a just demand, and no just man should resent or resist it. My appeal is and must continue to be for a consultation that shall "proceed with candor, calmness, and patience upon the lines of justice and humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty." To the consideration of these very grave questions I invite not only the attention of Congress, but that of all patriotic citizens. We must not entertain the delusion that our people have ceased to regard a free ballot and equal representation as the price of their allegiance to laws and to civil magistrates. I have been greatly rejoiced to notice many evidences of the increased unification of our people and of a revived national spirit. The vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious than ever before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy as we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of our country. A trust momentous in its influence upon our people and upon the world is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be faithless to its first condition-the defense of the free and equal influence of the people in the choice of public officers and in the control of public affairs. BENJ. HARRISON. SPECIAL MESSAGES. EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 16, 1895. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for your information, a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing the first annual report and copies of the bulletins of the Bureau of the American Republics. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 23, 1891. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith the report of the board appointed by me under a clause in the District of Columbia appropriation act approved August 6, 1890, "to consider the location, arrangement, and operation of electric wires in the District of Columbia," etc., to which the attention of Congress is respectfully invited. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 23, 1891. To the Senate and House of Representatives: My attention having been called to the necessity of bringing about a uniform usage and spelling of geographic names in the publications of the Government, the following Executive order was issued on the 4th day of September, 1890: As it is desirable that uniform usage in regard to geographic nomenclature and orthography obtain throughout the Executive Departments of the Government, and particularly upon the maps and charts issued by the various Departments and bureaus, I hereby constitute a Board on Geographic Names and designate the following persons, who have heretofore cooperated for a similar purpose under the authority of the several Departments, bureaus, and institutions with which they are connected, as members of said board: Professor Thomas C. Mendenhall, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, chairman. Andrew H. Allen, Department of State. Captain Henry L. Howison, Light-House Board, Treasury Department. Captain Thomas Turtle, Engineer Corps, War Department. Lieutenant Richardson Clover, Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, Pierson H. Bristow, Post-Office Department. Otis T. Mason, Smithsonian Institution. Herbert G. Ogden, United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. Henry Gannett, United States Geological Survey. Marcus Baker, United States Geological Survey. To this board shall be referred all unsettled questions concerning geographic names which arise in the Departments, and the decisions of the board are to be accepted by these Departments as the standard authority in such matters. Department officers are instructed to afford such assistance as may be proper to carry on the work of this board. The members of this board shall serve without additional compensation and its organization shall entail no expense on the Government. The report of the board thus constituted has been submitted to me, and is herewith transmitted for the information of Congress and with a view to its publication in suitable form if such action is deemed by Congress to be desirable. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 5, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: The famine prevailing in some of the Provinces of Russia is so severe and widespread as to have attracted the sympathetic interest of a large number of our liberal and favored people. In some of the great grainproducing States of the West movements have already been organized to collect flour and meal for the relief of these perishing Russian families, and the response has been such as to justify the belief that a ship's cargo can very soon be delivered at the seaboard through the generous cooperation of the transportation lines. It is most appropriate that a people whose storehouses have been so lavishly filled with all the fruits of the earth by the gracious favor of God should manifest their gratitude by large gifts to His suffering children in other lands. The Secretary of the Navy has no steam vessel at his disposal that could be used for the transportation of these supplies, and I therefore recommend that he be authorized to charter a suitable vessel to receive them if a sufficient amount should be offered, and to send them under the charge of a naval officer to such Russian port as may be most convenient for ready distribution to those most in need. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by an agreement concluded by and between the Cherokee Commission and the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians in the Territory of Oklahoma, for the cession of certain lands and for other purposes. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreement entered into between the Indians of the Colville Reservation, in the State of Washington, and the commissioners appointed under the provisions of the act of August 19, 1890, to negotiate with them for the cession of such portion of said reservation as said Indians may be willing to dispose of, that the same may be opened to white settlement. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by an agreement concluded by the Cherokee Commission with the Tonkawa Indians in Oklahoma Territory, for the cession of all their right, title, claim, and interest of every kind and character in and to the lands occupied by them in said Territory, and for other purposes. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 8th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreements concluded by and between the Cherokee Commission and the Kickapoo tribe of Indians in the Territory of Oklahoma, for the cession of certain lands and for other purposes. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreement entered into between the Indians of the Pyramid Lake Reservation and the commission appointed under the provisions of the Indian appropriation act of March 3, 1891, for the cession and relinquishment of the southern portion of their reservation in the State of Nevada. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreement entered into between the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians of the Shoshone or Wind River Reservation, in the State of Wyoming, and |