Confidence in home enterprises has almost wholly disappeared. Our shops are closed, or running on half time at reduced wages and small profit if not actual loss. Our men at home are idle, and while they are idle the men abroad are occupied in supplying us with goods.

Our unrivaled home market for the farmer has also greatly suffered because those who constitute it-the great army of American wage-earners-are without the work and wages they formerly had. If they cannot earn wages they cannot buy products. They cannot earn if they have no employment, and when they do not earn the farmer's home market is lessened and impaired, and the loss is felt by both producer and consumer.

The loss of earning power alone in this country in the past three years is sufficient to have produced our unfortunate business situation. If our labor was well employed, and employed at as remunerative wages as in 1892, in a few months every farmer in the land would feel the glad change in the increased demand for his products and in the better prices which he would receive.

It is not an increase in the volume of money which is the need of the time, but an increase in the volume of business. Not an increase of coin, but an increase of confidence. Not more coinage, but a more active use of the money coined. Not open mints for the unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, but open mills for the full and unrestricted labor of American workingmen.

The employment of our mints for the coinage of the silver of the world would not bring the necessaries and comforts of life back to our people. This will only come/ with the employment of the masses, and"

Our farmers have been hurt by the changes in our tariff legislation as severely as our laborers and manufacturers.

The Republican platform wisely declares in favor of such encouragement to our sugar interests "as will lead to the production on American soil of all the sugar which the American people use."

It promises to our wool and woolen interests "the most ample protection," a guaranty that ought to commend itself to every patriotic citizen. Never was a more grievous wrong done the farmers of our country than that SO unjustly inflicted during the past three years upon the wool growers of America. Although among our most industrious and useful citizens, their interests have been practically destroyed, and our woolen manufacturers involved in similar disaster. At no time within the past thirty-six years, and perhaps never during any previous period, have so many of our woolen factories been suspended as now.

The Republican party can be relied upon to correct these great wrongs if again intrusted with the control of the congress.

Another declaration of the Republican platform that has my most cordial support is that which favors reciprocity. The splendid results of the reciprocity arrangements that were made under authority of the tariff law of 1890 are striking and suggestive. The brief period they were in force, in most cases only three years, was not long enough to thoroughly test their great value, but sufficient was shown by the trial to conclusively demonstrate the importance and wisdom of their adoption. In 1892 the export trade of the United States attained the highest point in our history. The aggregate of our exports that year reached the immense sum of $1,030,278,148, a sum greater by $100,000,000 than the ex

establishment of a wise protective policy which shall encourage manufacturing at

home.

Protection has lost none of its virtue and importance. The first duty of the Republican party, if restored to power in the country, will be the enactment of a tariff law which will raise all the money necessary to conduct the government, economically and honestly administered, and so adjusted as to give preference to home manufactures and adequate protection to home labor and the home market.

We are not committed to any special schedule or rates of duty. They are and always should be subject to change to meet new conditions, but the principle upon which rates of duty are imposed remains the same Our duties should always be high enough to measure the difference between the wages paid labor at home and in competing countries and to adequately protect American investments and American enterprises.

to the threat of unfriendly tariff legislation, the total dropped to $847,665,194. Our exports of domestic merchandise decreased $189,000,000, but reciprocity still secured us a large trade in Central and South America, and a larger trade with the West Indies than we had ever before enjoyed. The increase of trade with the countries with which we had reciprocity agreements was $3,560,515 over our trade in 1892. and $16,440,721 over our trade in 1891.

The only countries with which the United States traded that showed increased exports in 1893 were practically those with which we had reciprocity arrangements. The reciprocity treaty between this country and Spain, touching the markets of Cuba and Porto Rica, was announced Sept. 1. 1891. The growth of our trade with Cuba was phenomenal. In 1891 we sold that country but 114,441 barrels of flour; in 1892. 366,175, in 1893, 616,406, and in 1894, 662,248. Here was a growth of nearly 500 per cent, while our exportations of flour to Cuba for the year ending June 30, 1895, the

year following the repeal of the reciprocity treaty, fell to 379,856 barrels, a loss of nearly half our trade with that country. The value of our total exports of merchandise from the United States to Cuba, in 1891the year prior to the negotiation of the reciprocity treaty-was $12,224,888; in 1892, $17,953,579; in 1893, $24,157,698; in 1894, $20,125,321, but in 1895, after the annulment of the reciprocity agreement, it fell to only $12,887,661.

