He thanks the officers and the enlisted men who have been maintaining order and carrying on the military government in Cuba, because they have faithfully given effect to the humane purposes of the American people.  They have with sincere kindness helped the Cuban people to take all the successive steps necessary to the establishment of their own constitutional government.  During the time required for that process they have governed Cuba wisely, regarding justice and respecting individual liberty; have honestly collected and expended for the best interests of the Cuban people the revenues, amounting to over $60,000,000; have carried out practical and thorough sanitary measures, greatly improving the health and lowering the death rate of the island.  By patient, scientific research they have ascertained the causes of yellow fever, and by good administration have put an end to that most dreadful disease which has long destroyed the lives and hindered the commercial prosperity of the Cubans.  They have expedited justice and secured protection for the rights of the innocent, while they have cleansed the prisons and established sound discipline and healthful conditions for the punishment of the guilty.

They have re-established and renovated and put upon a substantial basis adequate hospitals and asylums for the care of the unfortunate.  They have established a general system of free common schools throughout the island, in which over two hundred thousand children are in actual attendance.  They have constructed great and necessary public works.  They have gradually trained the Cubans themselves in all branches of administration, so that the new government upon assuming power has begun its work with an experienced force of Cuban civil service employees competent to execute its orders.  They have borne themselves with dignity and self-control, so that nearly four years of military government have passed unmarred by injury or insult to man or woman.  They have transferred the government of Cuba to the Cuban people amid universal expressions of friendship and good will, and have left a record of ordered justice and liberty of rapid improvement in material and moral conditions and progress in the art of government which reflects great credit upon the people of the United States.

The President thanks the officers and enlisted men of the army in the Philippines, both regulars and volunteers, for the courage and fortitude, the indomitable spirit and loyal devotion with which they have put down and ended the great insurrection which has raged throughout the archipelago against the lawful sovereignty and just authority of the United States.  The task was peculiarly difficult and trying.  They were required at first to overcome organized resistance of superior numbers, well equipped with modern arms of precision, intrenched in an unknown country of mountain defiles, jungles, and swamps, apparently capable of interminable defense.  When this resistance had been overcome they were required to crush out a general system of guerrilla warfare conducted among a people speaking unknown tongues, from whom it was almost impossible to obtain the information necessary for successful pursuit or to guard against surprise and ambush.