Republic_--It gives me great pleasure this morning, tired as I am,
to see and to have an opportunity to express my thanks to this large
assemblage of the good citizens of Rutland. My journey through your
State has been attended with every evidence of respect which it was
possible for the people to bestow. Your chairman has spoken of the
fact that the President of the United States may travel everywhere
through our country without any attendance of policemen. As I have
had occasion to say before, the only peril he is likely to meet, if
the railroads take good care of him and the cranks keep out of the
way, is from the over-kindness of the people [laughter and applause];
and there is more peril in that than you will understand at first
thought. It is pleasant to stand upon the steps of this Memorial
Hall, erected as a place of deposit for trophies of the great Civil
War and as a monument of honor to those soldiers from Vermont who
aided so conspicuously in making that war successful. We cannot tell
how much hung upon that contest. No orator has yet been inspired to
describe adequately the gravity of the great issue which was fought
out upon the battle-fields of the War of the Rebellion. We say it was a
contest to preserve the unity of our republic, and so it was; but what
dismemberment would have meant; how greatly it would have increased
the cost of government; how sadly it would have disturbed the plan
of our border communities; how it would have degraded in the eyes of
the world this great people; how it would have rejoiced the enemies
of popular government, no tongue has yet adequately described. But
it was not to be so. God has desired that this experiment of free
government should have a more perfect trial, and it was impossible
that the brave men of the loyal States should consent to dismemberment
of the Union. We were very patient, so patient, in the early contest,
as it ranged through the great debate of convention and Congress that
our brethren of the South altogether mistook the temper of our people.
Undoubtedly there were evidences that the men of trade were reluctant
to have those lines of profitable communication, which had been so
long maintained with the South, broken off. Undoubtedly that character
so undesirable in our politics--the doughface--was particularly
conspicuous in those days of discussion, but we were altogether
misjudged when the people of the South concluded that they might
support their threats of disunion which had so long rung in Congress,
and so long filled their boasting press, by force of arms.
I shall never forget, nor will any of you who are old enough to
remember it, that great electric thrill and shock which passed through
our whole country when the first gun was fired at Sumter. Debate was
closed. Our orators were withdrawn, and a great wave of determined
patriotism swept over the country higher than any tidal wave ever
lifted itself upon a devastated coast [applause], and it was not to be
stayed in its progress until the last vestige of rebellion had been
swept from the face of our beloved land. The men of New England were a
peaceful people. The farmers and the farmers' sons were not brawlers.
They were not found at the tavern. They were abiding under the
sheltering moral influences and quietude of these New England hills.
But the man who thought that the spirit of 1776 had been quenched was
badly mistaken. The same resolute love of liberty, the same courage
to face danger for a cause that had its inspiration in high moral
purposes and resolves abided in the hearts of your people. [Applause.]
Possibly the war might have been avoided if the South had understood
this, but it was so written in the severe but benevolent purposes of
God. There was a great scroll of emancipation to be written. There was
a martyr President, who was to affix his name to a declaration that
would be as famous as that to which your fathers fixed their signature
in 1776. It was to be in truth as well as in theory a free people
[applause], and there was no other pathway to emancipation than along
the bloody track of armies, not seeing at the beginning nor having
the purpose that finally was accomplished, but guided by the hand of
power and wisdom that is above us and over us to the accomplishment of
that glorious result that struck the shackles from four millions of
slaves. [Applause.]
I greet most affectionately these comrades of the war who are before
me to-day. Let them abide in honor in all your communities. Let
shafts of marble and bronze lift themselves in all your towns to tell
the story of patriots' work well done and to teach the generations
that are to come how worthy their fathers were. Let us preserve all
these inspiring lessons of history, all these individual examples of
heroism, of which Vermont furnished so many during the war. Let them
not be forgotten. Let them be the illuminated and inspiring pages of
your State's history, and then, whatever shock may come to us in the
future, whenever the hand of anarchy or disorder shall be raised,
whenever foreign powers shall seek to invade the rights or liberties
of this great people, there will be found again an impenetrable
bulwark in the brave hearts of a sturdy and patriotic people.
