PRESIDENT McKINLEY’S LAST SPEECH.
President McKinley’s last speech, delivered on President’s Day at the
Pan-American Exposition, September 5, the day before he was shot, was
the greatest speech of his life. It was a message to all the world,
robust in its Americanism, and fraught with good will for all nations
and all mankind. It was as follows:
“President Milburn, Director General Buchanan, Commissioners, Ladies and
Gentlemen:—I am glad to be again in the city of Buffalo and exchange
greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a
stranger, and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally
honored.
“To-day I have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to
the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and
participation in this exposition have contributed in so marked a degree
to its interests and success. To the commissioners of the Dominion of
Canada and the British colonies, the French colonies, the republics of
Mexico and of Central and South America and the commissioners of Cuba
and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand
of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art,
science, education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the
new century.
“Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world’s
advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the
people and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and
brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of
information to the student.
BENEFIT IN EXPOSITIONS.
“Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step.
Comparison of ideas is always educational, and as such instructs the
brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to
industrial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high
endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the
wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people and recognizes the
efficacy of high quality and low prices to win their favor.
“The quest for trade is an incentive to men of business to devise,
invent, improve and economize in the cost of production. Business life,
whether among ourselves or with other people, is ever a sharp struggle
for success. It will be none the less so in the future. Without
competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated processes
of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and
the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century.
But though commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not
be.
INVITES FRIENDLY RIVALRY.
“The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly, presenting in
its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and illustrating the
progress of the human family in the western hemisphere. This portion of
the earth has no cause for humiliation for the part it has performed in
the march of civilization. It has not accomplished everything; far from
it. It has simply done its best, and without vanity or boastfulness and
recognizing the manifold achievements of others, it invites the friendly
rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and
commerce, and will co-operate with all in advancing the highest and best
interests of humanity.
“The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the
world’s work. The success of art, science, industry and invention is an
international asset and a common glory. After all, how near one to the
other is every part of the world. Modern inventions have brought into
close relation widely separated peoples, and made them better
acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist,
but distances have been effaced.
ANNIHILATION OF SPACE.
“Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade
fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world’s products are
exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities
come increasing knowledge and trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical
precision by supply and demand. The world’s selling prices are regulated
by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter
space of time, and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the
fathers.
“Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news
is read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.
The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the
press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of
the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly
known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend
beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the
earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are
made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately
bulletined.
COMPARISON IS DRAWN.
“The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are
of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the
inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of
the government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel,
nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New Orleans with a
message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a
treaty of peace had been signed.
“How different now! We reached General Miles in Porto Rico by cable, and
he was able through the military telegraph to stop his army on the
firing line with the message that the United States and Spain had signed
a protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instantly of the first
shots fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish
forces was known at Washington within less than an hour of its
consummation. The first ship of Cervera’s fleet had hardly emerged from
that historic harbor when the fact was flashed to our capital and the
swift destruction that followed was announced immediately through the
wonderful medium of telegraphy.
DARK DAYS AT PEKING.
“So accustomed are we to safe and easy communication with distant lands
that its temporary interruption, even in ordinary times, results in loss
and inconvenience. We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and
awful suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Peking,
and the diplomatic representatives of the nations in China, cut off from
all communication inside and outside of the walled capital, were
surrounded by an angry and misguided mob that threatened their lives;
nor the joy that thrilled the world when a single message from the
government of the United States brought through our minister the first
news of the safety of the besieged diplomats.
“At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of
steam railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its
circuit many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now
we have vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas.
“God and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be
indifferent to any other. And as we are brought more and more in touch
with each other the less occasion is there for misunderstandings and the
stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in
the court of arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement
of international disputes.
PROSPERITY OF THE NATION.
“My fellow citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a
state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They
show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines and that we
are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of workingmen
throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their
homes and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and
disability.
“That all the people are participating in this great prosperity is seen
in every American community and shown by the enormous and unprecedented
deposits in our savings banks. Our duty is the care and security of
these deposits, and their safe investment demands the highest integrity
and the best business capacity of those in charge of these depositories
of the people’s earnings.
“We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil
and struggle, in which every part of the country has its stake, which
will not permit of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No narrow,
sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the
part of the manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and
increase it. Our industrial enterprises, which have grown to such great
proportions, affect the homes and occupations of the people and the
welfare of the country. Our capacity to produce has developed so
enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more
markets requires our urgent and immediate attention.
FOR ENLIGHTENED POLICY.
“Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other
policy will get more. In these times of marvelous business energy and
gain we ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places
in our industrial and commercial systems, so that we may be ready for
any storm or strain.
“By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home
production we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. A
system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly
essential to the continued healthful growth of our export trade. We must
not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and
buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it would not be
best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take from our
customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our
industries and labor.
“Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial
development under the domestic policy now firmly established. What we
produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The
excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet and we should sell
everywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and
productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor.
NEED OF EXPANSION.
“The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and
commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A
policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals.
Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times;
measures of retaliation are not. If perchance some of our tariffs are no
longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at
home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets
abroad?
“Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steamers
have already been put in commission between the Pacific coast ports of
the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and Central
and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship
lines between the eastern coast of the United States and South American
ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our
vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but
barely touched. Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have
the convenience to carry it to the buyer.
“We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They
must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by
Americans. These will not be profitable in a commercial sense; they will
be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go.
“We must build the isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and
give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of
Central America, South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific
cable cannot be longer postponed.
GIVES BLAINE CREDIT.
“In furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you
are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the
heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought
ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the
republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and
manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of
Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated
with the Pan-American movement, which finds this practical and
substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by
the Pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of
Mexico.
“The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will
disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from
sight, but their influence will remain to
“Make it live beyond its too short living
With praises and thanksgiving.
“Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions
fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this
exposition?
“Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not
conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace,
not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved
to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world’s good, and that
out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us
all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect,
confidence and friendship, which will deepen and endure.
“Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity,
happiness and peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the
peoples and powers of earth.”
[Illustration:
SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN HAY.]
[Illustration:
THE U. S. CAPITOL BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.]