the Government. It has therefore seemed to me that the representatives
of the people should be promptly informed of the nature and extent
of the suffering and needs of these stricken people, and I have
communicated these facts in the hope and belief that the legislative
branch of the Government will promptly re-enforce the work of the local
authorities in the States named.

WILLIAM McKINLEY.



EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, April 14, 1897_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith for the consideration of the respective Houses
of the Congress, a report of the Secretary of State representing the
appropriateness of early action in order that the Government of the
United States may be enabled to accept the invitation of that of the
French Republic to participate in the Universal Exposition to be held
at Paris in 1900.

The recommendations of this report have my most cordial approval,
and I urge upon the Congress such timely provision for this great
international enterprise as will fittingly respond to the widely
testified wish and expectation of our inventors and producers that they
may have adequate opportunity again, as in the past, to fortify the
important positions that have won in the world's competitive fields
of discovery and industry. Nor are the traditional friendships of the
United States and France and the mutual advantages to accrue from