* Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, June
29,1688.
Harrison and Morton.
1888.
FELLOW-CITIZENS, Ladies and Gentlemen--The speaker who is perfectly
candid, who tells his honest thought, not only honors himself, but
compliments his audience. It is only to the candid that man can afford
to absolutely open his heart. Most people, whenever a man is nominated
for the presidency, claim that they were for him from the very start--as
a rule, claim that they discovered him. They are so anxious to be with
the procession, so afraid of being left, that they insist that they got
exactly the man they wanted.
I will be frank enough with you to say that the convention did not
nominate my choice. I was for the nomination of General Gresham,
believing that, all things considered, he was the best and most
available man--a just judge, a soldier, a statesman. But there is
something in the American blood that bows to the will of the majority.
There is that splendid fealty and loyalty to the great principle upon
which our Government rests; so that when the convention reached its
conclusion, every Republican was for the nominee. There were good men
from which to select this ticket. I made my selection, and did the best
I could to induce the convention to make the same. Some people think,
or say they think, that I made a mistake in telling the name of the man
whom I was for. But I always know whom I am for, I always know what I am
for, and I know the reasons why I am for the thing or for the man.
And it never once occurred to me that we could get a man nominated, or
elected, and keep his name a secret. When I am for a man I like to stand
by him, even while others leave, no matter if at last I stand alone. I
believe in doing things above board, in the light, in the wide air.
No snake ever yet had a skin brilliant enough, no snake ever crawled
through the grass secretly enough, silently or cunningly enough, to
excite my admiration. My admiration is for the eagle, the monarch of the
empyrean, who, poised on outstretched pinions, challenges the gaze of
all the world. Take your position in the sunlight; tell your neighbors
and your friends what you are for, and give your reasons for your
position; and if that is a mistake, I expect to live making only
mistakes. I do not like the secret way, but the plain, open way; and I
was for one man, not because I had anything against the others, who were
all noble, splendid men, worthy to be Presidents of the United States.
Now, then, leaving that subject, two parties again confront each other.
With parties as with persons goes what we call character. They have
built up in the nation in which they live reputation, and the reputation
of a party should be taken into consideration as well as the reputation
of a man. What is this party? What has it done? What has it endeavored
to do? What are the ideas in its brain? What are the hopes, the emotions
and the loves in its heart? Does it wish to make the world grander and
better and freer? Has it a high ideal? Does it believe in sunrise, or
does it keep its back to the sacred east of eternal progress? These
are the questions that every American should ask. Every man should
take pride in this great Nation--America, with a star of glory in her
forehead!--and every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I
shall leave a greater and grander country than when I was born."
This is the country of humanity. This is the Government of the poor.
This is where man has an even chance with his fellow-man. In this
country the poorest man holds in his hand at the day of election the
same unit, the same amount, of political power as the owner of a hundred
millions. That is the glory of the United States.
A few days ago our party met in convention. Now, let us see who we are.
Let us see what the Republican party is. Let us see what is the spirit
that animates this great and splendid organization.
And I want you to think one moment, just one moment: What was this
country when the first Republican President was elected? Under the
law then, every Northern man was a bloodhound, pledged to catch human
beings, who, led by the light of the Northern Star, were escaping
to free soil. Remember that. And remember, too, that when our first
President was elected we found a treasury empty, the United States
without credit, the great Republic unable to borrow money from day to
day to pay its current expenses. Remember that. Think of the glory and
grandeur of the Republican party that took the country with an empty
exchequer, and then think of what the Democratic party says to-day of
the pain and anguish it has suffered administering the Government with a
surplus!
We must remember what the Republican party has done--what it has
accomplished for nationality, for liberty, for education and for the
civilization of our race. We must remember its courage in war, its
honesty in peace. Civil war tests to a certain degree the strength, the
stability and the patriotism of a country. After the war comes a greater
strain. It is a great thing to die for a cause, but it is a greater
thing to live for it. We must remember that the Republican party not
only put down a rebellion, not only created a debt of thousands and
thousands of millions, but that it had the industry and the intelligence
to pay that debt, and to give to the United States the best financial
standing of any nation.
When this great party came together in Chicago what was the first thing
the convention did? What was the first idea in its mind? It was to honor
the memory of the greatest and grandest men the Republic has produced.
