Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this 4th day of July, A.D. 1902, and in the one hundred and twenty-seventh year of the Independence of the United States.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

By the President:

ELIHU ROOT,

Secretary of War.

Gen. Chaffee is relieved of his civil duties, and the Philippine Commission is made the superior authority in the following order:

The insurrection against the sovereign authority of the United States in the Philippine archipelago having ended, and provincial civil governments having been established throughout the entire territory of the archipelago not inhabited by Moro tribes, under the instructions of the President to the Philippine Commission, dated April 7, 1900, now ratified and confirmed by the act of Congress approved July 1, 1902, entitled "An act temporarily to provide for the administration of affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes," the general commanding the division of the Philippines is hereby relieved from the further performance of the duties of military governor, and the office of military governor in said archipelago is terminated. The general commanding the Division of the Philippines and all military officers in authority therein will continue to observe the direction contained in the aforesaid instructions of the President that the military forces in the division of the Philippines shall be at all times subject, under the orders of the military commander, to the call of the civil authorities for the maintenance of law and order, and the enforcement of their authority.

Finally the President, through Secretary Root, pronounces the following eulogy upon the United States Army:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE,Washington, July 4, 1902.General Order, No. 66

The following has been received from the War Department:

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, July 4, 1902.

To the Army of the United States:

The President, upon this anniversary of national independence, wishes to express to the officers and enlisted men of the United States Army his deep appreciation of the service they have rendered to the country in the great and difficult undertakings which they have brought to a successful conclusion during the past year.

He thanks the officers and the enlisted men who have been maintaining order and carrying on the military government in Cuba, because they have faithfully given effect to the humane purposes of the American people. They have with sincere kindness helped the Cuban people to take all the successive steps necessary to the establishment of their own constitutional government. During the time required for that process they have governed Cuba wisely, regarding justice and respecting individual liberty; have honestly collected and expended for the best interests of the Cuban people the revenues, amounting to over $60,000,000; have carried out practical and thorough sanitary measures, greatly improving the health and lowering the death rate of the island. By patient, scientific research they have ascertained the causes of yellow fever, and by good administration have put an end to that most dreadful disease which has long destroyed the lives and hindered the commercial prosperity of the Cubans. They have expedited justice and secured protection for the rights of the innocent, while they have cleansed the prisons and established sound discipline and healthful conditions for the punishment of the guilty.

They have re-established and renovated and put upon a substantial basis adequate hospitals and asylums for the care of the unfortunate. They have established a general system of free common schools throughout the island, in which over two hundred thousand children are in actual attendance. They have constructed great and necessary public works. They have gradually trained the Cubans themselves in all branches of administration, so that the new government upon assuming power has begun its work with an experienced force of Cuban civil service employees competent to execute its orders. They have borne themselves with dignity and self-control, so that nearly four years of military government have passed unmarred by injury or insult to man or woman. They have transferred the government of Cuba to the Cuban people amid universal expressions of friendship and good will, and have left a record of ordered justice and liberty of rapid improvement in material and moral conditions and progress in the art of government which reflects great credit upon the people of the United States.

The President thanks the officers and enlisted men of the army in the Philippines, both regulars and volunteers, for the courage and fortitude, the indomitable spirit and loyal devotion with which they have put down and ended the great insurrection which has raged throughout the archipelago against the lawful sovereignty and just authority of the United States. The task was peculiarly difficult and trying. They were required at first to overcome organized resistance of superior numbers, well equipped with modern arms of precision, intrenched in an unknown country of mountain defiles, jungles, and swamps, apparently capable of interminable defense. When this resistance had been overcome they were required to crush out a general system of guerrilla warfare conducted among a people speaking unknown tongues, from whom it was almost impossible to obtain the information necessary for successful pursuit or to guard against surprise and ambush.

The enemies by whom they were surrounded were regardless of all obligations of good faith and of all the limitations which humanity has imposed upon civilized warfare. Bound themselves by the laws of war, our soldiers were called upon to meet every device of unscrupulous treachery and to contemplate without reprisal the infliction of barbarous cruelties upon their comrades and friendly natives. They were instructed, while punishing armed resistance, to conciliate the friendship of the peaceful, yet had to do with a population among whom it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe, and who in countless instances used a false appearance of friendship for ambush and assassination. They were obliged to deal with problems of communication and transportation in a country without roads and frequently made impassable by torrential rains. They were weakened by tropical heat and tropical disease. Widely scattered over a great archipelago, extending a thousand miles from north to south, the gravest responsibilities, involving the life or death of their comrades, frequently devolved upon young and inexperienced officers beyond the reach of specific orders or advice.

