uld be relieved from the burden of providing all the gold required
for exchanges and export. This responsibility is alone borne by the
Government, without any of the usual and necessary banking powers to
help itself. The banks do not feel the strain of gold redemption. The
whole strain rests upon the Government, and the size of the gold reserve
in the Treasury has come to be, with or without reason, the signal of
danger or of security. This ought to be stopped.

If we are to have an era of prosperity in the country, with sufficient
receipts for the expenses of the Government, we may feel no immediate
embarrassment from our present currency; but the danger still exists,
and will be ever present, menacing us so long as the existing system
continues. And, besides, it is in times of adequate revenues and
business tranquillity that the Government should prepare for the worst.
We cannot avoid, without serious consequences, the wise consideration
and prompt solution of this question.

The Secretary of the Treasury has outlined a plan, in great detail, for
the purpose of removing the threatened recurrence of a depleted gold
reserve and save us from future embarrassment on that account. To this
plan I invite your careful consideration.

I concur with the Secretary of the Treasury in his recommendation that
National banks be allowed to issue notes to the face value of the bonds
which they have deposited for circulation, and that the tax on
circulating notes secured by deposit of such bonds be reduced to
one-half of one per cent per annum. I also join him in recommending that
authority be given for the establishment of National banks with a
minimum capital of $25,000. This will enable the smaller villages and
agricultural regions of the country to be supplied with currency to meet
their needs.

I recommend that the issue of National bank notes be restricted to the
denomination of ten dollars and upwards. If the suggestions I have
herein made shall have the approval of Congress, then I would recommend
that National banks be required to redeem their notes in gold.

* * * * *

[See Vol. X, pp. 127-136.]

Not a single American citizen is now in arrest or confinement in Cuba of
whom this Government has any knowledge. The near future will demonstrate
whether the indispensable condition of a righteous peace, just alike to
the Cubans and to Spain as well as equitable to all our interests