Department officers are instructed to afford such assistance as may be proper to carry on the work of this board.

The members of this board shall serve without additional compensation and its organization shall entail no expense on the Government.

The report of the board thus constituted has been submitted to me, and is herewith transmitted for the information of Congress and with a view to its publication in suitable form if such action is deemed by Congress to be desirable.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 5, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The famine prevailing in some of the Provinces of Russia is so severe and widespread as to have attracted the sympathetic interest of a large number of our liberal and favored people. In some of the great grainproducing States of the West movements have already been organized to collect flour and meal for the relief of these perishing Russian families, and the response has been such as to justify the belief that a ship's cargo can very soon be delivered at the seaboard through the generous cooperation of the transportation lines. It is most appropriate that a people whose storehouses have been so lavishly filled with all the fruits of the earth by the gracious favor of God should manifest their gratitude by large gifts to His suffering children in other lands.

The Secretary of the Navy has no steam vessel at his disposal that could be used for the transportation of these supplies, and I therefore recommend that he be authorized to charter a suitable vessel to receive them if a sufficient amount should be offered, and to send them under the charge of a naval officer to such Russian port as may be most convenient for ready distribution to those most in need.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by an agreement concluded by and between the Cherokee Commission and the Wichita and affiliated bands of Indians in the Territory of Oklahoma, for the cession of certain lands and for other purposes.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the

agreement entered into between the Indians of the Colville Reservation, in the State of Washington, and the commissioners appointed under the provisions of the act of August 19, 1890, to negotiate with them for the cession of such portion of said reservation as said Indians may be willing to dispose of, that the same may be opened to white settlement. BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 6, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by an agreement concluded by the Cherokee Commission with the Tonkawa Indians in Oklahoma Territory, for the cession of all their right, title, claim, and interest of every kind and character in and to the lands occupied by them in said Territory, and for other purposes.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 8th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreements concluded by and between the Cherokee Commission and the Kickapoo tribe of Indians in the Territory of Oklahoma, for the cession of certain lands and for other purposes.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreement entered into between the Indians of the Pyramid Lake Reservation and the commission appointed under the provisions of the Indian appropriation act of March 3, 1891, for the cession and relinquishment of the southern portion of their reservation in the State of Nevada. BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 11, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a communication of the 4th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting the agreement entered into between the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians of the Shoshone or Wind River Reservation, in the State of Wyoming, and

the commission appointed under the provisions of the Indian appropriaticn act of March 3, 1891, for the cession and relinquishment of a portion of their said reservation.

To the Senate of the United States:

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington. January 18, 1892.

I transmit herewith to the Senate a report of the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 12th instant, making inquiries regarding payments of the awards of the claims commission under the convention of July 4, 1868, between the United States and Mexico. BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 19, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith a letter of the Secretary of the Navy, accompanied by the report of the commission appointed by me by virtue of a provision in the naval appropriation act approved June 30, 1890, "to select a suitable site, having due regard to commercial and naval interests, for a dry dock at some point on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico or the waters connected therewith."

The Secretary of the Navy approves the recommendations of the commission, and they are respectfully submitted for the consideration of the Congress. BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 25, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

In my annual message delivered to Congress at the beginning of the present session, after a brief statement of the facts then in the possession of this Government touching the assault in the streets of Valparaiso, Chile, upon the sailors of the United States steamship Baltimore on the evening of the 16th of October last, I said:

This Government is now awaiting the result of an investigation which has been conducted by the criminal court at Valparaiso. It is reported unofficially that the investigation is about completed, and it is expected that the result will soon be communicated to this Government, together with some adequate and satisfactory response to the note by which the attention of Chile was called to this incident. If these just expectations should be disappointed or further needless delay intervene, I will by a special message bring this matter again to the attention of Congress for such action as may be necessary.

In my opinion the time has now come when I should lay before the Congress and the country the correspondence between this Government and

the Government of Chile from the time of the breaking out of the revolution against Balmaceda, together with all other facts in the possession of the executive department relating to this matter. The diplomatic correspondence is herewith transmitted, together with some correspondence between the naval officers for the time in command in Chilean waters and the Secretary of the Navy, and also the evidence taken at the Mare Island Navy-Yard since the arrival of the Baltimore at San Francisco. I do not deem it necessary in this communication to attempt any full analysis of the correspondence or of the evidence. A brief restatement of the international questions involved and of the reasons why the responses of the Chilean Government are unsatisfactory is all that I deem necessary.

