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Who is opposed to the nomination of William McKinley? We do not question the sincerity or patriotism of the followers of other great party leaders, but there may be some whose local pride in local candidates blinds them to the overwhelming demand of the republican masses; there may be some whose desire makes them indifferent to the welfare of the people; there may be some whose lust for patronage is greater than their love of country.

Let all such take heed. Politicians have defeated the popular will in more than one national convention, but this time the tide is too strong, the demand too great, the enthusiasm too spontaneous to be ignored.

William McKinley has not a personal enemy in the United States. Every man who served with him in all his congressional life grew not only to respect and honor him for his private and public worth, for his sincere convictions and his courageous, consistent and patriotic course, but each and all held for him a measure of affection greater than the love of friends. No man has ever been called upon to apologize for anything he ever did, for any word he ever spoke. His record is as white and clean as the driven snow. The sincerity of his convictions has never been questioned even by political foes, and the courage and eloquence with which he has advocated and maintained them have won for him the admiration of all mankind.

He has addressed the people in every section of the country, and his words have carried greater conviction and secured more converts to republican principles than those of any other living man. His public experience and service have been rounded; his character strengthened and seasoned; his executive ability demonstrated; his fitness for power more clearly shown by his administration of the great state of Ohio. And today, in the prime of life, in the full vigor of health and strength, he stands foremost among the distinguished leaders and statesmen of his time; pre-eminent in all the qualities that make a man; equipped with every weapon of experience and statecraft; a gigantic figure in American politics; the man' toward whom the people instinctively turn to lead them from the wilderness back into the promised land.

He will be nominated and elected; yea, it is written in the stars! And what a grand, patriotic, overwhelming chorus of rejoicing will greet him as he inaugurates a new American administration. Every ponderous waterwheel, weakened by the rush and roar of captive waters; every glad spindle, whirling to the impulse of restored activity; every shrill whistle calling impatient millions once again to labor, will thunder and sing and scream for joy, for the beneficent bow of a regained prosperity will span the American heavens when William McKinley is President of the United States.

We cannot more fittingly close this volume than by giving the above eloquent speech of Senator Thurston in seconding the nomination of William McKinley for the presidency in 1896. It contains a glowing prophecy which met a magnificent fulfillment.

"The beneficent bow of a regained prosperity" did indeed "span the American heavens" when Mr. McKinley was elected to the highest office the people could confer upon him. And though he has gone, at the end of his arduous and beneficent life to the reward of the righteous in the upper and eternal kingdom of God, the radiant bow of promise still arches in splendor over the American nation.

The good work of unity, reciprocity and good will so auspiciously inaugurated by our "well beloved" martyred President will be grandly carried forward as the years roll on. We need have no pessimistic fears regarding the future of our own America. Anarchy is but a passing evil incident in our progressive march into history. The funeral of William McKinley, unprecedented in the annals of mankind, did not mean the burial of the republic.

Above the undertone of the sorrowful strains that burst from millions of American lips, when we laid our honored dead to rest, was the exultant overtone of the heaven-inspired song of that youthful continental chaplain, in the darkest days of the Revolution, who wrote:

"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies."

There is no consumption in Columbia's blood; there is no fever in her veins; there is no paralysis in her limbs; there is no organic disease in her heart. The strength of the everlasting hills is in her glorious frame; the beauty of her flashing lakes and rivers and seas is in her tear-stained face; the light of benignity is in her beaming eyes, though the gleaming sword of justice against anarchy is in her uplifted hand; a sweep oceanic is in her expanding thought. To "hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world" is her divinely appointed mission. She is indeed the child of the skies. She shall not fail nor be discouraged in her sublime work. "No weapon that is formed against her shall prosper, for heaven will never abandon the offspring of its love.

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