Under all these adverse circumstances the army of the Philippines has accomplished its task rapidly and completely. In more than two thousand combats, great and small, within three years, it has exhibited unvarying courage and resolution. Utilizing the lessons of the Indian wars it has relentlessly followed the guerrilla bands to their fastness in mountain and jungle, and crushed them. It has put an end to the vast system of intimidation and secret assassination, by which the peaceful natives were prevented from taking a genuine part in government under American authority. It has captured or forced to surrender substantially all the leaders of the insurrection. It has submitted to no discouragement and halted at no obstacle. Its officers have shown high qualities of command, and its men have shown devotion and discipline. Its splendid virile energy has been accompanied by self-control, patience, and magnanimity.

With surprisingly few individual exceptions its course has been characterized by humanity and kindness to the prisoner and the non-combatant. With admirable good temper, sympathy, and loyalty to American ideals its commanding generals have joined with the civilian agents of the government in healing the wounds of war and assuring to the people of the Philippines the blessings of peace and prosperity. Individual liberty, protection of personal rights, civil order, public instruction and religious freedom have followed its footsteps. It has added honor to the flag, which it defended, and has justified increased confidence in the future of the American people, whose soldiers do not shrink from labor or death, yet love liberty and peace.

The President feels that he expresses the sentiments of all the loyal people of the United States in doing honor to the whole army which has joined in the performance and shares in the credit of these honorable services.

This general order will be read aloud at parade in every military post on the 4th day of July, 1902, or on the first day after it shall have been received.

ELIHU ROOT,Secretary of War.

By command of Lieutenant-General Miles:

H.C. CORBIN,Adjutant-General, Major-General, U.S.A.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas The Medicine Bow Forest Reserve, in the State of Wyoming, was established by proclamation dated May 22, 1902, under and by virtue of section twenty-four of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1891, entitled "An act to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes," which provides "That the President of the United States may, from time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof;"

And whereas it is further provided by the act of Congress approved June 4, 1897, entitled "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, and for other purposes," that "The President is hereby authorized at any time to modify any executive order that has been or may hereafter be made establishing any forest reserve, and by such modification may reduce the area or change the boundary lines of such reserve, or may vacate altogether any order creating such reserve;"

And whereas the public lands in the State of Wyoming, within the limits hereinafter described, are in part covered with timber, and it appears that the public good would be promoted by setting apart and reserving said lands as a public reservation;

Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, by virtue of the power vested in me by the aforesaid act of Congress approved June 4, 1897, do hereby make known and proclaim that the boundary lines of the aforesaid Medicine Bow Forest Reserve are hereby changed so as to read as follows:

Beginning at the northwest corner of township seventeen (17) north, range eighty-one (81) west, sixth (6th) Principal Meridian, Wyoming; thence easterly to the northeast corner of said township; thence southerly to the northwest corner of section thirty (30), township seventeen (17) north, range eighty (80) west; thence easterly along the section lines to the northeast corner of section twenty-five (25), said township; thence northerly to the northwest corner of township seventeen (17) north, range seventy-nine (79) west; thence easterly along the township line to the northeast corner of section five (5), township seventeen (17) north, range seventy-eight (78) west; thence southerly along the section lines, allowing for the proper offset on the fourth (4th) Standard Parallel north, to the southeast corner of section thirty-two (32), township fourteen (14) north, range seventy-eight (78) west; thence easterly along the township line to the northeast corner of section four (4), township thirteen (13) north, range seventy-seven (77) west; thence southerly along the section lines, allowing for the proper offset on the third (3d) Standard Parallel north, to the point of intersection with the boundary line between the States of Wyoming and Colorado; thence westerly along said state boundary line to the point of intersection with the range line between ranges eighty (80) and eighty-one (81) west; thence northerly along said range line, allowing for the proper offset on the third (3d) Standard Parallel north, to the southeast corner of township fourteen (14) north, range eighty-one (81) west; thence westerly to the southwest corner of said township; thence northerly along the range line, allowing for the proper offset on the fourth (4th) Standard Parallel north, to the northwest corner of township seventeen (17) north, range eighty-one (81) west, the place of beginning.

