US Presidency
1901

My Fellow Citizens: When we assembled here on the 4th of March, 1897, there was great anxietywith regard to our currency and credit. None exists now. Then our Treasuryreceipts were inadequate to meet the current obligations of the Government. Now they are sufficient for all public needs, and we have a surplus insteadof a deficit. Then I felt constrained to convene the Congress in extraordinarysession to devise revenues to pay the ordinary expenses of the Government. Now I have the satisfaction to announce that the Congress just closed hasreduced taxation in the sum of $ 41,000,000. Then there was deep solicitudebecause of the long depression in our manufacturing, mining, agricultural, and mercantile industries and the consequent distress of our laboring population. Now every avenue of production is crowded with activity, labor is wellemployed, and American products find good markets at home and abroad. Our diversified productions, however, are increasing in such unprecedentedvolume as to admonish us of the necessity of still further enlarging ourforeign markets by broader commercial relations.