Gov. McKinley replied as follows:

"Senator Thurston and Gentleman of the Notification Committee of the Republican National Convention-To be selected as their presidential candidate by a great party convention representing so vast a number of the people of the United States is a most distinguished honor, for which I would not conceal my high appreciation, although deeply sensible of the great responsibilities of the trust and my inability to bear them without the generous and constant support of my fellow countrymen. Great as is the honor conferred, equally arduous and important is the duty imposed, and in accepting the one I assume the other, relying upon the patriotic devotion of the people to the best interests of our beloved country and the sustaining care and aid of Him without whose support all we do is empty and vain.

"Should the people ratify the choice of the great convention for which you speak, my only aim will be to promote the public good, which in America is always the good of the greatest number, the honor of our country and the welfare of the people.

"The questions to be settled in the national contest this year are as serious and important as any of the great governmental problems that have confronted us in the last quarter of a century. They command our sober judgment and a settlement free from partisan prejudice and passion, beneficial to ourselves and befitting the honor and grandeur of the republic. They touch every interest of our common country. Our industrial supremacy, our productive capacity, our business and commercial prosperity, our labor and its rewards, our national credit and currency, our proud financial honor and our splendid free citizenship, the birthright of every American, are all involved in the pending campaign, and thus every home in the land is directly and intimately connected with their proper settlement.

"Great are the issues involved in the coming election, and eager and earnest are the people for their right determination. Our domestic trade must be won back and our idle working people employed in gainful occupations at American wages. Our home market must be restored to its proud rank of first in the world, and our foreign trade, so precipitately cut off by adverse national legislation, reopened on fair and equitable terms for our surplus agricultural and manufacturing products.

"Protection and reciprocity, twin measures of a true American policy, should again command the earnest encouragement of the government at Washington. Public confidence must be resumed and the skill the energy and the capital of our country find ample employment at home, sustained,

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encouraged and defended against the unequal competition and serious disadvantages with which they are now contending. The government of the United States must raise money enough to meet both its current expenses and increasing needs. revenues should be so raised as to protect the material interests of our people, with the lightest possible drain upon their resources, and maintaining that high standard of civilization which has distinguished our country for more than a century of its existence.

"The income of the government, I repeat, should equal its necessary and proper expenditures. A failure to pursue this policy has compelled the government to borrow money in a time of peace to sustain its credit and pay its daily expenses. This policy should be reversed, and that, too, as speedily as possible. It must be apparent to all, regardless of past party ties or affiliations, that our paramount duty is to provide adequate revenue for the expenditures of the government, economically and prudently administered. This the Republican party has heretofore done, and this I confidently believe it will do in the future, when the party is again intrusted with power in the executive and legislative

branches of our government.

"The national credit, which has thus far fortunately resisted every assault upon it, must and will be upheld and strengthened. If sufficient revenues are provided for the support of the government there will be no necessity for borrowing money and increasing the public debt.

"The complaint of the people is not against the administration for borrowing money and issuing bonds to preserve the credit of the country, but against the ruinous policy which has made this necessary, owing to the policy which has been inaugurated.

"The inevitable effect of such a policy is seen in the deficiency in the United States treasury, except as it is replenished by loans, and in the distress of the people who are suffering because of the scant demand for either their labor or the products of their labor. Here is the fundamental trouble, the remedy for which is Republican opportunity and duty.

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"During all the years of Republican control following resumption, there was steady reduction of the public debt, while the gold reserve was sacredly maintained, and our currency and credit preserved without depreciation, taint or suspicion. If we would restore this policy that brought us unexampled prosperity for more than thirty years under the most trying conditions ever known in this country, the policy by which we made and bought more goods at home and sold more abroad, the trade balance would be quickly turned in

our favor, and gold would come to us and not go from us in the settlement of all such balances in the future.

"The party that supplied, by legislation, the vast revenues for the conduct of our greatest war, that promptly restored the close, that credit of the country at its from its abundant revenues paid off a large share of the debt incurred in this war, and that resumed specie payments, and placed our paper currency upon a sound and enduring basis, can be safely trusted to preserve both our credit and currency with honor, stability and inviolability. The American people hold the financial honor of our government as sacred as our flag, and can be relied upon to guard it with the same sleepless vigilance. They hold its preservation above party fealty, and have often demonstrated that party ties avail nothing when the spotless credit of our country is threatened.

"The money of the United States, and every kind or form of it, whether of paper, silver or gold, must be as good as the best in the world. It must not only be current at its full face value at home, but it must be counted at par in any and every commercial center of the globe. The sagacious and far seeing policy of the great men who founded our government, the teachings and acts of the wisest financiers at every stage in our history, the steadfast faith and splendid achievements of the great party to which we belong and the genius and integrity of our people have always demanded this and will ever maintain it. The dollar paid to the farmer, the wage earner and the pensioner must continue forever equal in purchasing and debt paying power to the dollar paid to any government creditor.