[Applause.] You will, I am sure, crown your kindness by excusing
me from attempting further speech and allowing me to express, as I
part from you, my good wishes for Vermont and all her good people.
[Applause.]
PROCTOR, VERMONT, AUGUST 28.
On the return to Proctor in the evening the President was tendered the
final reception of his trip to Vermont. The village was elaborately
decorated; an illuminated evergreen arch spanned the entrance to
Secretary Proctor's beautiful grounds. The residences and grounds of E.
R. Morse, F. D. Proctor, B. F. Taylor, W. E. Higbee, G. H. Davis, E. J.
Boyce, J. H. Edson, and H. E. Spencer were also brilliantly illuminated.
From a platform fronting the Secretary's home the party reviewed the
procession of 1,000 workmen from the marble quarries.
Secretary Proctor, in an affectionate address, introduced President
Harrison, who spoke as follows:
It is not my privilege to call you neighbors, but I am sure I may
call you friends. This journey in Vermont is crowned to-night by a
reception and a good-by that is surpassingly brilliant and artistic
in its preparation and one that I have never seen exceeded. But
above all this, I have been able here in Proctor to witness in its
best manifestation that which I have seen elsewhere in New England
and especially in Vermont--a community of workers, men industriously
pursuing mechanical avocations and doing it under conditions of
the greatest possible comfort. As I look upon these homes in which
you dwell and contrast them with the wretchedness of the crowded
tenement-houses of our great cities; as I inhale to-night the bracing
air of these mountains, and as my eye has looked to-day upon their
green summits, I have said how happy is the lot of that man and that
woman who work in one of these bright, wholesome New England villages.
[Applause.] It has seemed to me that the relation of our mutual friend
who has inaugurated and developed these works in which many of you
find employment was that of a public benefactor and a personal friend.
[Applause.] The simplicity and naturalness of his own life among you,
his ready appreciation of the loyalty and intelligence of those who
are employed by him, his interest in their success in life, is the
ideal relation between the employer and his workmen. [Applause.] I
would to God it was always and everywhere so, that when a man is put
at a machine he should not be regarded by his employer as a part of
it, that the human nature, the aspirations of a man, should still be
recognized, and the relations with the employer be that of mutual
confidence and helpfulness and respect! [Applause.]
You are sharers in the responsibilities of local government, of the
government of your State and of the Nation, of which Vermont is one
of the honored members. I am sure that you have pride in the faithful
discharge of all these duties. I cannot but feel that our national
policy should be in the direction of saving our working people from
that condition of hopelessness which comes when wages are barely
adequate to the sustenance of animal life. [Applause.] There is no
hope for any community where this state of things exists, and there
will be no hope for the Nation should it become the general condition
of the workingmen of America. That man or woman out of whose heart
hope has gone, who sees nothing better in life, before whom the vista
of life stretches in one dead level of unending and half-requited
toil, that man's estate is calculated to make him reckless in
character. It is one of the beneficent conditions of citizenship here
that there are no disabilities put in the way of ambitions and the
aspiring. I hope it may always be so. I cannot always sympathize with
that demand which we hear so frequently for cheap things. Things may
be too cheap. They are too cheap when the man who produces them upon
the farm or the man or woman who produces them in the factory does not
get out of them living wages with a margin for old age and for a dowry
for the incidents that are to follow. [Applause.] I pity that man who
wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or
shapes it into a garment shall starve in the process. [Applause.]
