lately in session in this city, concerning the protection of patents, trademarks, and copyrights in commerce between the American Republics, to which I invite your attention. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, To the Senate and House of Representatives: Washington, July 11, 1890. I invite your attention to the accompanying letter of the Secretary of State, submitting the recommendations of the International American Conference for the better protection of the public health against the spread of contagious diseases. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 12, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing a copy of a report upon weights and measures adopted by the International American Conference, recently in session at this capital. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 12, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing a copy of a report of the International American Conference, recently in session at this capital, recommending the establishment of an international American monetary union, and suggesting that the President be authorized to invite the several American nations to send delegates to its first meeting in Washington on the first Wednesday of January next; that authority also be granted for the appointment of three delegates on the part of the United States, and that an appropriation be made to meet the necessary expenses. I commend these suggestions and hope they will receive the prompt consideration of Congress. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing the recommendation of the International American Conference with reference to the adoption by the American Republics of a uniform code of international law, to which your attention is respectfully directed. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, To the Senate and House of Representatives: Washington, July 14, 1890. I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing the recommendations of the International American Conference, recently in session at this capital, concerning a uniform system of port dues and consular fees to be adopted by the several American Republics, to which I invite your attention. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 15, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of State, inclosing a resolution adopted by the International American Conference for the erection of a memorial tablet in the diplomatic chamber of the Department of State to commemorate the meeting of that body. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 15, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith, for your information, certain reports on the subject of extradition adopted by the International American Conference at its recent sessions in this city. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 15, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit two agreements concluded by the commission appointed under section 14 of the act of March 2, 1889, commonly known as the Cherokee Commission, with the Citizen band of Pottawatomie Indians and the band of Absentee Shawnees, respectively, for the cession of certain lands to the United States. Letters from the Secretary of the Interior, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the Assistant Attorney-General for the Department of the Interior relating to the same matter are also submitted. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 17, 1890 To the Senate and House of Representatives: The act making appropriations to provide for the expenses of the government of the District of Columbia for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890, provides, among other things, that the President shall appoint three competent sanitary engineers to examine and report upon the system of M P-VOL VIII-9 sewerage existing in the District of Columbia, together with such suggestions and recommendations as may to them seem necessary and desirable for the modification and extension of the same, which report was to be transmitted to Congress by the President at its next session. In pursuance of the authority thus conferred, on the 17th of August, 1889, I appointed Rudolph Hering, of New York, Samuel M. Gray, of Rhode Island, and Frederick P. Stearns, of Massachusetts, to make this examination and report. The gentlemen named were believed to have such ability and experience as sanitary engineers as to guarantee an intelligent and exhaustive study of the problem submitted to them. I transmit herewith their report, which has just been submitted to me, for the consideration of Congress. To the House of Representatives: BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 23, 1890. In response to the resolution of the House of Representatives requesting me, if in my judgment not incompatible with the public interest, to furnish to the House the correspondence since March 4, 1889, between the Government of the United States and the Government of Great Britain touching the subjects in dispute in the Bering Sea, I transmit a letter from the Secretary of State, which is accompanied by the correspondence referred to in the resolution. