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HENRY CABOT LODGE

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not be unworthy of the great leaders who have gone. The deeds of yesterday are in their turn a proof that what we promise we perform, and that the people who put faith in our declarations in 1896 were not deceived, and may place the same trust in us in 1900. But our pathway has never lain among dead issues, nor have we won our victories and made history by delving into political graveyards. We are the party of to-day, with cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows. The living present is ours, the present of prosperity and activity in business, of good wages and quick payments, of labor employed and capital invested, of sunshine in the market place, and the stir of abounding life in the workshop and on the farm. It is with this that we have replaced the depression, the doubts, the dull business, the low wages, the idle labor, the frightened capital, the dark clouds which overhung industry and agriculture in 1896. This is what we would preserve, so far as sound government and wise legislation can do it. This is what we brought to the country four years ago. This is what we offer now. Again we promise that the protective system shall be maintained, and that our great industrial interests shall go on their way unshaken by the dire fear of tariff agitation and of changing duties. Again we declare that we will guard the national credit, uphold a sound currency based on gold, and keep the wages of the workingman and the enterprise of the man of business free from that most deadly of all evils, a fluctuating standard of value. The deficit which made this great country in a time of profound peace a borrower of money to meet its current expenditures has been replaced by abundant revenues, bringing a surplus, due alike to prosperity and to wise legislation, so ample that we can now safely promise a large reduction of taxation without imperiling our credit or risking a resort to loans. .

It is on these facts that we shall ask for the support of the American people. What we have done is known, and about what we intend to do there is neither secrecy nor deception. What we promise we will perform. Our old policies are here, alive, successful and full of vigor. Our new policies have been begun, and for them we ask support. When the clouds of impending civil war hung dark over the country in 1861, we took up the great task then laid upon us, and never flinched until we had carried it through to victory. Now, at the dawn of a new century, with new policies and new opportunities opening before us in the bright sunshine of prosperity, we again ask the American people to entrust us with their future. We have profound faith in the people. We do not distrust their capacity of meeting the new responsibilities, even as they met the old, and we shall await with confidence, under the leadership of William McKinley, the verdict of November.

JOSEPH B. FORAKER (1846

OHIO'S POPULAR ORATOR STATESMAN

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HE life of Governor Foraker has been an active and distinguished one. While a mere boy he fought through the Civil War, entering as private in an Ohio regiment, and leaving as brevet captain. Leaving the army still a boy, he entered college, graduating at Cornell in 1869. Adopting the legal profession, in two years' time he raised himself to the position of Judge of the Superior Court at Cincinnati. He became early known as a prominent Republican politician and orator, and ran four times as candidate for Governor of Ohio. He was twice elected, in 1885 and 1887. In 1897 he was sent to Congress as United States Senator for Ohio. In the Republican National Convention of 1900, at Philadelphia, Senator Foraker, as representing Ohio, McKinley's native State, renominated William McKinley for the Presidency, amid a universal burst of applause.

THE UNITED STATES UNDER MCKINLEY

[In nominating President McKinley for a second term, Senator Foraker took occasion to depict the progress of the country during the preceding McKinley administration, his address full of an appreciative eloquence of which we give the following illustrative example.]

From one end of the land to the other in every mind only one and the same man is thought of for the honor which we are now about to confer, and that man is the first choice of every other man who wishes Republican success next November.

On this account it is that it is not necessary for me or any one else to speak for him here or elsewhere. He has already spoken for himself, and to all the world. He has a record replete with brilliant achievements, a record that speaks at once both his performances and highest eulogy. It comprehends both peace and war, and constitutes the most striking

JOSEPH B. FORAKER

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illustration possible of triumphant and inspiring fidelity, and success in the discharge of public duty.

Four years ago the American people confided to him their highest and most sacred trust. Behold, with what results. He found the industries of the country paralyzed and prostrated; he quickened them with a new life that has brought to the American people a prosperity unprecedented in all their history. He found the labor of this country everywhere idle; he has given it everywhere employment. He found it everywhere in despair; he has made it everywhere prosperous and buoyant with hope. He found the mills and shops and factories and mines everywhere closed; they are now everywhere open.