I am most profoundly grateful to you, my fellow-citizens, and to my
good friend Governor Proctor, for this beautiful demonstration--this
magnificent rural welcome which we have had here to-day. It will live
always in my memory. I shall carry this community in my thoughts as
one of the best types of American neighborhood life. I have found
in him a most valuable contribution to the administration of the
Government at Washington. [Applause.] You cannot know fully how he has
grown into the respect and confidence of all who have been associated
with him in the Cabinet and of all our legislators in Congress without
distinction of party. I regret that there is some danger that you may
reclaim him for Vermont [applause]; yet it is quite natural that it
should be so, and I shall do the best I can to get a substitute. The
labors of public office at Washington are full of high responsibility
and most burdensome toil. No man is endowed with an incapacity to make
mistakes. We can, however, all of us, in public or private trust,
be sure of our motives. These are our own. We can know whether we
are pursuing low and selfish ends or have set before us the general
good, the highest good of all our people. Judgment upon what has been
done is with you. I am sure only that I have had it in my heart to
do that which should in the highest degree promote the prosperity of
our people and lift the glorious flag yet higher in the esteem of the
world. [Great applause.] We have been endeavoring to open a foreign
market for American trade. If these efforts are met, as I trust they
will be, by enterprise on the part of our merchants and manufacturers,
I do not doubt that the next ten years will see a most gratifying
increase in our foreign trade. [Applause.] They should diligently set
themselves to the study of the new markets into which their goods may
now go. The most intelligent representatives should be sent there,
and their goods adapted to the market that is to be supplied. This I
have no doubt they will do, and I add the expectation that we shall
presently have a most gratifying increase in the American merchant
marine. [Applause.]
WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 17, 1891.
_The Augusta Exposition._
President Harrison on the above date received at the Executive Mansion
a delegation of prominent citizens of Georgia, who extended to him a
formal invitation to attend the Augusta Exposition in November. The
delegation comprised the following citizens and Exposition directors:
Hon. Patrick Walsh, Walter M. Jackson, J. P. Verdery, H. G. Smith, J.
L. Gow, C. H. Ballard, J. J. Doughty, W. A. Garrett, G. J. Howard, W.
H. Landrum, J. E. Barton, W. E. Keener, Percy Burum, J. P. Bones, J. M.
Cranston, Crawford Mays, Maurice Walton, L. J. Henry, T. R. Gibson, P.
J. O'Connor, Jules Rival, Joseph Ganahl, Jr., W. H. Barrett, Jr., P.
A. Stovall, W. E. Platt, A. J. Gouley, Frank X. Dorr, and Hon. J. C.
Clements.
Chairman Walsh, on behalf of the committee, made the invitation address,
to which the President, responding, said:
_Gentlemen_--I recall with pleasure the visit made by some of
your representatives. I think I have repeatedly, on every suitable
occasion, especially during my recent visit to the South, expressed
my sincere hope of the development of those marvellous resources
so long hidden from sight, but now about to be opened up. I had
occasion to say then that you would realize the advantage of
combining manufactures with agriculture. The old system made of
Georgia a plantation State. I would not have it less so. But you may
still develop other industries without destroying the surface of
the country. There is no competition between these industries; one
does not supersede the other. The farmer still has his near market
for some products that will not bear transportation. Out of this
diversity I think the highest development will come. Recently I made
a trip through New England and was deeply impressed with the numerous
industries and small factories showing in little places, where the
lives and homes of the workmen were so much cleaner and purer than in
the great cities, and this was made possible by the great diversity
of small interests. In Vermont I came upon a busy little factory
surrounded by cottages in the midst of the hills. I was told that the
proprietor made stethoscopes, and out of a small beginning had built
up a great trade. These little things make happy homes; bring money,
trade, and development. I am greatly interested in these things, and
I would be very happy to see this development in Alabama and Georgia
as in any Northern State. We all wish it. Whether I can be with you
or not I cannot now say. I have a good many very important matters
demanding attention from now on to the meeting of Congress. Some are
home matters of importance and some are foreign. Looking back over
the last year, it would seem probable that there was a conspiracy
among the powers to see that those in responsible places should have
no rest. Many of these things must now come to my personal attention.
If I cannot be with you, you will know that my heart is with you. If
I can I will come, but the time now being so close to the meeting of
Congress it is doubtful.
WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER 17, 1891.
The Ecumenical Conference of the Methodist Church convened in the
Metropolitan Church at Washington, D. C., on October 7, 1891. Rt. Rev.
Thomas Bowman, Senior Bishop of the Church in America, presided at
the opening, and Rev. William Arthur, M.A., of London, delivered the
inaugural sermon. It was in every respect the greatest assembly in the
history of Methodism.
Among a few of the distinguished preachers and orators from abroad were:
Rev. T. B. Stephenson, D.D., LL.D., Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, M.A., Rev.