The first name that trembled upon the lips of the convention was that of
Abraham Lincoln--Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and grandest men
who ever lived, and, in my judgment, the greatest man that ever sat
in the presidential chair. And why the greatest? Because the kindest,
because he had more mercy and love in his heart than were in the heart
of any other President. And so the convention paid its tribute to the
great soldier, to the man who led, in company with others, the great
army of freedom to victory, until the old flag floated over every inch
of American soil and every foot of that territory was dedicated to the
eternal freedom of mankind.
And what next did this convention do? The next thing was to send
fraternal greetings to the Americans of Brazil. Why? Because Brazil
had freed every slave, and because that act left the New World, this
hemisphere, without a slave--left two continents dedicated to the
freedom of man--so that with that act of Brazil the New World,
discovered only a few years ago, takes the lead in the great march of
human progress and liberty. That is the second thing the convention did.
Only a little while ago the minister to this country from Brazil, acting
under instructions from his government, notified the President of the
United States that this sublime act had been accomplished--notified
him that from the bodies of millions of men the chains of slavery had
fallen--an act great enough to make the dull sky of half the world glow
as though another morning had risen upon another day.
And what did our President say? Was he filled with enthusiasm? Did his
heart beat quicker? Did the blood rush to his cheek? He simply said,
as it is reported, "that he hoped time would justify the wisdom of the
measure." It is precisely the same as though a man should quit a life of
crime, as though some gentleman in the burglar business should finally
announce to his friends: "I have made up my mind never to break into
another house," and the friend should reply: "I hope that time will
justify the propriety of that resolution."
That was the first thing, with regard to the condition of the world,
that came into the mind of the Republican convention. And why was that?
Because the Republican party has fought for liberty from the day of its
birth to the present moment.
And what was the next? The next resolution passed by the convention was,
"that we earnestly hope, we shall soon congratulate our fellow-citizens
of Irish birth upon the peaceful recovery of home rule in Ireland."
Wherever a human being wears a chain, there you will find the sympathy
of the Republican party. Wherever one languishes in a dungeon for having
raised the standard of revolt in favor of human freedom, there you will
find the sympathy of the Republican party. I believe in liberty for
Ireland, not because it is Ireland, but because they are human beings,
and I am for liberty, not as a prejudice, but as a principle.
The man rightfully in jail who wants to get out is a believer in liberty
as a prejudice; but when a man out of jail sees a man wrongfully in jail
and is willing to risk his life to give liberty to the man who ought to
have it, that is being in favor of liberty as a principle. So I am in
favor of liberty everywhere, all over the world, and wherever one man
tries to govern another simply because he has been born a lord or a duke
or a king, or wherever one governs another simply by brute force, I say
that that is oppression, and it is the business of Americans to do all
they can to give liberty to the oppressed everywhere.
Ireland should govern herself. Those who till the soil should own the
soil, or have an opportunity at least of becoming the owners. A few
landlords should not live in extravagance and luxury while those
who toil live on the leavings, on parings, on crumbs and crusts. The
treatment of Ireland by England has been one continuous crime. There is
no meaner page in history.
What is the next thing in this platform? And if there is anything in it
that anybody can object to, we will find it out to-night. The next thing
is the supremacy of the Nation.-Why, even the Democrats now believe in
that, and in their own platform are willing to commence that word with
a capital N. They tell us that they are in favor of an indissoluble
Union--just as I presume they always have been. But they now believe in
a Union. So does the Republican party. What else? The Republican party
believes, not in State Sovereignty, but in the preservation of all the
rights reserved to the States by the Constitution.
Let me show you the difference: For instance, you make a contract with
your neighbor who lives next door--equal partners--and at the bottom of
the contract you put the following addition: "If there is any dispute
as to the meaning of this contract, my neighbor shall settle it, and any
settlement he shall make shall be final." Is there any use of talking
about being equal partners any longer? Any use of your talking about
being a sovereign partner? So, the Constitution of the United States
says: "If any question arises between any State and the Federal
Government it shall be decided by a Federal Court." That is the end of
what they call State Sovereignty.
Think of a sovereign State that can make no treaty, that cannot levy
war, that cannot coin money. But we believe in maintaining the rights
of the States absolutely in their integrity, because we believe in local
self-government. We deny, however, that a State has any right to deprive
a citizen of his vote. We deny that the State has any right to violate
the Federal law, and we go further and we say that it is the duty of the
General Government to see to it that every citizen in every State shall
have the right to exercise all of his privileges as a citizen of the
United States--"the right of every lawful citizen," says our platform,
"native or foreign, white or black, to cast a free ballot."
Let me say one word about that.
