t wholly a foreign industry,
the progress that has been made is not only highly satisfactory, but
furnishes the assurance that the United States will before long attain
in the construction of such vessels, with their engines and armaments,
the same preeminence which it attained when the best instrument of ocean
commerce was the clipper ship and the most impressive exhibit of naval
power the old wooden three-decker man-of-war. The officers of the Navy
and the proprietors and engineers of our great private shops have
responded with wonderful intelligence and professional zeal to the
confidence expressed by Congress in its liberal legislation. We have now
at Washington a gun shop, organized and conducted by naval officers,
that in its system, economy, and product is unexcelled. Experiments with
armor plate have been conducted during the year with most important
results. It is now believed that a plate of higher resisting power than
any in use has been found and that the tests have demonstrated that
cheaper methods of manufacture than those heretofore thought necessary
can be used.

I commend to your favorable consideration the recommendations of the
Secretary, who has, I am sure, given to them the most conscientious
study. There should be no hesitation in promptly completing a navy of
the best modern type large enough to enable this country to display its
flag in all seas for the protection of its citizens and of its extending
commerce. The world needs no assurance of the peaceful purposes of the
United States, but we shall probably be in the future more largely a
competitor in the commerce of the world, and it is essential to the
dignity of this nation and to that peaceful influence which it should
exercise on this hemisphere that its Navy should be adequate both upon
the shores of the Atlantic and of the Pacific.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior shows that a very gratifying
progress has been made in all of the bureaus which make up that complex
and difficult Department.

The work in the Bureau of Indian Affairs was perhaps never so large as
now, by reason of the numerous negotiations which have been proceeding
with the tribes for a reduction of the reservations, with the incident
labor of making allotments, and was never more carefully conducted.
The provision of adequate school facilities for Indian children and the
locating of adult Indians upon farms involve the solution of the "Indian
question." Everyt