John Bond, Rev. F. W. Bourne, Rev. J. Ernest Clapham, and Rev. David
J. Waller, D.D., all of London. The following Washingtonians comprised
the Committee on Reception: Bishop J. F. Hurst, D.D.; Rev. G. H. Corey,
D.D., Chairman; Rev. C. W. Baldwin, Rev. J. H. Becket, Rev. J. W. E.
Bowen, Rev. T. E. Carson, Rev. R. H. G. Dyson, Rev. George Elliott,
Rev. S. R. Murray, Rev. C. H. Phillips, Rev. J. A. Price, Rev. E. S.
Todd, Rev. L. T. Widerman, Rev. J. T. Wightman, Rev. L. B. Wilson,
Alexander Ashley, E. S. Atkinson, W. S. Birch, Gen. Cyrus Bussey, J. F.
Chestnut, D. S. Cissell, Robert Cohen, George Compton, L. A. Cornish,
G. S. Deering, Robert Dunn, A. B. Duval, Hon. M. G. Emery, Prof. Edgar
Frisbie, D. B. Groff, T. A. Harding, Gen. S. S. Henkle, W. H. Houghton,
W. J. Hutchinson, Thomas Jarvis, B. F. Leighton, William Mayse, H. B.
Moulton, Hon. Hiram Price, B. Robinson, W. J. Sibley, T. B. Stahl, B.
H. Stinemetz, H. L. Strang, G. W. F. Swartzell, Frederick Tasker, J. S.
Topham, L. H. Walker, E. S. Wescott, J. B. Wilson, and W. R. Woodward.
On the tenth day of the Conference, President Harrison, escorted by
Rev. Dr. J. M. King, Secretary, and Rev. Dr. Corey, the pastor of
Metropolitan Church, attended the session. Other distinguished visitors
were Secretary of the Treasury Foster, Secretary of the Interior Noble,
and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Minister.
The chief essay of the session was delivered by Mr. Thomas Snape, of
Liverpool, upon the topic of the day, "International Arbitration," a
subject which made the presence of the President and the British envoy
particularly appropriate.
As the President ascended to the pulpit, all the delegates and the great
audience instantly arose. The presiding officer of the day, Rev. T. G.
Williams, of Montreal, presented the distinguished visitor, who was
received with prolonged applause, in which the English delegates led.
President Harrison then addressed the Conference as follows:
_Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Conference_--I come here this
morning to make an expression of my respect and esteem for this great
body of delegates assembled from all the countries of the world, and
much more to give a manifestation of my respect and love for that
greater body of Christian men and women for whom you stand. Every
Ecumenical Conference is a distinct step in the direction, not only
of the unification of the Church, but of the unification of the human
race.
Assembling from countries unlike in their civil institutions, from
churches not wholly in accord as to doctrine or church order, you
come together to find that the unlikeness is not so great as you
had thought, and to find your common sympathies and common purposes
greater and larger than you had thought--large enough presently to
overspread and to extinguish all these transitory lines of division.
I am glad to know that as followers of Wesley, whose hymns we sing,
you have been in consultation as to the methods by which these minor
divisions among you might be obliterated. It is the natural order that
subdivisions should be wiped out before the grand divisions of the
Church can be united. [Applause.] Who does not greatly rejoice that
the controversial clash of the churches is less than it once was; that
we hear more of the Master and His teachings of love and duty than of
hair-splitting theological differences? [Applause.]
Many years ago, while visiting in Wisconsin, when Sunday came
around I went with some friends to the little Methodist church
in an adjoining village. The preacher undertook to overturn my
Presbyterianism. [Laughter and applause.] An irreverent friend who
sat beside me as the young man delivered his telling blows against
Calvinism was constantly emphasizing the points made by nudging me
with his elbow. [Laughter.] Now I am glad to say that very often since
then I have worshipped in Methodist churches, and that is the last
experience of that kind I have had. [Applause]
You have to-day as the theme of discussion the subject of
international arbitration; and this being a public, or, in a large
sense of the word, a political question, perhaps makes my presence
here as an officer of the United States especially appropriate.
