emselves purchase; and similar inequities obtain on all sides.

It is imperatively necessary that the consideration of the full use of
the water power of the country and also the consideration of the
systematic and yet economical development of such of the natural
resources of the country as are still under the control of the federal
government should be immediately resumed and affirmatively and
constructively dealt with at the earliest possible moment. The pressing
need of such legislation is daily becoming more obvious.

The legislation proposed at the last session with regard to regulated
combinations among our exporters, in order to provide for our foreign
trade a more effective organization and method of cooeperation, ought by
all means to be completed at this session.

And I beg that the members of the House of Representatives will permit
me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any but
a very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropriations
of the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be
properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its
former practice of initiating and preparing all appropriation bills
through a single committee, in order that responsibility may be
centered, expenditures standardized and made uniform, and waste and
duplication as much as possible avoided.

Additional legislation may also become necessary before the present
Congress again adjourns in order to effect the most efficient
cooerdination and operation of the railway and other transportation
systems of the country; but to that I shall, if circumstances should
demand, call the attention of the Congress upon another occasion.

If I have overlooked anything that ought to be done for the more
effective conduct of the war, your own counsels will supply the
omission. What I am perfectly clear about is that in the present session
of the Congress our whole attention and energy should be concentrated on
the vigorous, rapid, and successful prosecution of the great task of
winning the war.

We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm because we know
that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no selfish
ambition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all the world
knows, that we have been forced into it to save the very institutions we
live under from corruption and destruction. The purposes of the Central
Powers strike straight