camp and campaign there comes the magic healing which has closed ancient wounds and effaced their scars. For this result every American patriot will forever rejoice. It is no small indemnity for the cost of the war.

"This government has proved itself invincible in the recent war, and out of it has come a nation which will remain indivisible forevermore. [Applause.] No worthier contributions have been made in patriotism and in men than by the people of these Southern states. When at last the opportunity came they were eager to meet it, and with promptness responded to the call of country. Intrusted with the able leadership of men dear to them, who had marched with their fathers under another flag, now fighting under the old flag again, they have gloriously helped to defend its spotless folds, and added new luster to its shining stars. That flag has been planted in two hemispheres, and there it remains the symbol of liberty and law, of peace and progress. [Great applause.] Who will withdraw from the people over whom it floats its protecting folds? Who will haul it down? Answer me, ye men of the South, who is there in Dixie who will haul it down? [Tremendous applause.]

"The victory we celebrate is not that of a ruler, a president, or a congress, but of the people. [Applause.] The army whose valor we admire, and the navy whose achievements we applaud, were not assembled by draft or conscription, but from voluntary enlistment. The heroes came from civil as well as military life. Trained and untrained soldiers wrought our triumphs.

"The peace we have won is not a selfish truce of arms, but one whose conditions presage good to humanity. The domains secured under the treaty yet to be acted upon by the senate came to us not as the result of a crusade or conquest, but as the reward of temperate, faithful, and fearless response to the call of conscience, which could not be disregarded by a liberty-loving and Christian people.

"We have so borne ourselves in the conflict and in our intercourse with the powers of the world as to escape complaint or complication, and give universal confidence in our high purpose and unselfish sacrifices for struggling peoples. The task is not fulfilled. Indeed, it is only just begun. The most serious work is still before us, and every energy of heart and mind must be bent, and the impulses of partisanship subordinated, to its faithful execution. This is the time for earnest, not faint, hearts.

"New occasions teach new duties.' To this nation and to every nation there come formative periods in its life and history. New conditions can be met only by new methods. Meeting these conditions

hopefully, and facing them bravely and wisely, is to be the mightiest test of American virtue and capacity. Without abandoning past limitations, traditions and principles, by meeting present opportunities and obligations, we shall show ourselves worthy of the great trusts which civilization has imposed upon us. [Great applause.]

"At Bunker Hill liberty was at stake; at Gettysburg the Union was the issue; before Manila and Santiago our armies fought, not for gain or revenge, but for human rights. They contended for the freedom of the oppressed, for whose welfare the United States has never failed to lend a helping hand to establish and uphold, and, I believe, never will. The glories of the war cannot be dimmed, but the result will be incomplete and unworthy of us unless supplemented by civil victories, harder possibly to win, but in their way no less indispensable. [Great applause.]

"We will have our difficulties and our embarrassments. They follow all victories and accompany all great responsibilities. They are inseparable from every great movement or reform. But American capacity has triumphed over all in the past. [Applause.] Doubts have in the end vanished. Apparent dangers have been averted or avoided, and our own history shows that progress has come so naturally and steadily on the heels of new and grave responsibilities that as we look back upon the acquisitions of territory by our fathers, we are filled with wonder that any doubt could have existed or any apprehension could have been felt of the wisdom of their action or their capacity to grapple with the then untried and mighty problems. [Great applause.]

"The republic is to-day larger, stronger and better prepared than ever before for wise and profitable. development in new directions and along new lines. Even if the minds of some of our own people are still disturbed by perplexing and anxious doubts, in which all of us have shared and still share, the genius of American civilization will, I believe, be found both original and creative, and capable of subserving all the great interests which shall be confided to our keeping. [Applause.]

"Forever in the right, following the best impulses and clinging to high purposes, using properly and within right limits our power and opportunities, honorable reward must inevitably follow. The outcome cannot be in doubt. We could have avoided all the difficulties that lie across the pathway of the nation if a few months ago we had coldly ignored the piteous appeals of the starving and oppressed inhabitants of Cuba. If we had blinded ourselves to the conditions so near our shores, and turned a deaf ear to our suffering neighbors, the issue of

territorial expansion in the Antilles and the East Indies would not have been raised.

"But could we have justified such a course? [General cry of 'No!] Is there any one who would now declare another to have been the better course [Cries of 'No!'] With less humanity and less courage on our part, the Spanish flag, instead of the Stars and Stripes, would still be floating at Cavite, at Ponce, and at Santiago, and a chance in the race of life' would be wanting to millions of human beings who to-day call this nation noble, and who, I trust, will live to call it blessed.

"Thus far we have done our supreme duty. Shall we now, when the victory won in war is written in the treaty of peace, and the civilized world applauds and waits in expectation, turn timidly away from the duties imposed upon the country by its own great deeds? And when the mists fade away and we see with clear vision, may we not go forth rejoicing in a strength which has been employed solely for humanity and always tempered with justice and mercy, confident of our ability to meet the exigencies which await us, because confident that our course is one of duty and our cause that of right? [Prolonged applause.]