"The contest this year will not be waged upon lines of theory and speculation, but in the light of severe practical experience and new and dearly acquired knowledge. The great body of our citizens know what they want and that they intend to have. They know for what the Republican party stands and what its return to power means to them. They realize that the Republican party believes that our work should be done at home and not abroad, and everywhere proclaim their devotion to the principles of a protective tariff, which, while

supplying adequate revenues for the government, will restore American production and serve the best interests of American labor and development. Our appeal, therefore, is not to a false philosophy or vain theorists, but to the masses of the American people, the plain, practical people whom Lincoln loved and trusted and whom the Republican party has always faithfully striven to serve.

"The platform adopted by the Republican national convention has received my careful consideration and has my unqualified approval. It is a matter of gratification to me, as I am sure it must be to you and Republicans everywhere and to all our people, that the expressions of its declaration of principles are so direct, clear and emphatic. They are too plain and positive to leave any chance for doubt or question as to their purport and meaning. But you will not expect me to discuss its provisions at length or in any detail at this time. It will, however, be my duty and pleasure at some future day to make to you, and through you to the great party you represent, a more formal acceptance of the nomination tendered me.

"No one could be more profoundly grateful than I for the manifestation of public confidence of which you have so eloquently spoken. It shall be my aim to attest this appreciation by an unsparing devotion to what I esteem the best interests of the people, and in this work I ask the counsel and support of you, gentlemen, and of every other friend of the country. The generous expressions with which you, sir, convey the official notice of my nomination are highly appreciated and as fully reciprocated, and I thank you and your associates of the notification committee and the great party and convention at whose instance you come for the high and exceptional distinction bestowed upon me."

PRESENTED WITH A GAVEL.

At the conclusion of his speech of acceptance Major McKinley was presented with a gavel. Like all gavels, it had a history. It was used by Chairman Thurston as presiding officer of the St. Louis convention. It was made from a log taken from the cabin in New Salem, Ill., in which Abraham Lincoln lived in 1832.

"Mr. Hobart: The Republican national recently assembled at convention, St. Louis, commissioned us to formally notify you of your nomination for the office of We vice president of the United States. are met, pursuant to the direction of the convention, to perform the agreeable duty assigned us.

"In all the splendid history of the great party which holds our loyal allegiance the necessity was never more urgent for steadfast adherence to those wholesome principles which have been the sure foundation rock of our national prosperity. The demand was never greater for men who hold principles above all else, and who are unmoved, either by the clamor of the hour or the promises of false teachers.

"The convention at St. Louis, in full measure, met the high demands of the times in its declarations of party principles and in the nomination of candidates for president and vice-president.

"Sir, the office for which you are nominated is of rare dignity, honor, and power. It has been graced by the most eminent statesmen who have contributed to the upbuilding of the strength and glory of the republic.

"Because of your exalted personal character and of your intelligent and patriotic devotion to the enduring principles of a protective tariff, which wisely discriminates in favor of American interests, and to a currency whose soundness and integrity none can challenge, and because of your conspicuous fitness for the exacting and important duties of the high office, the Republican National convention, with a unanimity and enthusiasm rarely witnessed. chose you as our candidate for vice-president of the United States.

"We know it to be gratifying to you personally to be the associate of William Mc

Kinley in the pending contest. For you and your distinguished associate we bespeak the enthusiastic and intelligent support of all our countrymen who desire that prosperity shall again rule throughout the republic." At the conclusion of Mr. Fairbanks' speech Mr. Hobart replied as follows:

"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: I beg to extend to you my grateful acknowledgments for the kind and flattering terms in which you convey the formal announcement of my nomination for vicepresident of the United States by the Republican national convention at St. Louis. I am profoundly sensible of the honor which has been done me and through me the state in which all my life has been spent, in my selection as a candidate for this high office. I appreciate it the more because it associates me in a contest which involves the very gravest issues with one who represents in his private character and public career the highest intelligence and best spirit of his party, and with whom my personal relations are such as to afford a guarantee of perfect accord in the work of the campaign which is before us.

"It is sufficient for me to say at this time that, concurring in all the declarations of principle and policy embodied in the St. Louis platform, I accept the nomination tendered to me with a full appreciation of its responsibilities and with an honest purpose, in the event that the people shall ratify the choices made by the national convention, to discharge any duties which may devolve upon me with sole reference to the public good.

"Let me add that it will be my earnest effort in the coming campaign to contribute in every way possible to the success of the party which we represent and which on the important issues of the time stands for the

best interests of the people. Uncertainty or instability as to the money question involves most serious consequences to every interest and to every citizen of the country. The gravity of this question cannot be overestimated. There can be no financial security, no business stability, no real prosperity where the policy of the government as to that question is at all a matter of doubt.

"Gold is the one standard of value among all enlightened commercial nations. All financial transactions, of whatever character. all business enterprise, all individual or corporate investments are adjusted to it. An honest dollar, worth 100 cents everywhere, cannot be coined out of 53 cents' worth of silver plus a legislative fiat. Such a debasement of our currency would inevitably produce incalculable loss, appalling disaster and national dishonor. It is a fundamental principle in coinage, recognized and followed by all the statesmen of America in the past, and never yet safely departed from, that there can be only one basis upon which gold and silver may be concurrently coined as money, and that basis is equality, not in weight, but in the commercial value of the metal contained in the respective coins. This commercial value is fixed by the markets of the world, with which the great interests of our country are necessarily connected by innumerable business ties which cannot be severed or self-reliant ignored. Great and as our

country is, it is great not alone within its own borders and upon its own resources, but because it also reaches out to the ends of the earth in all manifold departments of business, exchange and commerce, and must maintain with honor its standing and credit among the nations of the earth.

