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can afford contemptuously to disregard them; but it must be remembered that their utterances are saved from being treasonable merely from the fact that they are despicable.

When once we have put down armed resistance, when once our rule is acknowledged, then an even more difficult task will begin; for then we must see to it that the islands are administered with absolute honesty and with good judgment. If we let the public service of the islands be turned into the prey of the spoils politician, we shall have begun to tread the path which Spain trod to her own destruction. We must send out there only good and able men, chosen for their fitness and not because of their partisan service, and these men must not only administer impartially justice to the natives and serve their own government with honesty and fidelity, but must show the utmost tact and firmness, remembering that with such people as those with whom we are to deal, weakness is the greatest of crimes, and that next to weakness comes lack of consideration for their principles and prejudices.

I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives, and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by and will win for themselves the domination of the world.

Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word, resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods.

Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified; for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.

SPEECH SECONDING THE NOMINATION OF MCKINLEY

M

DELIVERED AT PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 21, 1900

R. CHAIRMAN,-I rise to second the nomination of
William McKinley, the President who has had to

meet and solve problems more numerous and more important than any other President since the days of mighty Abraham Lincoln; the President under whose administration this country has attained a higher pitch of prosperity at home and honor abroad than ever before in its history. Four years ago the Republican party nominated William McKinley as its standard bearer in a political conflict of graver moment to the nation than any that had taken place since the close of the Civil War saw us once more a reunited country. The Republican party nominated him, but before the campaign was many days old he had become the candidate not only of all Republicans but of all Americans who were both far sighted enough to see where the true interests of the country lay and clear minded enough to be keenly sensitive to the taint of dishonor. President McKinley was triumphantly elected on certain distinct pledges, and those pledges have been made more than good. We were then in a condition of industrial paralysis. The capitalist was plunged in ruin and disaster; the wage-worker was on the edge of actual want;

the success of our opponents would have meant not only immense aggravation of the actual physical distress, but also a stain on the nation's honor so deep that more than one generation would have to pass before it would be effectually wiped out. We promised that if President McKinley were elected not only should the national honor be kept unstained at home and abroad, but that the mill and the workshop should open, the farmer have a market for his goods, the merchant for his wares, and that the wage-workers should prosper as never before.

We did not promise the impossible; we did not say that, by good legislation and good administration, there would come prosperity to all men. But we did say that each man should have a better chance to win prosperity than he had ever yet had. In the long run the thrift, industry, energy, and capacity of the individual must always remain the chief factors in his success. By unwise or dishonest legislation or administration on the part of the national authorities all these qualities in the individual can be nullified, but wise legislation and upright administration will give them free scope. And it was this free scope that we promised should be given.

Well, we kept our word. The opportunity has been given, and it has been seized by American energy, thrift, and business enterprise. As a result we have prospered as never before, and we are now prospering to a degree that would have seemed incredible four years ago, when the cloud of menace to our industrial wellbeing hung black above the land.

So it has been in foreign affairs. Four years ago the nation was uneasy because right at our doors an American island lay writhing in awful agony under the curse of worse than medieval tyranny and misrule. We had our Armenia

at our very doors, for the situation in Cuba had grown intolerable, and such that this nation could no longer refrain from interference and retain its own self-respect. President McKinley turned to this duty as he had turned to others. He sought by every effort possible to provide for Spain's withdrawal from the island which she was impotent longer to do aught than oppress. Then, when pacific means had failed and there remained the only alternative, we waged the most righteous and brilliantly successful foreign war that any country has waged during the lifetime of the present generation. It was not a great war, simply because it was won too quickly, but it was momentous indeed in its effects. It left us, as all great feats must leave those who perform them, an inheri tance both of honor and of responsibility, and under the lead of President McKinley the nation has taken up the task of securing orderly liberty and the reign of justice and law in the islands from which we drove the tyranny of Spain, with the same serious realization of duty and sincere purpose to perform it that have marked the national attitude in dealing with the economic and financial difficulties that face us at home.

This is what the nation has done in the three years that have elapsed since we made McKinley President, and all this is what he typifies and stands for. We here nominate him again, and in November next we shall elect him again, because it has been given to him to personify the cause of honor abroad and prosperity at home; of wise legislation and straightforward administration. We all know the old adage about swapping horses while crossing a stream, and the still older adage about letting well enough alone. To change from President McKinley now would not be merely to swap horses, it would be to jump off the horse that had carried us

across and wade back into the torrent; and to put him for four years more into the White House means not merely to let well enough alone, but to insist that when we are thriving as never before we shall not be plunged back into the abyss of shame and panic and disaster.

We have done so well that our opponents actually use this very fact as an appeal for turning us out. We have put the tariff on a foundation so secure, we have passed such wise. laws on finance that they actually appeal to the patriotic, honest men who deserted them at the last election to help them now because, forsooth, we have done so well that nobody need fear their capacity to undo our work. I am not exaggerating. This is literally the argument that is now addressed to the Gold Democrats as a reason why they need no longer stand by the Republican party. To all such who may be inclined to listen to these arguments I would address an emphatic word of warning.

Remember that, admirable though our legislation has been during the last three years, it has been rendered possible and effective only because there was good administration to back it. Wise laws are invaluable, but, after all, they are not as necessary as wise and honest administration of the laws. The best law ever made, if administered by those who are hostile to it and who mean to break it down, cannot be wholly effective, and may be wholly ineffective. We have at last put our financial legislation on a sound basis, but no possible financial legislation can save us from fearful and disastrous panic if we trust our finances to the management of any man who would be acceptable to the leaders and guides of the Democracy in its present spirit. No Secretary of the Treasury who would be acceptable to or who could without loss of self-respect serve under the Populistic Democracy

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