It may be well at the outset to say that whatever may have been said in this country or in Chile in criticism of Mr. Egan, our minister at Santiago, the true history of this exciting period in Chilean affairs from the outbreak of the revolution until this time discloses no act on the part of Mr. Egan unworthy of his position or that could justly be the occasion of serious animadversion or criticism. He has, I think, on the whole borne himself in very trying circumstances with dignity, discretion, and courage, and has conducted the correspondence with ability, courtesy, and fairness.

It is worth while also at the beginning to say that the right of Mr. Egan to give shelter in the legation to certain adherents of the Balmaceda Government who applied to him for asylum has not been denied by the Chilean authorities, nor has any demand been made for the surrender of these refugees. That there was urgent need of asylum is shown by Mr. Egan's note of August 24, 1891, describing the disorders that prevailed in Santiago, and by the evidence of Captain Schley as to the pillage and violence that prevailed at Valparaiso. The correspondence discloses, however, that the request of Mr. Egan for a safe conduct from the country in behalf of these refugees was denied. The precedents cited by him. in the correspondence, particularly the case of the revolution in Peru in 1865, did not leave the Chilean Government in a position to deny the right of asylum to political refugees, and seemed very clearly to support Mr. Egan's contention that a safe conduct to neutral territory was a necessary and acknowledged incident of the asylum. These refugees have very recently, without formal safe conduct, but by the acquiescence of the Chilean authorities, been placed on board the Yorktown, and are now being conveyed to Callao, Peru. This incident might be considered wholly closed but for the disrespect manifested toward this Government by the close and offensive police surveillance of the legation premises which was maintained during most of the period of the stay of the refugees therein. After the date of my annual message, and up to the time of the transfer of the refugees to the Yorktown, the legation premises seemed to have been surrounded by police in uniform and police agents or detectives in citizen's dress, who offensively scrutinized persons enter

ing or leaving the legation, and on one or more occasions arrested members of the minister's family. Commander Evans, who by my direction recently visited Mr. Egan at Santiago, in his telegram to the Navy Department described the legation as "a veritable prison," and states that the police agents or detectives were after his arrival withdrawn during his stay. It appears further from the note of Mr. Egan of November 20, 1891, that on one occasion at least these police agents, whom he declares to be known to him, invaded the legation premises, pounding upon its windows and using insulting and threatening language toward persons therein. This breach of the right of a minister to freedom from police espionage and restraint seems to have been so flagrant that the Argentine minister, who was dean of the diplomatic corps, having observed it, felt called upon to protest against it to the Chilean minister of foreign affairs. The Chilean authorities have, as will be observed from the correspondence, charged the refugees and the inmates of the legation with insulting the police; but it seems to me incredible that men whose lives were in jeopardy and whose safety could only be secured by retirement and quietness should have sought to provoke a collision, which could only end in their destruction, or to aggravate their condition by intensifying a popular feeling that at one time so threatened the legation as to require Mr. Egan to appeal to the minister of foreign affairs.

But the most serious incident disclosed by the correspondence is that of the attack upon the sailors of the Baltimore in the streets of Valparaiso on the 16th of October last. In my annual message, speaking upon the information then in my possession, I said:

So far as I have yet been able to learn, no other explanation of this bloody work has been suggested than that it had its origin in hostility to those men as sailors of the United States, wearing the uniform of their Government, and not in any individual act or personal animosity.

We have now received from the Chilean Government an abstract of the conclusions of the fiscal general upon the testimony taken by the judge of crimes in an investigation which was made to extend over nearly three months. I very much regret to be compelled to say that this report does not enable me to modify the conclusion announced in my annual message. I am still of the opinion that our sailors were assaulted, beaten, stabbed, and killed not for anything they or any one of them had done, but for what the Government of the United States had done or was charged with having done by its civil officers and naval commanders. If that be the true aspect of the case, the injury was to the Government of the United States, not to these poor sailors who were assaulted in a manner so brutal and so cowardly.

Before attempting to give an outline of the facts upon which this conclusion rests I think it right to say a word or two upon the legal aspect of the case. The Baltimore was in the harbor of Valparaiso by virtue of that general invitation which nations are held to extend to the war