s who have come
under it. This is all that we should ask, and we cannot afford to be
content with less.

The merit system is simply one method of securing honest and efficient
administration of the Government; and in the long run the sole
justification of any type of government lies in its proving itself both
honest and efficient.

The consular service is now organized under the provisions of a law
passed in 1856, which is entirely inadequate to existing conditions.
The interest shown by so many commercial bodies throughout the country
in the reorganization of the service is heartily commended to your
attention. Several bills providing for a new consular service have in
recent years been submitted to the Congress. They are based upon the
just principle that appointments to the service should be made only
after a practical test of the applicant's fitness, that promotions
should be governed by trustworthiness, adaptability, and zeal in the
performance of duty, and that the tenure of office should be unaffected
by partisan considerations.

The guardianship and fostering of our rapidly expanding foreign
commerce, the protection of American citizens resorting to foreign
countries in lawful pursuit of their affairs, and the maintenance of
the dignity of the nation abroad, combine to make it essential that
our consuls should be men of character, knowledge and enterprise. It is
true that the service is now, in the main, efficient, but a standard of
excellence cannot be permanently maintained until the principles set
forth in the bills heretofore submitted to the Congress on this subject
are enacted into law.

In my judgment the time has arrived when we should definitely make up
our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual and not as a member
of a tribe. The General Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine
to break up the tribal mass. It acts directly upon the family and the
individual. Under its provisions some sixty thousand Indians have
already become citizens of the United States. We should now break up the
tribal funds, doing for them what allotment does for the tribal lands;
that is, they should be divided into individual holdings. There will be
a transition period during which the funds will in many cases have to
be held in trust. This is the case also with the lands. A stop should
be put upon the indiscriminate permission to Indians to lease their
allotments. The effort should be steadily to make the India