wn appointment and under its direct and exclusive
control. This would increase the patronage of the Executive to a
dangerous extent and would foster a system of jobbing and corruption
which no vigilance on the part of Federal officials could prevent.
The construction of this road ought, therefore, to be intrusted to
incorporated companies or other agencies who would exercise that
active and vigilant supervision over it which can be inspired alone by
a sense of corporate and individual interest. I venture to assert that
the additional cost of transporting troops, munitions of war, and
necessary supplies for the Army across the vast intervening plains to
our possessions on the Pacific Coast would be greater in such a war
than the whole amount required to construct the road. And yet this
resort would after all be inadequate for their defense and protection.

We have yet scarcely recovered from the habits of extravagant
expenditure produced by our overflowing Treasury during several years
prior to the commencement of my Administration. The financial reverses
which we have since experienced ought to teach us all to scrutinize
our expenditures with the greatest vigilance and to reduce them to the
lowest possible point. The Executive Departments of the Government
have devoted themselves to the accomplishment of this object with
considerable success, as will appear from their different reports and
estimates. To these I invite the scrutiny of Congress, for the purpose
of reducing them still lower, if this be practicable consistent with
the great public interests of the country. In aid of the policy of
retrenchment, I pledge myself to examine closely the bills appropriating
lands or money, so that if any of these should inadvertently pass both
Houses, as must sometimes be the case, I may afford them an opportunity
for reconsideration. At the same time, we ought never to forget that
true public economy consists not in withholding the means necessary
to accomplish important national objects confided to us by the
Constitution, but in taking care that the money appropriated for these
purposes shall be faithfully and frugally expended.

It will appear from the report of the Secretary of the Treasury that it
is extremely doubtful, to say the least, whether we shall be able to
pass through the present and the next fiscal year without providing
additional revenue. This can only be accomplished by strictly confining
the appropriations wi