The ballot is the king, the emperor, the ruler of America; it is the
only rightful sovereign of the Republic; and whoever refuses to count
an honest vote, or whoever casts a dishonest vote, is a traitor to the
great principle upon which our Government is founded. The man poisons,
or endeavors to poison, the springs of authority, the fountains of
justice, of rightful dominion and power; and until every citizen can
cast his vote everywhere in this land and have that vote counted, we are
not a republican people, we are not a civilized nation. The Republican
party will not have finished its mission until this country is
civilized. That is its business. It was born of a protest against
barbarism.
The Republican party was the organized conscience of the United States.
It had the courage to stand by what it believed to be right. There is
something better even than success in this world; or in other words,
there is only one kind of success, and that is to be for the right. Then
whatever happens, you have succeeded.
Now, comes the next question. The Republican party not only wants to
protect every citizen in his liberty, in his right to vote, but it wants
to have that vote counted. And what else?
The next thing in this platform is protection for American labor.
I am going to tell you in a very brief way why I am in favor of
protection. First, I want this Republic substantially independent of
the rest of the world. You must remember that while people are
civilized--some of them--so that when they have a quarrel they leave it
to the courts to decide, nations still occupy the position of savages
toward each other. There is no national court to decide a question,
consequently the question is decided by the nations themselves, and you
know what selfishness and greed and power and the ideas of false glory
will do and have done. So that this Nation is not safe one moment from
war. I want the Republic so that it can live although at war with all
the world.
We have every kind of climate that is worth having. Our country embraces
the marriage of the pine and palm; we have all there is of worth; it
is the finest soil in the world and the most ingenious people that ever
contrived to make the forces of nature do their work. I want this Nation
substantially independent, so that if every port were blockaded we would
be covered with prosperity as with a mantle. Then, too, the Nation that
cannot take care of itself in war is always at a disadvantage in peace.
That is one reason. Let me give you the next.
The next reason is that whoever raises raw material and sells it will be
eternally poor. There is no State in this Union where the farmer raises
wheat and sells it, that the farmer is not poor. Why? He only makes one
profit, and, as a rule, that is a loss. The farmer that raises corn does
better, because he can sell, not corn, but pork and beef and horses. In
other words, he can make the second or third profit, and those farmers
get rich. There is a vast difference between the labor necessary to
raise raw material and the labor necessary to make the fabrics used
by civilized men. Remember that; and if you are confined simply to raw
material your labor will be unskilled; unskilled labor will be cheap,
the raw material will be cheap, and the result is that your country will
grow poorer and poorer, while the country that buys your raw material,
makes it into fabrics and sells it back to you, will grow intelligent
and rich. I want you to remember this, because it lies at the foundation
of this whole subject. Most people who talk on this point bring forward
column after column of figures, and a man to understand it would have to
be a walking table of logarithms. I do not care to discuss it that
way. I want to get at the foundation principles, so that you can give a
reason, as well as myself, why you are in favor of protection.
Let us take another step. We will take a locomotive--a wonderful
thing--that horse of progress, with its flesh of iron and steel and
breath of flame--a wonderful thing. Let us see how it is made. Did you
ever think of the deft and cunning hands, of the wonderfully accurate
brains, that can make a thing like that? Did you ever think about it?
How much do you suppose the raw material lying in the earth was worth
that was changed into that locomotive? A locomotive that is worth, we
will say, twelve thousand dollars; how much was the raw material worth
lying in the earth, deposited there millions of years ago? Not as much
as one dollar. Let us, just for the sake of argument, say five dollars.
What, then, has labor added to the twelve thousand dollar locomotive?
Eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five dollars. Now, why? Because,
just to the extent that thought is mingled with labor, wages increase;
just to the extent you mix mind with muscle, you give value to labor;
just to the extent that the labor is skilled, deft, apt, just to that
extent or in that proportion, is the product valuable. Think about it.
Raw material! There is a piece of canvas five feet one way, three the
other. Raw material would be to get a man to whitewash it; that is raw
material. Let a man of genius paint a picture upon it; let him put in
that picture the emotions of his heart, the landscapes that have made
poetry in his brain, the recollection of the ones he loves, the prattle
of children, a mother's tear, the sunshine of her smile, and all the
sweet and sacred memories of his life, and it is worth five thousand
dollars--ten thousand dollars.
Noise is raw material, but the great opera of "Tristan and Isolde" is
the result of skilled labor. There is the same difference between simple
brute strength and skilled labor that there is between noise and the
symphonies of Beethoven. I want you to get this in your minds.
