US Presidency
1884

The population and commercial activity of our country are steadily on the increase, and are giving rise to new, varying, and often delicate relationships with other countries. Our foreign establishment now embraces nearly double the area of operations that it occupied twenty years ago. The confinement of such a service within the limits of expenditure then established is not, it seems to me, in accordance with true economy. A community of 60,000,000 people should be adequately represented in its intercourse with foreign nations. A project for the reorganization of the consular service and for recasting the scheme of extraterritorial jurisdiction is now before you. If the limits of a short session will not allow of its full consideration, I trust that you will not fail to make suitable provision for the present needs of the service. It has been customary to define in the appropriation acts the rank of each diplomatic office to which a salary is attached.