Excepting from the force and effect of this proclamation all lands which may have been, prior to the date hereof, embraced in any legal entry or covered by any lawful filing duly of record in the proper United States Land Office, or upon which any valid settlement has been made pursuant to law, and the statutory period within which to make entry or filing of record has not expired: Provided, that this exception shall not continue to apply to any particular tract of land unless the entryman, settler, or claimant continues to comply with the law under which the entry, filing, or settlement was made.

Warning is hereby expressly given to all persons not to make settlement upon the lands reserved by this proclamation.

The lands hereby excluded from the said reserve and restored to the public domain shall be open to settlement from date hereof, but shall not be subject to entry, filing, or selection until after ninety days' notice by such publication as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this sixteenth day of July, A.D. 1902, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-seventh.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

By the President:

JOHN HAY,

Secretary of State.

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas the act of Congress entitled, "An act to ratify and confirm a supplemental agreement with the Creek tribe of Indians, and for other purposes," approved on the thirtieth day of June, 1902, contains a provision as follows:

That the following supplemental agreement, submitted by certain commissioners of the Creek tribe of Indians, as herein amended, is hereby ratified and confirmed on the part of the United States, and the same shall be of full force and effect if ratified by the Creek tribal council on or before the first day of September, nineteen hundred and two, * * *

And whereas the principal chief of the said tribe has transmitted to me an act of the Creek national council entitled, "An act to ratify and confirm a supplemental agreement with the United States" approved the twenty-sixth day of July, 1902, which contains a provision as follows:

That the following supplemental agreement by and between the United States and the Muskogee (or Creek) Tribe of Indians, in Indian Territory, ratified and confirmed on the part of the United States by act of Congress approved June 30, 1902 (Public—No. 200.), is hereby confirmed on the part of the Muskogee (or Creek) Nation, * * *

And whereas paragraph twenty-two provides as follows:

The principal chief, as soon as practicable after the ratification of this agreement by Congress, shall call an extra session of the Creek Nation council and submit this agreement, as ratified by Congress, to such council for its consideration, and if the agreement be ratified by the National council, as provided in the constitution of the tribe, the principal chief shall transmit to the President of the United States a certified copy of the act of the council ratifying the agreement, and thereupon the President shall issue his proclamation making public announcement of such ratification, thenceforward all the provisions of this agreement shall have the force and effect of law.

Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, do hereby declare said agreement duly ratified and that all the provisions thereof became law according to the terms thereof upon the twenty-sixth day of July, 1902.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this eighth day of August, A.D. 1902, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-sixth.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

By the President:

ALVEY A. ADEE,

Acting Secretary of State.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 23, 1901.

In accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress approved June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 34-36), and by virtue of the authority thereby given, and on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, it is hereby ordered that sections 23, 24 of township seven south, range 93 west, 6th principal meridian, Colorado, within the limits of the Black Mesa Forest Reserve be restored to the public domain after sixty days' notice hereof by publication, as required by law; these tracts having been found upon personal and official inspection to be better adapted to agricultural than forest purposes.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.TO ALL WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING:

Know ye that reposing special trust and confidence in the integrity, prudence, and ability of Thaddeus S. Sharretts, United States General Appraiser, I have invested him with full and all manner of authority for and in the name of the United States of America, to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the government of China or by any government or governments having treaties with China being invested with like power and authority, and with him or them to agree on a plan for the conversion into specific duties, as far as possible, and as soon as may be, of all ad valorem duties on imports into China in conformity with the provisions in this regard contained in the final protocol signed by the diplomatic representatives of China and the Powers at Peking on September 7, 1901, the same to be submitted to the President of the United States for approval.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this first day of October, A.D. 1901, and, of the Independence of the United States, the one hundred and twenty-sixth.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
October 15, 1901.

On and after January 1, 1902, the following ratings and pay per month are established for the petty officers and other enlisted men of the Commissary Branch of the United States Navy:

Landsmen detailed as crew messmen shall while so acting except when appointed as reliefs during temporary absence of the regular crew messmen receive extra compensation at the rate of $5 per month.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, October 30, 1901.

