I append to this message, for convenient reference, a synopsis of
administrative events and of all recommendations to Congress made by me
during the last seven years. Time may show some of these recommendations
not to have been wisely conceived, but I believe the larger part will
do no discredit to the Administration. One of these recommendations
met with the united opposition of one political party in the Senate
and with a strong opposition from the other, namely, the treaty for
the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States, to which I will
specially refer, maintaining, as I do, that if my views had been
concurred in the country would be in a more prosperous condition to-day,
both politically and financially.
Santo Domingo is fertile, and upon its soil may be grown just those
tropical products of which the United States use so much, and which are
produced or prepared for market now by slave labor almost exclusively,
namely, sugar, coffee, dyewoods, mahogany, tropical fruits, tobacco,
etc. About 75 per cent of the exports of Cuba are consumed in the United
States. A large percentage of the exports of Brazil also find the same
market. These are paid for almost exclusively in coin, legislation,
particularly in Cuba, being unfavorable to a mutual exchange of the
products of each country.
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