er matter of which I must make special mention, if I am to
discharge my conscience, lest it should escape your attention. It may
seem a very small thing. It affects only a single item of appropriation.
But many human lives and many great enterprises hang upon it. It is the
matter of making adequate provision for the survey and charting of our
coasts. It is immediately pressing and exigent in connection with the
immense coast line of Alaska, a coast line greater than that of the
United States themselves, though it is also very important indeed with
regard to the older coasts of the continent. We cannot use our great
Alaskan domain, ships will not ply thither, if those coasts and their
many hidden dangers are not thoroughly surveyed and charted. The work is
incomplete at almost every point. Ships and lives have been lost in
threading what were supposed to be well-known main channels. We have not
provided adequate vessels or adequate machinery for the survey and
charting. We have used old vessels that were not big enough or strong
enough and which were so nearly unseaworthy that our inspectors would
not have allowed private owners to send them to sea. This is a matter
which, as I have said, seems small, but is in reality very great. Its
importance has only to be looked into to be appreciated.
Before I close may I say a few words upon two topics, much discussed out
of doors, upon which it is highly important that our judgments should be
clear, definite, and steadfast?
One of these is economy in government expenditures. The duty of economy
is not debatable. It is manifest and imperative. In the appropriations
we pass we are spending the money of the great people whose servants we
are,--not our own. We are trustees and responsible stewards in the
spending. The only thing debatable and upon which we should be careful
to make our thought and purpose clear is the kind of economy demanded of
us. I assert with the greatest confidence that the people of the United
States are not jealous of the amount their Government costs if they are
sure that they get what they need and desire for the outlay, that the
money is being spent for objects of which they approve, and that it is
being applied with good business sense and management.
Governments grow, piecemeal, both in their tasks and in the means by
which those tasks are to be performed, and very few Governments are
organized, I venture to say, as wise and experienced business men w
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