Many similar examples might be given of our increased trade under reciprocity with other countries, but enough has been shown of the efficiency of the legislation of 1890 to justify the speedy restoration of its reciprocity provisions. In my judgment, congress should immediately restore the reciprocity section of the old law, with such amendments, if any, as time and experience sanction as wise and proper.

The underlying principle of this legislation must, however, be strictly observed. It is to afford new markets for our surplus agricultural and manufactured products without loss to the American laborer of a single day's work that he might otherwise pro

cure.

The declaration of the platform touching foreign immigration is one of peculiar importance at this time, when our own laboring people are in such great distress.

I am in hearty sympathy with the present legislation restraining foreign immigration, and favor such extension of the laws as will secure the United States from invasion by the debased and criminal classes of the old world. While we adhere to the public policy under which our country has received great bodies of honest, industrious citizens, who have added to the wealth, progress and power of the country, and while we welcome to our shores the well-disposed and industrious immigrant, who contributes by his energy and intelligence to the cause of free government, we want no immigrants who do not seek our shores to become citizens.

We should permit none to participate in the advantages of our civilization who do not sympathize with our aims and form of government. We should receive none who come to make war upon our institutions and profit by public disquiet and turmoil. Against all such our gates must be tightly closed.

The soldiers and sailors of the Union should neither be neglected nor forgotten. The government which they served so well must not make their lives or condition harder by treating them as suppliants for relief in old age or distress, nor regard with disdain or contempt the earnest interest one comrade naturally manifests in welfare of another.

the

Doubtless there have been pension abuses and frauds in the numerous claims allowed by the government, but the policy governing the administration of the pension

bureau must always be fair and liberal. No deservnig applicant should ever suffer because of a wrong perpetrated by or for another.

Our soldiers and sailors gave the government the best they had. They freely offered health, strength, limb and life to save the country in the time of its greatest peril, and the government must honor them in their need, as in their service, with the respect and gratitude due the brave, noble, and self sacrificing men who are justly entitled to generous aid in their increasing necessities.

The declaration of the Republican, platform in favor of the upbuilding of our merchant marine has my hearty approval. The policy of discriminating duties in favor of our shipping which prevailed in the early years of our history should be again promptly adopted by congress and vigorously supported until our prestige and supremacy on the seas are fully attained. We should no longer contribute directly or indirectly to the maintenance of the colossal marine of foreign countries, but provide an efficient and complete marine of our own.

Now that the American navy is assuming a position commensurate with our importance as a nation, a policy I am glad to observe the Republican platform strongly indorses, we must supplement it with a merchant marine that will give us the advantages in both our coastwise and foreign trade that we ought naturally and properly to enjoy. It should be at once a matter of public policy and national pride to repossess this immense and prosperous trade.

The pledge of the Republican national convention that our civil service laws "shall be sustained and thoroughly and honestly enforced, and extended wherever practicable," is in keeping with the position of the party for the past 24 years, and will be faithfully observed.

Our opponents decry these reforms. They appear willing to abandon all the advantages gained, after so many years' agitation and effort. They encourage a return to methods of party favoritism, which both parties have often denounced, that experience has condemned, and that the people have repeatedly disapproved.

The Republican party earnestly opposes this reactionary and entirely unjustifiable policy. It will take no backward step upon this question. It will seek to improve but never degrade the public service.

There are other important and timely declarations in the platform which I cannot here discuss. I must content myself with saying that they have my approval.

If, as Republicans, we have lately addressed our attention, with what may seem great stress and earnestness, to the new and unexpected assault upon the financial L integrity of the government, we have done it because the menace is so grave as to de

mand especial consideration, and because we are convinced that if the people are aroused to the true understanding and meaning of this silver and inflation movement they will avert the danger. In doing this we feel that we render the best service possbile to the country, and we appeal to the intelligence, conscience and patriotism of the people, irrespective of party or section, for their earnest support.

We avoid no issues. We meet the sudden, dangerous and revolutionary assault upon law and order, and upon those to whom is confided by the constitution and laws the authority to uphold and maintain them, which our opponents have made, with the same courage that we have faced every emergency since our organization as a party, more than forty years ago. Government by law must first be assured; everything else can wait.

The spirit of lawlessness must be extinguished by the fires of an unselfish and lofty patriotism. Every attack upon the public faith, and every suggestion of the repudiation of debts, public or private, must be rebuked by all men who believe that honesty is the best policy, or who love their country and would preserve unsullied its national honor.