And while we here deliberate, they are sending their surplus products in commercial conquest to the very ends of the earth. Under his wise guidance our financial standard has been firmly planted high above and beyond assault, and the wild cry of sixteen to one, so full of terror and long hair in 1896, has been put to everlasting sleep alongside of the lost cause, and other cherished Democratic heresies in the catacombs of American politics. With a diplomacy never excelled and rarely equaled, he has overcome what at times seemed to be insurmountable difficulties, and has not only opened to us the door of China, but he has advanced our interests in every land.

Mr. Chairman, we are not surprised by this, for we anticipated it all. When we nominated him at St. Louis four years ago, we knew he was wise, we knew he was brave, we knew he was patient, we knew he would be faithful and devoted, and we knew that the greatest possible triumphs of peace would be his; but we then little knew that he would be called upon to encounter also the trials of war. That unusual emergency came. It came unexpectedly-as wars generally come. It came in spite of all he could honorably do to avert it. It came to find the country unprepared for it, but it found him equal to all its extraordinary requirements. And it is no exaggeration to say that in all American history there is no chapter more brilliant than that which chronicles, with him as our commanderin-chief, our victory on land and sea. In one hundred days we drove Spain from the Western Hemisphere, girded the earth with our acquisitions and filled the world with the splendor of our power.

The American name has a new and greater significance now. Our flag has a new glory. It not only symbolizes human liberty and political equality at home, but it means freedom and independence for the long suffering patriots of Cuba, and complete protection, education, enlightenment, uplifting and ultimate local self-government, and the enjoyment of all the blessings of liberty to the millions of Porto Rico and the Philippines.

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What we have so gloriously done for ourselves we propose most generously to do for them. We have so declared in the platform we have adopted. A fitting place it is for this party to make such a declaration. Here in this magnificent City of Philadelphia, where the evidences so abound of the rich blessings the Republican party has brought to the American people; here at the birthplace of the nation, where our own Declaration of Independence was adopted and our Constitution formed; where Washington and Jefferson and Hancock and John Adams, and their illustrious associates, wrought their immortal work; here where center so many historic memories that stir the blood and flush the cheek, and excite the sentiments of human liberty and patriotism, is indeed a most fitting place for the party of Lincoln and Grant and Garfield and Blaine, the party of union and liberty for all men, to formally dedicate themselves to this great duty.

We are now in the midst of its discharge. We could not turn back if we would; and would not if we could. We are on trial before the world, and must triumphantly meet our responsibilities, or ignominiously fail in the presence of mankind.

These responsibilities speak to this convention here and now, and command us that we choose to be our candidate and the next Presidentwhich is one and the same thing-the best fitted man for the discharge of this great duty in all the Republic.

On that point there is no difference of opinion. No man in all the nation is so well qualified for this trust as the great leader under whom the work has been so far conducted. He has the head, he has the heart, he has the special knowledge and the special experience that qualify him beyond all others. And, Mr. Chairman, he has also the stainless reputation and character, and has led the blameless life, that endear him to his countrymen and give to him the confidence, the respect, the admiration, the love and the affection of the whole American people.

THOMAS B. REED (1839-1902)

THE FAMOUS "SPEAKER" AND DEBATER

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N January, 1890, Congress was treated to a decidedly new sensation. It had long been the custom to block important busi

ness by declaring no quorum, opposing members declining to vote and only those who voted being counted as present. It needed a man of strength and decision to combat this time-honored evil, and Thomas Brackett Reed, the Speaker of the House, proved the man for the occasion. On a bill before the House the Democrats refused to vote on roll call, but Speaker Reed solved the difficulty by counting enough of them as "present but not voting" to constitute a quorum. The uproar was tremendous, the Democratic members hotly protesting and declaring the proceeding unconstitutional, but Reed held coolly to his point, and his revolutionary action was sustained by the Supreme Court and became an established rule of the House. One result was that Reed obtained the title of the "Czar" of the House. Four years later, when a Democratic House found itself in a similar dilemma, it escaped by adopting Speaker Reed's rule.

Reed, a native of Portland, Maine, early made himself highly popular by his eloquence as a public speaker, and the logic, sarcasm and humor of his speeches. No man was his superior in repartee, and as a debater he was unsurpassed. He served in the House of Representatives for over twenty years, being elected Speaker in 1889, and again in 1895 and 1897. In 1896 he was the choice of New England for the Presidency, but on the nomination of McKinley he supported him by some of the ablest speeches of the campaign. He resigned from Congress in 1899 to enter upon the practice of the law in New York. City. Henry Hall has said of him: "He is in many respects the greatest all-around man in the United States to-day, of saintless record

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