mportance from every standpoint, and that they will
participate in securing its success. The National Government should be
represented by a full and complete set of exhibits.

The people of Charleston, with great energy and civic spirit, are
carrying on an Exposition which will continue throughout most of the
present session of the Congress. I heartily commend this Exposition to
the good will of the people. It deserves all the encouragement that can
be given it. The managers of the Charleston Exposition have requested
the Cabinet officers to place thereat the Government exhibits which have
been at Buffalo, promising to pay the necessary expenses. I have taken
the responsibility of directing that this be done, for I feel that it is
due to Charleston to help her in her praiseworthy effort. In my opinion
the management should not be required to pay all these expenses.
I earnestly recommend that the Congress appropriate at once the small
sum necessary for this purpose.

The Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo has just closed. Both from the
industrial and the artistic standpoint this Exposition has been in a
high degree creditable and useful, not merely to Buffalo but to the
United States. The terrible tragedy of the President's assassination
interfered materially with its being a financial success. The Exposition
was peculiarly in harmony with the trend of our public policy, because
it represented an effort to bring into closer touch all the peoples of
the Western Hemisphere, and give them an increasing sense of unity.
Such an effort was a genuine service to the entire American public.

The advancement of the highest interests of national science and
learning and the custody of objects of art and of the valuable results
of scientific expeditions conducted by the United States have been
committed to the Smithsonian Institution. In furtherance of its declared
purpose--for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge among men"--the
Congress has from time to time given it other important functions. Such
trusts have been executed by the Institution with notable fidelity.
There should be no halt in the work of the Institution, in accordance
with the plans which its Secretary has presented, for the preservation
of the vanishing races of great North American animals in the National
Zoological Park. The urgent needs of the National Museum are recommended
to the favorable consideration of the Congress.

Perhaps the most characteristic