US Presidency
1889

Perhaps the organization of several sub districts with a small municipal council of limited powers for each would be safe and useful. Attention is called in this connection to the suggestions of the Secretary of the Treasury relating to the establishment of another port of entry in Alaska and of other needed customs facilities and regulations. In the administration of the land laws the policy of facilitating in every proper way the adjustment of the honest claims of individual settlers upon the public lands has been pursued. The number of pending cases had during the preceding Administration been greatly increased under the operation of orders for a time suspending final action in a large part of the cases originating in the West and Northwest, and by the subsequent use of unusual methods of examination. Only those who are familiar with the conditions under which our agricultural lands have been settled can appreciate the serious and often fatal consequences to the settler of a policy that puts his title under suspicion or delays the issuance of his patent.