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 29, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: The recent attempt to secure a charter from the State of North Dakota for a lottery company, the pending effort to obtain from the State of Louisiana a renewal of the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery, and the establishment of one or more lottery companies at Mexican towns near our border have served the good purpose of calling public attention to an evil of vast proportions. If the baneful effects of the lotteries were confined to the States that give the companies corporate powers and a license to conduct the business, the citizens of other States, being powerless to apply legal remedies, might clear themselves of responsibility by the use of such moral agencies as were within their reach. But the case is not so. The people of all the States are debauched and defrauded. The vast sums of money offered to the States for charters are drawn from the people of the United States, and the General Government through its mail system is made the effective and profitable medium of intercourse between the lottery company and its victims. The use of the mails is quite as essential to the companies as the State license. It would be practically impossible for these companies to exist if the public mails were once effectively closed against their advertisements and remittances. The use of the mails by these companies is a prostitution of an agency only intended to serve the purposes of a legitimate trade and a decent social intercourse. It is not necessary, I am sure, for me to attempt to portray the robbery of the poor and the widespread corruption of public and private morals which are the necessary incidents of these lottery schemes. The national capital has become a subheadquarters of the Louisiana Lottery Company, and its numerous agents and attorneys are conducting here a business involving probably a larger use of the mails than that of any legitimate business enterprise in the District of Columbia. There seems to be good reason to believe that the corrupting touch of these agents has been felt by the clerks in the postal service and by some of the police officers of the District. Severe and effective legislation should be promptly enacted to enable the Post-Office Department to purge the mails of all letters, newspapers, and circulars relating to the business. The letter of the Postmaster-General which I transmit herewith points out the inadequacy of the existing statutes and suggests legislation that would be effective. It may also be necessary to so regulate the carrying of letters by the express companies as to prevent the use of those agencies to maintain communication between the lottery companies and their agents or customers in other States. It does not seem possible that there can be any division of sentiment as to the propriety of closing the mails against these companies, and I therefore venture to express the hope that such proper powers as are necessary to that end will be at once given to the Post-Office Department. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, To the Senate of the United States: I transmit herewith a report from the Acting Secretary of State, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant, calling for information touching the alleged arrest and imprisonment of A. J. Diaz by the Cuban authorities and the action which has been taken in respect thereto. It will be seen that Mr. Diaz has been released. BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 8, 1890. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I have received, under date of July 29 ultimo, a communication from Hon. George W. Steele, governor of the Territory of Oklahoma, in which, among other things, he says: A delegation from township 16, range 1, in this county, has just left me, who came to represent that there are at this time twenty-eight families in that township who are in actual need of the necessaries of life, and they give it as their opinion that their township is not an exception, and that in the very near future a large proportion of the settlers of this Territory will have to have assistance. This I have looked for, but have hoped to bridge over until after the legislature meets, when I thought some arrangement might be made for taking care of these needy people; but with little taxable property in the Territory, and very many necessary demands to be made and met, I doubt if the legislature will be able to make such provision until a crop is raised next year as will be adequate to the demands. * * Now I know, whereof I speak, and I say there are a great many people in this Territory who have not the necessary means of providing meals for a day to come and are being helped by their very poor neighbors. No one regrets more than I do the necessity of making the foregoing statement, and I have hoped to bridge the matter over, as I have said before, until the legislature would meet and see if some provision could be made. I now see the utter hopelessness of such a course, and I beg of you to call the attention of Congress to the condition of our people, with the earnest hope that provision may be made whereby great suffering may be relieved; and I assure you that so far as I am able to prevent it not one ounce of provisions or a cent of money contributed to the above need shall be improperly used. Information received by me from other sources leads me to believe that Governor Steele is altogether right in his impression that there will be, unless relief is afforded either by public appropriation or by organized individual effort, widespread suffering among the settlers in Oklahoma. Many of these people expended in travel and in providing shelter for their families all of their accumulated means. The crop prospects for this year are by reason of drought quite unfavorable, and the ability of the Territory itself to provide relief must be inadequate during this year. I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma. Steps have been taken to ascertain more particularly the condition of the people throughout the Territory, and if a larger relief should seem to be necessary the facts will be submitted to Congress. If the fund to which I have referred should be made available for relief in Oklahoma, care will be taken that so much of it as is necessary to be expended shall be judiciously applied to the most worthy and necessitous cases. To the Senate: BENJ. HARRISON. EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, August 15, 1890. In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 26th of July, 1890, calling for all correspondence not already submitted to Congress and now on file in the Department of State touching the efforts made by this Government to secure the modification or repeal by the French Government of its decree of 1881, prohibiting the importation into France of |