I renew my approval of the recommendation of the Postmaster-General that
another assistant be provided for the Post-Office Department, and I
invite your attention to the several other recommendations in his
report.
The conduct of the Department of Justice for the last fiscal year is
fully detailed in the report of the Attorney-General, and I invite the
earnest attention of the Congress to the same and due consideration of
the recommendations therein contained.
In the report submitted by this officer to the last session of the
Congress he strongly recommended the erection of a penitentiary for the
confinement of prisoners convicted and sentenced in the United States
courts, and he repeats the recommendation in his report for the last
year.
This is a matter of very great importance and should at once receive
Congressional action. United States prisoners are now confined in more
than thirty different State prisons and penitentiaries scattered in
every part of the country. They are subjected to nearly as many
different modes of treatment and discipline and are far too much removed
from the control and regulation of the Government. So far as they are
entitled to humane treatment and an opportunity for improvement and
reformation, the Government is responsible to them and society that
these things are forthcoming. But this duty can scarcely be discharged
without more absolute control and direction than is possible under the
present system.
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