two in area.
The people of these States are already well-trained, intelligent, and
patriotic American citizens, having common interests and sympathies with
those of the older States and a common purpose to defend the integrity
and uphold the honor of the nation.

The attention of the Interstate Commerce Commission has been called to
the urgent need of Congressional legislation for the better protection
of the lives and limbs of those engaged in operating the great
interstate freight lines of the country, and especially of the yardmen
and brakemen. A petition signed by nearly 10,000 railway brakemen was
presented to the Commission asking that steps might be taken to bring
about the use of automatic brakes and couplers on freight cars.

At a meeting of State railroad commissioners and their accredited
representatives held at Washington in March last upon the invitation of
the Interstate Commerce Commission a resolution was unanimously adopted
urging the Commission "to consider what can be done to prevent the loss
of life and limb in coupling and uncoupling freight cars and in handling
the brakes of such cars." During the year ending June 30, 1888, over
2,000 railroad employees were killed in service and more than 20,000
injured. It is competent, I think, for Congress to require uniformity
in the construction of cars used in interstate commerce and the use of
improved safety appliances upon such trains. Time will be necessary to
make the needed changes, but an earnest and intelligent beginning should
be made at once. It is a reproach to our civilization that any class
of American workmen should in the pursuit of a necessary and useful
vocation be subjected to a peril of life and limb as great as that of
a soldier in time of war.

The creation of an Executive Department to be known as the Department of
Agriculture by the act of February 9 last was a wise and timely response
to a request which had long been respectfully urged by the farmers of
the country; but much remains to be done to perfect the organization of
the Department so that it may fairly realize the expectations which
its creation excited. In this connection attention is called to the
suggestions contained in the report of the Secretary, which is herewith
submitted. The need of a law officer for the Department such as is
provided for the other Executive Departments is manifest. The failure of
the last Congress to make the usual provision for the publication of