To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War of the 18th instant, submitting a letter from Colonel A.F.  Rockwell, United States Army, in charge of public buildings and grounds, embodying an estimate in the sum of $30,000 for a pedestal for the statue of General James A. Garfield, to be erected in the city of Washington by the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, together with a letter upon the subject from General Anson G. McCook, on behalf of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland, the object in view being the procurement of an appropriation by Congress of the amount of the accompanying estimate.

I commend the subject to the favorable consideration of Congress.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 26, 1884.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

In my annual message I impressed upon Congress the necessity of continued progress in the reconstruction of the Navy.  The recommendations in this direction of the Secretary of the Navy and of the Naval Advisory Board were submitted by me unaccompanied by specific expressions of approval.  I now deem it my duty to advise that appropriations be made at the present session toward designing and commencing the construction of at least the three additional steel cruisers and the four gunboats thus recommended, the cost of which, including their armament, will not exceed $4,283,000, of which sum one-half should be appropriated for the next fiscal year.

The Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Dolphin have been designed and are being built with care and skill, and there is every reason to believe that they will prove creditable and serviceable modern cruisers.  Technical questions concerning the details of these or of additional vessels can not wisely be settled except by experts, and the Naval Advisory Board, organized by direction of Congress under the act of August 5, 1882, and consisting of three line officers, a naval constructor, and a naval engineer, selected “with reference only to character, experience, knowledge, and skill,” and a naval architect and a marine engineer from civil life “of established reputation and standing as experts in naval or marine construction,” is an appropriate authority to decide finally all such questions.  I am unwilling to see the gradual reconstruction of our naval cruisers, now happily begun in conformity with modern requirements, delayed one full year for any unsubstantial reason.

Whatever conditions Congress may see fit to impose in order to secure judicious designs and honest and economical construction will be acceptable to me, but to relinquish or postpone the policy already deliberately declared will be, in my judgment, an act of national imprudence.

Appropriations should also be made without delay for finishing the four double-turreted monitors, the Puritan, Amphitrite, Terror, and Monadnock, and for procuring their armament and that of the Miantonomoh.  Their hulls are built, and their machinery is under contract and approaching completion, except that of the Monadnock, on the Pacific coast.  This should also be built, and the armor and heavy guns of all should be procured at the earliest practicable moment.