uch enhanced within the last few
years that the cost of building and operating ocean steamers in the
United States is not so much greater than in Europe; and I believe the
time has arrived for Congress to take this subject into serious
consideration.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.

Detailed statements of the disbursements through the Department of
Justice will be furnished by the report of the Attorney-General, and
though these have been somewhat increased by the recent acts of Congress
"to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the
several States of the Union," and "to enforce the provisions of the
fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States," and the
amendments thereto, I can not question the necessity and salutary effect
of those enactments. Reckless and lawless men, I regret to say, have
associated themselves together in some localities to deprive other
citizens of those rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of
the United States, and to that end have committed deeds of blood and
violence; but the prosecution and punishment of many of these persons
have tended greatly to the repression of such disorders. I do not doubt
that a great majority of the people in all parts of the country favor
the full enjoyment by all classes of persons of those rights to which
they are entitled under the Constitution and laws, and I invoke the
aid and influence of all good citizens to prevent organizations whose
objects are by unlawful means to interfere with those rights. I look
with confidence to the time, not far distant, when the obvious
advantages of good order and peace will induce an abandonment of all
combinations prohibited by the acts referred to, and when it will be
unnecessary to carry on prosecutions or inflict punishment to protect
citizens from the lawless doings of such combinations.

Applications have been made to me to pardon persons convicted of a
violation of said acts, upon the ground that clemency in such cases
would tend to tranquilize the public mind, and to test the virtue of
that policy I am disposed, as far as my sense of justice will permit,
to give to these applications a favorable consideration; but any
action thereon is not to be construed as indicating any change in
my determination to enforce with vigor such acts so long as the
conspiracies and combinations therein named disturb the peace of
the country.

It is much to be regretted, and is regretted by no on