of justice as well as a measure of encouragement. Earnest efforts
are being made to purify the Indian service, so that every dollar
appropriated by Congress shall redound to the benefit of the Indians,
as intended. Those efforts will have my firm support. With an improved
service and every possible encouragement held out to the Indians
to better their condition and to elevate themselves in the scale of
civilization, we may hope to accomplish at the same time a good work
for them and for ourselves.

I invite the attention of Congress to the importance of the statements
and suggestions made by the Secretary of the Interior concerning the
depredations committed on the timber lands of the United States and
the necessity for the preservation of forests. It is believed that
the measures taken in pursuance of existing laws to arrest those
depredations will be entirely successful if Congress, by an
appropriation for that purpose, renders their continued enforcement
possible. The experience of other nations teaches us that a country
can not be stripped of its forests with impunity, and we shall
expose ourselves to the gravest consequences unless the wasteful
and improvident manner in which the forests in the United States
are destroyed be effectually checked. I earnestly recommend that
the measures suggested by the Secretary of the Interior for the
suppression of depredations on the public timber lands of the United
States, for the selling of timber from the public lands, and for the
preservation of forests be embodied in a law, and that, considering
the urgent necessity of enabling the people of certain States and
Territories to purchase timber from the public lands in a legal
manner, which at present they can not do, such a law be passed without
unavoidable delay. I would also call the attention of Congress to
the statements made by the Secretary of the Interior concerning the