spared no effort to procure all public Presidential papers from the
beginning of the Government to March 4, 1897. He has looked out for
every reference to the work in the public prints, has endeavored to read
all the criticisms made because of omissions, and has availed himself of
all the papers to which his attention has been called by anyone; has
diligently and earnestly sought for same himself, and has, as stated
above, inserted all omitted papers in the Appendix, so that he feels
warranted in saying that if he has given to the country all he could
find and all any critic or reviewer has been able to find he has done
his whole duty and reasonable complaint can not be made if any paper is
still omitted. In view of the inaccessibility of many of the messages by
reason of their not having been entered on the journals of either House
of Congress, and of the fact that the Government itself does not possess
many of the proclamations and Executive orders, it may be that there
yet can be found a few papers omitted from this work; but with much
confidence, amounting to a positive conviction, I feel that assurance
may be safely given that only a few, if any at all, have been
overlooked.

Congress in June, 1897, by law requested me to prepare an index to the
entire compilation. I am now and have been for over two years engaged in
this work. I hope to be able to give the last volume, which will include
the Appendix and Index, as above stated, to Congress and the public in
about two months. It would have been completed at this time but for the
fact that in addition to making the Index simply an index to the various
messages and other papers I have added to it the encyclopedic feature.
There will therefore be found in the Index, in alphabetical order, a
large number of encyclopedic definitions of words and phrases used by
the Chief Executives, and of other politico-historical subjects. It
is believed that this feature will not detract in any manner from the