In all three platforms these parties announce that their efforts shall be unceasing until the gold act shall be blotted from the statute books and the free and unlimited coinage of silver at 16 to I shall take its place.

The relative importance of the issues I do not stop to discuss. All of them are important. Whichever party is successful will be bound in conscience to carry into administration and legislation its several declarations and doctrines. One declaration will be as obligatory as another, but all are not immediate. It is not possible that these parties would treat the doctrine of 16 to 1, the immediate realization of which is demanded by their several platforms, as void and inoperative in the event that they should be clothed with power. Otherwise their profession of faith is insin

cere.

FIGHT ON THE SILVER ISSUE.

It is, therefore, the imperative business of those opposed to this financial heresy to prevent the triumph of the parties whose union is only assured by adherence to the silver issue. Will the American people, through indifference or fancied security, hazard the overthrow of the wise financial legislation of the past year and revive the danger of the silver standard, with all of the inevitable evils of shattered confidence and general disaster which justly alarmed and aroused them in 1896?

The Chicago platform of 1896 is reaffirmed in its entirety by the Kansas City convention. Nothing has been omitted or recalled; so that all the perils then threatened are presented anew, with the added force of a deliberate reaffirmation. Four years ago the people refused to place the seal of their approval upon these dangerous and revolutionary policies, and this year they will not fail to record again their earnest dissent.

The Republican party remains faithful to its principle of a tariff which supplies sufficient revenues for the government and adequate protection to our enterprises and producers; and of reciprocity which opens foreign markets to the fruits of American labor, and furnishes new channels through which to market the surplus of American farms. The time-honored principles of

protection and reciprocity were the first pledges of Republican victory to be written into public law.

The present Congress has given to Alaska a territorial government, for which it had waited more than a quarter of a century; has established a representative government in Hawaii; has enacted bills for the most liberal treatment of the pensioners and their widows; has revived the free homestead policy. In its great financial law it provided for the establishment of banks of issue with a capital of $25,000, for the benefit of villages and rural communities, and bringing the opportunity for profitable business in banking within the reach of moderate capital. Many are already availing themselves of this privilege.

UNITED STATES BONDS.

During the past year more than nineteen millions of United States bonds have been paid from the surplus revenues of the Treasury, and in addition twenty-five millions of 2 per cents matured, called by the government, are in process of payment. Pacific railroad bonds issued by the government in aid of the roads in the sum of nearly forty-four million dollars have been paid since December 31, 1897. The Treasury balance is in satisfactory condition, showing on September 1, $135,419,000, in addition to the $150,000,000 gold reserve held in the Treasury. The Government's relations with the Pacific railroads have been substantially closed, $121,421,000 being received from these roads, the greater part in cash and the remainder with ample securities. for payments deferred.

Instead of diminishing, as was predicted four years ago, the volume of our currency is greater per capita than it has ever been. It was $21.10 in 1896. It has increased to $26.50 on July 1, 1900, and $26.85 on September 1, 1900. Our total money on July 1, 1896, was $1,506,434,966; on July 1, 1900, it was $2,062,425,490, and $2,096,683,042 on September 1, 1900.

Our industrial and agricultural conditions are more promising than they have been for many years; probably more so than they have ever been. Prosperity abounds everywhere through

out the Republic. I rejoice that the Southern as well as the Northern States are enjoying a full share of these improved national conditions, and that all are contributing so largely to our remarkable industrial development. The money lender receives lower rewards for his capital than if it were invested in active business. The rates of interest are lower than they have ever been in this country, while those things which are produced on the farm and in the workshop and the labor producing them have advanced in value.

SATISFACTORY FOREIGN TRADE.

Our foreign trade shows a satisfactory and increasing growth. The amount of our exports for the year 1900, over those of the exceptionally prosperous year of 1899, was about half a million dollars for every day of the year, and these sums have gone into the homes and enterprise of the people. There has been an increase of over $50,000,000 in the exports of agricultural products; $92,692,220 in manufactures, and in products of the mines of over $10,000,000. Our trade balances cannot fail to give satisfaction to the people of the country. In 1898 we sold abroad $615,432,676 of products more than we bought abroad; in 1899, $529,874,813 and in 1900, $544,471,701, making, during the three years, a total balance in our favor of $1,689,779, 190-nearly five times the balance of trade in our favor for the whole period of 108 years, from 1790 to June 30, 1897, inclusive.