It is hereby ordered that Harbor Island, and three islets southeast thereof in Sitka Harbor, District of Alaska, be and they are hereby reserved for the use of the Revenue Cutter Service subject to any legal existing rights.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, November 9, 1901.

It is hereby ordered that all tracts and parcels of land belonging to the United States situate in the provinces of Zambales and Bataan, in the Island of Luzon, Philippine Islands to the southward and westward of a line beginning at the mouth of the Rio Pamatuan, near Capones Islands, and following the imaginary course of the Pamatuan to the headwaters of the easternmost branch of said river; from thence east, true, to meet a line running north, true, from Santa Rita Peak; from this intersection to Santa Rita itself; thence to Santa Rosa Peak, and thence in a straight line in a southerly direction to the sea at the town of Bagac, and including said town as well as all adjacent islands, bays, harbors, estuaries, and streams within its limits, be and the same are hereby reserved for naval purposes, and said reservations and all lands included within said boundaries are hereby placed under the governance and control of the Navy Department.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, November 11, 1901.

It is hereby ordered that the southwest quarter, section twenty-nine, and the southeast quarter, section thirty, township one south, range eighteen west, San Bernardino base and meridian, California, be and they are hereby reserved for lighthouse purposes, subject to any legal existing rights.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, November 15, 1901.

It is hereby ordered that San Nicolas Island, California, be and it is hereby reserved for lighthouse purposes.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
November 26, 1901.

From and after January 1, 1901, all enlisted men of the Navy will be allowed seventy-five cents per month in addition to the pay of their ratings for each good conduct medal, pin, or bar, issued for service, terminating after December 31, 1901.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, December 3, 1901.

From and after January 1, 1902, each enlisted man of the Navy who holds a certificate as a credit from the Petty Officers' School of Instruction, Navy Training Station, Newport, R.I., shall receive two dollars per month in addition to the pay of his rating.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, December 9, 1901.

From and after January 1, 1902, the classification and monthly pay of Mess Attendants in the United States Navy shall be as follows:

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, December 19, 1901.

Such public lands as may exist on Culebra Island between the parallels of 18° 15' and 18° 23' north latitude, and between the meridians of 65° 10' and 65° 25' west longitude, are hereby placed under the jurisdiction of the Navy Department.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
January 17, 1902.

The attention of the Departments is hereby called to the provisions of the laws giving preference to veterans in appointment and retention.

The President desires that wherever the needs of the service will justify it and the law will permit preference shall be given alike in appointment and retention to honorably discharged veterans of the Civil War, who are fit and well qualified to perform the duties of the places which they seek or are filling.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
January 31, 1902.

All officers and employees of the United States of every description serving in or under any of the Executive Departments and whether so serving in or out of Washington are hereby forbidden either direct or indirect, individually or through associations, to solicit an increase of pay, or to influence or to attempt to influence in their own interest any legislation whatever, either before Congress or its Committees, or in any way save through the heads of the Departments in or under which they serve, on penalty of dismissal from the government service.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
February 5, 1902.

As it is desirable in view of the expected visit of his Royal Highness, Prince Henry of Prussia, to the United States that suitable arrangements should be made for his reception and entertainment during his sojourn in the United States, I hereby designate the following named persons to serve as delegates for this purpose, and do hereby authorize and empower them to make such engagements, incur such expenses, and to draw upon the Secretary of State for such moneys as may be necessary with which to pay the expenses thus incurred, to an amount to be determined by the Secretary of State.

The Assistant Secretary of State, David J. Hill, representing the Department of State.

Major-General Henry C. Corbin, Adjutant-General, U.S.A., representing the War Department.

Rear-Admiral Robley D. Evans, U.S.N., representing the Navy Department, and to be Honorary A.D.C. to his Royal Highness.

The following officers are detailed to assist the delegates:

Colonel T.A. Bingham, U.S.A., Military Aide to the President; Commander W.S. Cowles, U.S.N., Navy Aide to the President.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE, February 15, 1902.

In accordance with the provisions of Section 2212 of the Revised Statutes and by virtue of the authority thereby given, it is hereby ordered that the office of Surveyor-General in the surveying district of the Territory of Arizona, be and it is hereby located at Phoenix, Arizona, and the office of Surveyor-General at Tucson, Arizona, is hereby discontinued, and the records and business thereof are hereby transferred to the office of Surveyor-General at Tucson, Arizona.