s which have been adopted, and to stand
behind the men who are doing faithful, hard work to bring about the
early completion of this, the greatest constructive enterprise of modern
times.

The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines
are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity
of Porto Rico continues unabated. The business conditions in the
Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the
passage of the new tariff bill permitting free trade between the United
States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar and tobacco
as shall prevent injury to domestic interests in those products, we can
count on an improvement in business conditions in the Philippines and
the development of a mutually profitable trade between this country and
the islands. Meantime our Government in each dependency is upholding the
traditions of civil liberty and increasing popular control which might
be expected under American auspices. The work which we are doing there
redounds to our credit as a nation.

I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling between
the South and the other sections of the country. My chief purpose is not
to effect a change in the electoral vote of the Southern States. That is
a secondary consideration. What I look forward to is an increase in the
tolerance of political views of all kinds and their advocacy throughout
the South, and the existence of a respectable political opposition in
every State; even more than this, to an increased feeling on the part
of all the people in the South that this Government is their Government,
and that its officers in their states are their officers.

The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and
full without reference to the negro race, its progress and its present
condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth
amendment due process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit
of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure the negro
against any deprivation of the privilege to vote because he was a negro.
The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally enforced
and have secured the objects for which they are intended. While the
fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed in the past, it
ought to be observed, and the tendency of Southern legislation today is
toward the enactment of electoral qualifications which