The country is to be congratulated upon the almost total obliteration of the sectional lines which for many years marked the division of the United States into slave and free territory, and finally threatened its partition into two separate governments by the dread ordeal of civil war. The era of reconciliation, so long and earnestly desired by General Grant and many other great leaders, north and south, has happily come, and the feeling of distrust and hostility between the sections is everywhere vanishing, let us hope never to reNothing is better calculated to give strength to the nation at home, increase our power and influence abroad, and add to the

permanency and security of our free institutions than the restoration of cordial relations between the people of all sections and parts of our beloved country. If called by the suffrages of the people to assume the duties of the high office of president_of the United States, I shall count it a prívilege to aid, even in the slightest degree, in the promotion of the spirit of fraternal regard which should animate and govern the citizens of every section, state or part of the republic.

After the lapse of a century since its utterance, let us at length and forever hereafter heed the admonition of Washington: "There should be no north, no south, no east, no west, but a common country." It shall be my constant aim to improve every opportunity to advance the cause of good government by promoting that spirit of forbearance and justice which is so essential to our prosperity and happiness by joining most heartily in all proper efforts to restore the relations of brotherly respect and affection which in our early history characterized all the people of all the states. I would be glad to contribute towards binding in indivisible union the different divisions of the country, which indeed now "have every inducement of sympathy and interest" to weld them together more strongly than

ever.

I would rejoice to see demonstrated to the world that the north and the south and the east and the west are not separated, or in danger of becoming separated, because of sectional or party differences. The war is long since over; "we are not enemies but friends," and as friends we will faithfully and cordially co-operate, under the approving smile of Him who has thus far so signally sustained and guided us, to preserve inviolate our country's name and honor, its peace and good order, and its continued ascendency among the greatest governments on earth. WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

Paterson, N. J., Sept. 9, 1896.-Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks and others of the notification committee of the Republican national convention. Gentlemen: I have already, in accepting the nomination for the office of the vice-presidency tendered me by the national Republictn convention, expressed my approval of the platform adopted by that body as the party basis of doctrine. In accordance with accepted usage I beg now to supplement that brief statement of my views by some additional reflections upon the questions which are in debate before the American people.

The platform declarations in reference to the money question express clearly and unmistakably the attitude of the Republican party as to this supremely important subject. We stand unqualifiedly honesty in finance and the permanent adjustment of our monetary system, in the multifarious activities of trade and commerce, to the existing gold standard of value. We hold that every dollar of currency issued by the United States, whether of gold, silver or paper, must be worth a dollar in gold, whether in the pocket of the man who toils for his daily bread, in the vault of the savings-bank which holds his deposits, or in the exchanges of the world.

The money standard of a great nation should be as fixed and permanent as the nation itself. To secure and retain the best should be the desire of every right-minded citizen. Resting on stable foundations, continuous and unvarying certainty of value should be its distinguishing characteristic. The experience of all history confirms the truth that every coin made under any law, howsoever that coin may be stamped, will finally command in the markets of the world the exact value of the materials which compose it. The dollar of our country, whether of gold or silver, should be of the full value of one hundred cents, and by so much as any dollar is worth less than this in the market, by precisely that sum will some one be defrauded.

The necessity of a certain and fixed money value between nations as well as individuals has grown out of the interchange of commodities, the trade and business rela

tionships which have arisen among the peoples of the world, with the enlargement of human wants and the broadening of human interests. This necessity has made gold the final standard of all enlightened nations. Other metals, including silver, have a recognized commercial value, and silver especially has a value of great importance for subsidiary coinage. In view of a sedulous effort by the advocates of free coinage to create a contrary impression, it cannot be too strongly emphasized that the Republican party in its platform affirms this value in silver, and favors the largest possible use of this metal as actual money that can be maintained with safety. Not only this, it will not antagonize, but will gladly assist in promoting a double standard whenever it can be secured by agreement and co-operation among the nations. The bimetallic currency, involving the free use of silver, which we now have, is cordially approved by Republicans. But a standard and a currency are vastly different things.

If we are to continue to hold our place among the great commercial nations, we must cease juggling with this question and make our honesty of purpose clear to the world. No room should be left for misconception as to the meaning of the language used in the bonds of the government not yet matured. It should not be possible for any party or individual to raise a question as to the purpose of the country to pay all its obligations in the best form of money recognized by the commercial world. Any nation which is worthy of credit or confidence can afford to say explicitly on a question so vital to every interest what it means, when such meaning is challenged or doubted. It is desirable that we should make it known at once and authoritatively that an "honest dollar" means any dollar equivalent to a gold dollar of the present standard of weight and fineness. The world should likewise be assured that the standard dollar of America is as inflexible a quantity as the French Napoleon, the British sovereign or the German 20-mark piece.