[Applause.]
It is a curious incident that some days ago, and before I was aware
of the theme or the occasion which we have here this morning, I had
appointed this afternoon to visit the great gun foundry of the United
States at the navy yard. Things have come in their proper sequence. I
am here at this arbitration meeting before I go to the gun factory.
[Laughter.]
This subject is one that has long attracted the attention, and I
think I may say has, perhaps, as greatly attracted the interest and
adherence of the United States as that of any other Christian power in
the world. [Applause.]
It is known to you all that in the recent conference of the American
states at Washington the proposition was distinctly made and adopted
by the representatives of all, or nearly all, of the governments
of America that, as applied to this hemisphere, all international
disputes should be settled by arbitration. [Applause.]
Of course there are limitations as yet, in the nature of things,
to the complete and general adoption of such a scheme. It is quite
possible to apply arbitration to a dispute as to a boundary line;
it is quite impossible, it seems to me, to apply it to a case of
international feud. If there is present a disposition to subjugate,
an aggressive spirit to seize territory, a spirit of national
aggrandizement that does not stop to consider the rights of other men
and other people--to such a case and to such a spirit international
arbitration has none, or, if any, a remote and difficult application.
It is for a Christian sentiment, manifesting itself in a nation, to
remove forever such causes of dispute; and then what remains will be
the easy subject of adjustment by fair international arbitration. But
I had not intended to enter into a discussion of this great theme, for
the setting forth of which you have appointed those who have given
it special attention. Let me, therefore, say simply this: that for
myself--temporarily in a place of influence in this country--and much
more for the great body of its citizenship, I express the desire of
America for peace with the whole world. [Applause.] It would have been
vain to suggest the pulling down of block-houses or family disarmament
to the settlers on a hostile Indian frontier. They would have told
you rightly that the conditions were not ripe. And so it may be and
is probably true that a full application of the principle is not
presently possible, the devil still being unchained. [Laughter.]
We will have our gun foundries, and possibly will best promote the
settlement of international disputes by arbitration, by having it
understood that if the appeal is to a fiercer tribunal we shall not be
out of the debate. [Great applause.] There is a unity of the Church
and of humanity, and the lines of progress are the same.
It is by this great Christian sentiment, characterized not only by
a high sense of justice, but by a spirit of love and forbearance,
mastering the civil institutions and governments of the world, that
we shall approach universal peace and adopt arbitration methods of
settling disputes. [Applause.]
Let me thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you, gentlemen of this
Conference, for the privilege of standing before you for a moment, and
for this most cordial welcome which you have given to me. I beg to
express again my high appreciation of the character of this delegation
and the membership of the great Church from which you come, and to
wish that in your remaining deliberations and in your journeys to
far-distant homes you may have the guidance and care of that God whom
we all revere and worship. [Applause.]
AMERICAN TIN PLATE, OCTOBER 23.
While the gubernatorial campaign in Ohio was in progress and Major
McKinley was making his famous race, the question as to the successful
manufacture of tin plate in the United States was one of the leading
issues of the day. At this juncture W. C. Cronemyer, of the United
States Iron and Steel Tin Plate Works, at Demmler, Pa., sent President
Harrison a box of tin plate manufactured at the Demmler works, and
received in return the following interesting letter, which was given
wide publicity at the time:
EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 19, 1891.
MY DEAR SIR--I have your letter of October 15, and also a box of
bright tin plate which you send as a specimen of the product being
turned out by the United States Iron and Tin Plate Company. I have no
skill in determining the character of this work; but, to the eye, it
seems to be eminently satisfactory, and I thank you for this evidence
that a new industry has been established in the United States.
I cannot quite understand how an American can doubt that we have the
mechanical skill and business sagacity to establish successfully here
the manufacture of tin plate. No other country, certainly, surpasses
us in the inventive genius of its citizens or in the business sagacity
of its capitalists. It is surprising to me that any patriotic American
should approach this question with a desire to see this great and
interesting experiment fail, or with an unwillingness to accept the
evidences of its success. It will be a great step in the direction of
commercial independence when we produce our own tin plate.