the fact that the average sum obtained upon each application is $1,300
leads me to suggest the propriety of making some special appropriation
for the prevention of fraud.

I advise appropriations for such internal improvements as the wisdom of
Congress may deem to be of public importance. The necessity of improving
the navigation of the Mississippi River justifies a special allusion to
that subject. I suggest the adoption of some measure for the removal of
obstructions which now impede the navigation of that great channel of
commerce.

In my letter accepting the nomination for the Vice-Presidency I stated
that in my judgment--


No man should be the incumbent of an office the duties of which he is
for any cause unfit to perform; who is lacking in the ability, fidelity,
or integrity which a proper administration of such office demands. This
sentiment would doubtless meet with general acquiescence, but opinion
has been widely divided upon the wisdom and practicability of the
various reformatory schemes which have been suggested and of certain
proposed regulations governing appointments to public office.

The efficiency of such regulations has been distrusted mainly because
they have seemed to exalt mere educational and abstract tests above
general business capacity and even special fitness for the particular
work in hand. It seems to me that the rules which should be applied to
the management of the public service may properly conform in the main
to such as regulate the conduct of successful private business: