to the irrigation policy? or to the permanent census bureau? or to immigration inspection? Do they intend to abolish rural free-delivery? Do they intend to cut down the Navy? or the Alaskan telegraph system? Do they intend to dismantle our coast fortifications? If there is to be a real and substantial cutting down in national expenditures it must be in such matters as these. The Department of Agriculture has done service of incalculable value to the farmers of this country in many different lines. Do our opponents wish to cut down the money for this service? They can do it only by destroying the usefulness of the service itself. * * * * * The public work of the United States has never been conducted with a higher degree of honesty and efficiency than at the present time; and a special meed of praise belongs to those officials responsible for the Philippines and Porto Rico, where the administrations have been models of their kind. Of course, wrong has occasionally occurred, but it has been relentlessly stamped out. We have known no party in dealing with offenders, and have hunted down without mercy every wrong-doer in the service of the Nation whom it was possible by the utmost vigilance to detect; for the public servant who betrays his trust and the private individual who debauches him stand as the worst of criminals, because their crimes are crimes against the entire community, and not only against this generation, but against the generations that are yet to be. * * * * *