President of the United States in 1896, and again in 1900, the SpanishAmerican War and the Philippine insurrection making his administration a notably exciting one. The fatal deed which closed his career took place during a visit to the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, N. Y., death coming to him on September 14, 1901, a week after the anarchist's deadly act. THE AGENCIES OF MODERN PROSPERITY [On September 5, 1901, the day before his fatal wound was received, President McKinley delivered before an assembled multitude at the Buffalo Exposition an address which attracted attention throughout the nation, alike from the fact that it was his final one, and that it suggested the growing need of a change in the tariff policy which he had for many years upheld. In view of these facts we give here the salient points of this significant and interesting address.] Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people, and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step. Comparison of ideas is always educational, and as such instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy of high quality and new prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to devise, invent, improve and economize in the cost of production. Business life, whether among ourselves, or with other people, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will be none the less so in the future. Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century. But, though commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be.. After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world. Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time, and with more ease, than was ever dreamed of by the fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom. The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the Government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the city of Washington to New Orleans, with a message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a treaty of peace had been signed. How different now!. . At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its circuit many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have a vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas. God and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And, as we are brought more and more in touch with each other, the less occasion is there for misunderstanding and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of arbitration, the noblest form for the settlement of international disputes. My fellow-citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines, and that we are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of workingmen throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes, and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people are participating in this great prosperity is seen in every American community, and shown by the enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. Our duty is the care and security of these deposits, and their safe investment demands the highest integrity and the best business capacity of those in charge of these depositories of the people's earnings. We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and struggle. in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit of either neglect or undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and increase it. Our industrial enterprises, which have grown to such great proportions, affect the homes and occupations of the people and the welfare of the country. Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously, and our products have so multiplied, that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of marvelous business energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or strain. By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production we shall extend the outlet for our increasing surplus. A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it would not be best for us, or for those with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established. What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell everywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. If, perchance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steamers have already been put into commission between the Pacific Coast ports of the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship lines between the eastern coast of the United States and South American ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely touched. Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the convenience to carry it to the buyer. We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by Americans. These will not only be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go. We must build the Isthmian Canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central and South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot be longer postponed. . . Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this Exposition? Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in accord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come, not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth. ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE (1862 THE BRILLIANT INDIANA ORATOR A MONG the younger men who have attained the honor of membership in the United States Senate may be named Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, whose elevation to a seat in that distinguished body was a suitable reward for his brilliant oratorical powers and statesmanlike abilities. Like so many of our leading legislators, Mr. Beveridge was essentially a self-made man. Born on an Ohio farm, he obtained an education by working his way through DePauw University, for which laudable purpose he took up the honorable calling of a bookagent. His adopted profession was that of the law, in which he became an advocate in many important cases in the courts of Indiana. While still a boy, he had shown himself a ready and eloquent speaker in college contests, and he now employed his skill in oratory in the field of Republican politics, winning so high a position in his party as to be elected to the Senate from Indiana for the term beginning March, 1899. In the summer of 1899, Mr. Beveridge visited Eastern Asia, where he made a thorough study of the relations of the Russians and Chinese in Manchuria, his observations leading to a series of illuminating letters which throw new light upon the position and purposes of Russia in Asia. EULOGY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY [At the meeting of the National League of Republican Clubs, held at Chicago in October, 1902, Senator Beveridge made a brief but telling speech, than which we can offer no more characteristic example of his style of oratory. Its occasion gave the cue to its character, which is that of an ardent eulogy of the Republican party, of whose principles Mr. Beveridge is an earnest advocate.] Young blood is Republican blood. It is the blood that believes and builds; the blood of faith and hope and deeds. That is why there is no |