M'KINLEY ON AMERICAN WOMANHOOD.

In 1896 more than 600 women of Northern Ohio made an excursion to Canton to congratulate McKinley on his nomination for the Presidency. In response to their addresses of greeting Mr. McKinley gave utterance to the following words as showing his estimate of the place of woman in American life:

"There is no limitation to the influence that may be exerted by woman in the United States and no adequate tribute can be spoken of her services to mankind throughout its eventful history. In the distant period of its settlement, in the day of the revolution, in the trials of western pioneer life, during the more recent but dread days of our civil war and, indeed, in every step of our progress as a nation, the devotion and sacrifices of woman were constantly apparent and often conspicuous. She was everywhere appreciated and recognized, though God alone could place her service at its true value. The work of woman has been a power in every emergency and always for good. In calamity and distress she has been helpful and heroic. Not only have some of the brightest pages of our national history been illuminated by her splendid example and noble efforts for the public good, but her influence in the home, the church, the school and the community in moulding character for every profession and duty to which our race is called, has been potential and sublime. It is in the quiet and peaceful walks of life that her power is greatest and most beneficial. One of the tenderest passages.

to me in the works of John Stuart Mill beautifully expresses this thought. It is recorded in his autobiography when he paused to pay high and deserved tribute to his wife, of whom he could not speak too much. He says: 'She was not only the author of many of the best things I did, but she inspired every good thing I did.'

"One of the best things of our civilization in America is the constant advancement of woman to a higher plane of labor and responsibility. The opportunities for her are greater now than ever before. This is singularly true here, where practically every avenue of human endeavor is open to her. Her impress is felt in art, science, literature, song and in government. Our churches, our schools, our charities, our professions and our general business interests are more than ever each year directed by her. Respect for womankind has become with us a national characteristic; and what a high and manly trait it is-none nobler or holier. It stamps the true gentleman. The man who loves wife and mother and home will respect and reverence all womankind. He is always the better citizen for such gentle breeding.

"The home over which the trusted wife presides is the citadel of our strength, the best guaranty of good citizenship and sound morals in government. It is at the foundation-upon it all else is constructed. From the plain American home where virtue dwells and truth abides, go forth the men and women who make the great states and cities which adorn our republic, which maintain law and order, that citizenship which aims at the public welfare, the common good of all."

M'KINLEY'S ESTIMATE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

McKinley was the orator at the celebration in the Auditorium of Washington's birthday, held under the auspices of the Union League Club in 1894. He traced the life of Washington until he reached the period of the drafting of the constitution and its adoption. And this is how the Ohio man described it and told his opinion of it:

"It has been strong enough for every emergency; it has been broad enough for every want; it has answered for the most part every new condition; it has survived every crisis in our national life. It provides for such frequent elections that if popular error gains the ascendency the sober second thought of the citizens can, in part at least, correct the mistake through the great representatives body of the national congress; it insures frequent appeals to the popular will as an easy and safe remedy for existing wrongs and invests the people with perpetual power to change policies, laws and administrations whenever they find them men

acing to the liberties or welfare of the country. It commands more general and cheerful obedience, and it is much more venerated today than ever before. But strong as the constitution is, the greatest safety to the republic is in the love and loyalty which the people bear it, the unwavering affection which is ever ready to kindle the flame of patriotism on our country's altar. May our love never abate and our loyalty never weaken! When patriotism falters, respect for charters and laws is at an end. The downfall of the nation begins when hope and faith in our institiutions are gone."

M'KINLEY'S LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS AT THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION, BUFFALO, SEPTEMBER 5, 1901.

Viewed in the light of the tragic developments which followed it, the speech which President McKinley delivered upon the occasion of his last public appearance, at the Buffalo exposition takes on a singular impressiveness. To his countrymen at large, this definition of the nation's aspirations and its future mission among nations stands almost as the statement of William McKinley's legacy to his country. The speech is both a summary of the nation's recent achievements and a forecast of the duties and triumphs which are to come. In the years of expanding influence which are before the United States it is not unlikely that the leaders in the political life of the nation will find in this utterance the touch-stone by which to try issues of international policy.

It is significant of Mr. McKinley's breadth of view at the climax of his career that upon the most important items of his program both democrat and republican, northerner and southerner, will be in accord. Trade expansion, with the increase of beneficent power and influence. which attends it, he defined as the dominant principle of American politics in the immediate future; but his advocacy of this policy stands as something more than an argument for an expansion of material interests. It can never be forgotten by the republican party that the strongest and most impressive plea for freer trade relations and the increased activity of the United States in the exchanges of the world was made by the man who had most earnestly worked for a policy of exclusive home development, so long as he believed that policy to be necessary. And it is impossible that any one who followed the thread of the president's Buffalo speech should fail to see that in boldly outlining this new policy he was animated not less by a patriotic desire for the nation's welfare than by a confident belief in the great role which it is destined to play in making for the progress and enlightenment of the world.

Those who are to take up the work which he has laid down could