Of all the things said about me to-day in the over-kind allusions to me, I was especially pleased by what the Colonel said as to my attitude toward crooked public servants. I will take advice about appointing men; but if I find they are crooked I do not take any advice at all about removing them. We have Scriptural authority for saying that “offences must come”; but the Good Book adds, “woe to them through whom they come.” I can not guarantee, and no human being can, that there will not be an occasional man of an improper kind appointed, or an occasional well-meaning man who after being appointed goes wrong; but I can say that every effort within the power of the Government will be made to hunt such a man out of the public service and to punish him to the full extent of the law. Here in this seaboard city I want to say another word, and that is about the United States Navy. Again, Judge Semmes, in passing by the monument of your illustrious father I felt the thrill of pride that all Americans must feel that the names of the combatants in that famous ship duel are commemorated in the names of the “Kearsarge” and “Alabama” in the United States Navy now, and that if ever they have to go into action they will go into action side by side, manned by Americans, against a common foe. I know that an audience composed as this audience is of men who either themselves fought or whose fathers fought in the Civil War, appreciate to the full the sound national policy (if I may use the vernacular) of never bluffing unless you mean to make good. We undertook to build the Panama Canal because we said that owing to our position and interest and standing we were the only nation that could or should do it. That means that we have got to protect it and police it ourselves. We do not ask anybody else to help us do the work we have allotted to ourselves. We must therefore bring up and keep up our navy to the highest point of efficiency. We can afford to have a small army; although we must insist upon its being kept up to the high point of efficiency that I am glad to say our regular army in its individual units has now attained. In the event of war, however, which I hope will never come, the American people in the future as in the past must on land rely mainly upon its volunteer soldiery. But while it is a comparatively simple task to turn a man of the proper character, physique and intelligence into a good soldier, you can not improvise either a battleship or the crew of a battleship. At sea the battle has to be fought with the ships and the crews that have been prepared before the war begins; and we wish to profit by the lessons of history by seeing that our navy is always kept adequate to our needs. It is not necessary to have a very large navy; but it is necessary that ship for ship it should be just a little the most efficient navy in the world. In battle the shots that count are the shots that hit. There are plenty of gallant fellows who will go down