The free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 is a policy which no nation has

ever before proposed, and it is not today permitted in any mint in the world-not even in Mexico. It is proposed to make the coinage unlimited, at an absolutely fictitious ratio fixed with no reference to intrinsic value or pledge of ultimate redemption. With silver at its present price of less than 70 cents per ounce in the market, such a policy means an immediate profit to the seller of silver, for which there is no return now or hereafter to the people or the government. It means that for each dollar's worth of silver bullion delivered at the mint, practically $2 of stamped coin will be given in exchange. For $100 worth of bullion nearly two hundred silver dollars will be delivered.

Let it also be remembered that the consequences of such an act would probably be cumulative in their effects. The crop of silver, unlike that of hay, or wheat, or corn-which, being of yearly production, can be regulated by the law of demand and supply-is fixed once for all. The silver which has not yet been gathered is all in the ground. Dearth or other accident of the elements cannot augment or diminish it. Is it not more than probable that with, the enormous premium offered for its mining, the cupidity of man would make an over-supply continuous, with the necessary result of a steady depreciation as long as the silver dollar could be kept in circulation at all? Under the laws of finance which are as fixed as those of any other science, the inevitable result would finally be a currency all and absolutely fiat. There is no difference in principal between the dollar half fiat and one all fiat. The latter, as the cheapest, under the logic of "cheap money," would surely drive the other out. Any attempt on the part of the government to create by its fiat money of a fictitious value would dishonor us in the eyes of other peoples and bring infinite reproach upon the national character. The business and financial consequences of such an immoral act would be worldwide, because our commercial relations are worldwide. All our settlements with other lands must be made, not with the money which may be legally current in our own country, but in gold, the standard of all nations with which our relations are most cordial and extensive, and no legislative enactment can free us from that inevitable necessity. It is a known fact that more than 80 per cent of the commerce of the world is settled in gold or on a gold basis.

Such free coinage legislation, if ever consummated, would discriminate against every producer of wheat, cotton, corn or rye who should in justice be equally en titled, with the silver owner, to sell his products to the United States treasury, at a profit fixed by the government-and against all producers of iron, steel, zinc or copper, who might properly claim to have their metals made into current coin

It would, as well, be a fraud upon all persons forced to accept a currency thus stimulated and at the same time degraded.

In every aspect the proposed policy is partial and one-sided, because it is only when a profit can be made by a mine owner or dealer that he takes his silver to the mint for coinage. The government is always at the losing end. Stamp such fictitious value upon silver ore and a dishonest and unjust discrimination will be made against every other form of industry. When silver bullion worth a little more than 50 cents is made into a legal-tender dollar, driving out one having a purchasing and debt-paying power of 100 cents, it will clearly be done at the expense and injury of every class of the community.

Those who contend for the free and unlimited coinage of silver may believe in all honesty that while the present ratio of silver to gold is as 30 to 1 (not 16 to 1), silver will rise above the existing market value. If it does so rise the effect will be to make the loss to all the people so much less, but such an opinion is but a hazardous conjecture at best, and is not justified by experience. Within the last 20 years this government has bought about 460,000,000 of ounces of silver, from which it has coined approximately 430,000,000 of silver dollars and issued 130,000,000 of dollars in silver certificates, and the price of the metal was steadily declined from $1.15 per ounce to 68 cents per ounce. What will be the decline when the supply is augmented by the offerings of all the world? The loss upon these silver purchases to the people of this country has now been nearly $150,000,000.

The dollars of our fathers, about which so much is said, was an honest dollar, silver maintaining a full parity of intrinsic value with gold. The fathers would have spurned and ridiculed a proposition to make a silver dollar worth only 53 cents stand of equal value with a gold one worth 100 cents. The experience of all nations proves that any depreciation, however slight, of another standard from the parity with gold has driven the more valuable one out of circulation, and such experience in a matter of this kind is worth much more than mere interested speculative opinion. The fact that few gold coins are seen in ordinary circulation for domestic uses is no proof at all that the metal is not performing a most important function in business affairs. The foundation of the house is not always in sight, but the house would not stand an hour if there were no foundation. The great enginery that moves the ocean steamship is not always in view of the passengers, but it is, all the same, the propelling force of the vessel, without which it would soon become a worthless derelict.