Four hundred and thirty-six million dollars of gold have been added to the gold stock of the United States since July 1, 1896. The law of March 14, 1900, authorized the refunding into 2 per cent. bonds of that part of the public debt represented by the 3 per cents, due in 1908; the 4 per cents, due in 1907; and the 5 per cents, due in 1904, aggregating $840,000,000. More than one-third of the sum of these bonds was refunded in the first three months after the passage of the act, and on September the sum had been increased more than $33,000,000, making in all $330,578,050, resulting in a net saving of over $8,379,520.

The ordinary receipts of the government for the fiscal year 1900 were $79,827,060 in excess of its expenditures.

While our receipts both from customs and internal reveune have been greatly increased, our expenditures have been decreasing. Civil and miscellaneous expenses for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, were nearly $14,000,000 less than in 1899, while on the war account there is a decrease of more than $95,000,000. There were required $8,000,000 less to support the navy this year than last, and the expenditures on account of Indians were nearly two and three-quarter million dollars less than in 1899.

ITEMS OF INCREASE IN TAX.

The only two items of increase in the public expenses of 1900 over 1899 are for pensions and interest on the public debt. For 1890 we expended for pensions $139,394,929, and for the fiscal year 1900 our payments on this account amounted to $140,877,316. The net increase of interest on the public debt of 1900 over 1899, required by the war loan, was $263,408.25. While Congress authorized the Government to make a war loan of $400,000,000 at the beginning of the war with Spain, only $200,000,000 of bonds were issued, bearing three per cent. interest, which were promptly and patriotically taken by our citizens.

Unless something unforeseen occurs to reduce our revenue or increase our expenditures, the Congress at its next session should reduce taxation very materially.

Five years ago we were selling Government bonds bearing as high as five per cent. interest. Now we are redeeming them with a bond at par bearing two per cent. interest. We are selling our surplus products and lending our surplus money to Europe. One result of our selling to other nations so much more than we have bought from them during the past three years is a radical improvement of our financial relations.

The great amounts of capital which have been borrowed of Europe for our rapid, material development have remained a constant drain upon our resources for interest and dividends, and made our money markets liable to constant disturbances by calls

for payment or heavy sales of our securities whenever moneyed stringency or panic occurred abroad. We have now been paying these debts and bringing home many of our securities and establishing countervailing credits abroad by our loans, and placing ourselves upon a sure foundation of financial independence.

In the unfortunate contest between Great Britain and the Boer States of South Africa, the United States has maintained an attitude of neutrality in accordance with its well-known traditional policy. It did not hesitate, however, when requested by the Governments of the South African republics to exercise its good offices for a cessation of hostilities. It is to be observed that while the South African republics made like requests of other powers, the United States is the only one which complied. The British Government declined to accept the intervention of any power.

CARRIED BY FOREIGN SHIPS.

Ninety-one per cent. of our exports and imports are now carried by foreign ships. For ocean transportation we pay an nually to foreign ship owners over $165,000,000. We ought to own the ships for our carrying trade with the world and we ought to build them in American shipyards and man them with American sailors. Our own citizens should receive the transportation charges now paid to foreigners. I have called the attention of Congress to this subject in my several annual messages. In that of December 6, 1897, I said:

"Most desirable from every standpoint of national interest and patriotism is the effort to extend our foreign commerce. Το this end our merchant marine should be improved and enlarged. We should do our full share of the carrying trade of the world. We do not do it now. We should be the laggard no longer."

In my message of December 5, 1899, I said:

"Our national development will be one-sided and unsatisfactory so long as the remarkable growth of our inland industries remains unaccompanied by progress on the seas. There is no lack of constitutional authority for legislation which shall give to