"The question admits of no compromise. It is a vital principle at stake, but it is in no sense partisan or sectional. It concerns all people. Ours, as one of the foremost nations, must have a monetary standard equal to the best. It is of vital consequence that this question should be settled now in such a way as to restore public confidence here and everywhere in the integrity of our purpose. A doubt of that integrity among the other great commercial countries of the world will not only cost us millions of money, but that which,

as patriots, we should treasure still more highly-our industrial and commercial supremacy.

"My estimate of the value of a protective policy has been formed by the study of the object lessons of a great industrial state, extending over a period of thirty years. It is that protection not only builds up important industries from small beginnings, but that those and all other industries flourish or languish in proportion as protection is maintained or withdrawn. I have seen it indisputably proved that the prosperity of the farmer, merchant and all other classes of citizens goes hand in hand with that of the manufacturer and mechanic. I am firmly persuaded that what we need most of all to remove the business paralysis that affiicts this country is the restoration of a policy which, while affording ample revenue to meet the expenses of the government, will reopen American workshops on full time and full handed, with their operatives paid good wages in honest dollars, and this can only come under a tariff which will hold the interests of our own people paramount in our political and commercial systems.

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"The opposite policy, which discourages American enterprises, reduces American labor to idleness, diminishes the earnings of American workingmen, opens our markets to commodities from abroad which we should produce at home, while closing foreign markets against our products, which, at the same time, steadily augments the public debt, increasing the public burdens, while diminishing the ability of the people to meet them is a policy which must find its chief popularity elsewhere than among American citizens.

"I shall take an early opportunity, gentlemen of the committee, through you to communicate to my fellow-citizens with somewhat more of detail my views concerning the dominant questions of the hour and the crisis which confronts us as a nation.

"With this brief expression of my appreciation of the distinguished honor that has been bestowed upon me, and this signification of my acceptance of the trust to which I have been summoned, I place myself at the service of the Republican party and of the country."

CANTON, Ohio, Aug. 26, 1896.

Hon. John M. Thurston and Others, Members of the Notification Committee of the Republican National Convention-Gentlemen-In pursuance of the promise made to your committee when notified of my nomination as the Republican candidate for president, I beg to submit this formal acceptance of that high honor, and to consider in detail questions at issue in the pending campaign.

Perhaps this might be considered unnecessary in view of my remarks on that occasion and those I have made to delegations that have visited me since the St. Louis convention, but in view of the momentous importance of the proper settlement of the issues presented on our future prosperity and standing as a nation, and considering only the welfare and happiness of our people, I could not be content to omit again calling attention to the questions which, in my opinion, vitally affect our strength and position among the governments of the world, and our morality, integrity and patriotism as citizens of that republic which for a century past has been the best hope of the world and the inspiration of mankind.

We must not now prove false to our own high standards in government, nor unmindful of the noble example and wise precepts of the fathers, or of the confidence and trust which our conduct in the past has always inspired.

For the first time since 1868, if ever before, there is presented to the American people this year a clear and direct issue as to our monetary system, of vast importance in its effects, and upon the right settlement of which rests largely the financial honor and prosperity of the country.

It is proposed by one wing of the Democratic party and its allies, the People's and silver parties, to inaugurate the free and unlimited coinage of silver by independent action on the part of the United States at a ration of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce

of gold. The mere declaration of this purpose is a menace to our financial and industrial interests, and has already created universal alarm. It involves great peril to the credit and business of the country a peril so grave that conservative men everywhere are breaking away from their old party association and uniting with other patriotic citizens in emphatic protest against the platform of the Democratic national convention as an assault upon the faith and honor of the government and the welfare of the people.

We have had few questions in the lifetime of the republic more serious than the one which is thus presented.

The character of the money which shall measure our values and exchanges and settle our balances with one another and with the nations of the world is of such primary importance and so far-reaching in its consequences as to call for the most painstaking investigation, and in the end a sober and unprejudiced judgment at the polls. We must not be misled by phrases nor deluded by false theories.

Free silver would not mean that silver dollars were to be freely had without cost or labor. It would mean the free use of the mints of the United States for the few who are owners of silver bullion, but would make silver coin no freer to the many who are engaged in other enterprises. It would not make labor easier, the hours of labor shorter or the pay better. It would not make farming less laborious or more profitable. It would not start a factory or make a demand for an additional day's labor. It would create no new occupations. It would add nothing to the comfort of the masses, the capital of the people or the wealth of the nation.

It seeks to introduce a new measure of value, but would add no value to the thing measured. It would not conserve values. On the contray, it would derange all existing values. It would not restore business