The record-union., 1892-12-08

PRESIDENT Harrison puts in, for the sec
ond time, protest against the conditions
in the Court of Claims, where nearly Si0,-
100000 of claims are now pending against
the United States without adequate pro-
vision to enable the Government to
properly defend against them. Unques-
tionably the Department of Justice ought
to be given means sufficient to enable it
to hunt out the facts where there is rea-
son to believe that proof of the dis
loyalty of the claimant can be had. Presi
dent Cleveland was the eleventh Presi-
dent and President Harrison the twelfth
who has referred to the fact-that ought
to cause American cheeks to blush with
shame-that the French spoliation claims
are still unsettled.
The President gives us in more concise
form than does the Postmaster General
the facts concerning the gratifying in
crease and betterment of the postal serv-
ice. That the public debt has been re-
duced in his term some S259,OOO0OO, and
the annual interest charges eleven and
1 half millions, is a fact cited by Presi-
dent Harrison with pride. He points
out also that Sll4, ,466, ,306 more has been
paid out for pensions during his term to
| November 1st, than between March |,
1883, and March l, 1890. He defends the
pension policy warmly, and enters an
earnest plea for the veteran soldier.
A telegraphic cable to Hawaii, the inn
mediate utilization of our privilege 10 es-
tablish a naval station in Pearl Harbor,
and encouragement of the construction of
the Nicaragua Canal, are urged, and with
reasons that meet the common judgment
of the people of the United States.
The President approves the new policy
adopted concerning the Indians. the set
ting aside to them lands in severalty, the
support Of the Indian schools, and the
| conversion of our Indian wards into citi-
zens. 1t is to he regretted that he did not
advise the complete abandonment of the
contract school system, that the priest
and the church teacher shall not from any
funds of the Government find support
while PROSECUTING among the red men.
Our relations with the South American
States he reports as peaceful, and our
commerce with them steadily improving,
but to be more extended if the policy is
continued, as it should be, of paying lib
eral sums for the carriage OF United States
mails in swift American vessels, so con-
structed as to constitute a naval reserve.
The extirpation Of the cattle disease, he
says, has been due to governmental ac-
tivity and department faithfulness; as a
result a value has been added 10 the cattle
industry that the President thinks can
hardly be estimated, and that promises to
/ be enormous in the export of live cattle
! to English ports, without the require
ment that the animals shall be killed at
the docks.
The President strikes a chord that will
! find responsive vibrations in the vast ma
! jority of American hearts when, referring
to the quarantine imposition he ordered
that not only sanitary conditions, but
those affecting the moral, political and
industrial interests Of the Nation, demand
that there shall be new and more rigor-
Gus restrictions imposed upon admission
to the country and to the high privileges
of citizenship.
He refers again to the wisdom and the
bounden duty of Congress to give atten-
ton to the evils of our election methods,
and to the threat to the Republic that
lies in the assault upon the freedom of
electors and their right to cast their bal
! lots for Federal officers unimpeded, and
to have their votes honestly counted. He
urges Congressional investigation and
legislation concerning practices that as
sail the elective franchise as it relates to
! the choice of officers of the National Gov
ernment. This strong, patriotic and per-
fectly sound advice will be ridiculed by
the radical Democracy as a plea for the
force bill" Nevertheless it will re-
main that the advice Of the President IS
wisdom.
Several other subjects are treated in the
message; not few of them are so han
died as to defend the protective tariff pol
icy, of which President Harrison is a sin
cere advocate, since he omits no oppor-
tunity TO make figures and statements of
prosperous conditions testify with his firm
belief in the beneficence of that policy.
But this is not the time to discuss the
issue; the President is privileged to urge
it and make his message defensive of it;
its proper debate will come on when the
wisdom of the tariff the vote of the coun-
try demands shall be inaugurated.
Outside of the defensive character re-
ferred to, the Presidents message is a
patriotic and statesmanlike paper,
breathes a spirit of high hope for the ad-
vance of the Nation, is thoroughly Amer
lean, and does not lack the qualities that
always inspire respect-vigor and cour-
age.
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Horsford's Acid Phosphate
IMPARTs RENEWED STRENGTH
! And vipOr where there has been ex hans