Now, then, whoever sells raw material gives away the great profit. You
raise cotton and sell it; and just as long as the South does it and does
nothing more the South will be poor, the South will be ignorant, and it
will be solidly Democratic.
Now, do not imagine that I am saying anything against the Democratic
party. I believe the Democratic party is doing the best it can under the
circumstances. You know my philosophy makes me very charitable. You find
out all about a man, all about his ancestors, and you can account for
his vote always. Why? Because there are causes and effects in nature.
There are sometimes antecedents and subsequents that have no relation
to each other, but at the same time, all through the web and woof of
events, you find these causes and effects, and if you only look far
enough, you will know why a man does as he does.
I have nothing to say against the Democratic party. I want to talk
against ideas, not against people. I do not care anything about their
candidates, whether they are good, bad or indifferent. What, gentlemen,
are your ideas? What do you propose to do? What is your policy? That
is what I want to know, and I am willing to meet them upon the field of
intellectual combat. They are in possession; they are in the rifle pits
of office; we are in the open field, but we will plant our standard, the
flag that we love, without a stain, and under that banner, upon which
so many dying men have looked in the last hour when they thought of
home and country--under that flag we will carry the Democratic
fortifications.
Another thing; we want to get at this business so that we will
understand what we are doing. I do not believe in protecting American
industry for the sake of the capitalist, or for the sake of any class,
but for the sake of the whole Nation. And if I did not believe that it
was for the best interests of the whole Nation I should be opposed to
it.
Let us take this next step. Everybody, of course, cannot be a farmer.
Everybody cannot be a mechanic. All the people in the world cannot go at
one business. We must have a diversity of industry. I say, the greater
that diversity, the greater the development of brain in the country. We
then have what you might call a mental exchange; men are then pursuing
every possible direction in which the mind can go, and the brain is
being developed upon all sides; whereas, if you all simply cultivated
the soil, you would finally become stupid. If you all did only one
business you would become ignorant; but by pursuing all possible
avocations that call for taste, genius, calculation, discovery,
ingenuity, invention--by having all these industries open to the
American people, we will be able to raise great men and great women; and
I am for protection, because it will enable us to raise greater men and
greater women. Not only because it will make more money in less time,
but because I would rather have greater folks and less money.
One man of genius makes a continent sublime. Take all the men of wealth
from Scotland--who would know it? Wipe their names from the pages of
history, and who would miss them? Nobody. Blot out one name, Robert
Burns, and how dim and dark would be the star of Scotland. The great
thing is to raise great folks. That is what we want to do, and we want
to diversify all the industries and protect them all. How much? Simply
enough to prevent the foreign article from destroying the domestic. But
they say, then the manufacturers will form a trust and put the prices
up. If we depend upon the foreign manufacturers will they not form
trusts? We can depend on competition. What do the Democrats want to do?
They want to do away with the tariff, so as to do away with the surplus.
They want to put down the tariff to do away with the surplus. If you put
down the tariff a small per cent, so that the foreign article comes to
America, instead of decreasing, you will increase the surplus. Where you
get a dollar now, you will get five then. If you want to stop getting
anything from imports, you want to put the tariff higher, my friend.
Let every Democrat understand this, and let him also understand that I
feel and know that he has the same interest in this great country that I
have, and let me be frank enough and candid enough and honest enough
to say that I believe the Democratic party advocates the policy it does
because it believes it will be the best for the country. But we differ
upon a question of policy, and the only way to argue it is to keep cool.
If a man simply shouts for his side, or gets mad, he is a long way from
any intellectual improvement.
If I am wrong in this, I want to be set right. If it is not to the
interest of America that the shuttle shall keep flying, that wheels
shall keep turning, that cloth shall be woven, that the forges shall
flame and that the smoke shall rise from the numberless chimneys--if
that is not to the interest of America, I want to know it. But I believe
that upon the great cloud of smoke rising from the chimneys of the
manufactories of this country, every man who will think can see the bow
of national promise.
"Oh, but," they say, "you put the prices so high." Let me give you two
or three facts: Only a few years ago I know that we paid one hundred and
twenty-five dollars a ton for Bessemer steel. At that time the tariff
was twenty-eight dollars a ton, I believe. I am not much on figures. I
generally let them add it up, and I pay it and go on about my business.
With the tariff at twenty-eight dollars a ton, that being a sufficient
protection against Great Britain, the ingenuity of America went to work.
Capital had the courage to try the experiment, and the result was that,
instead of buying thousands and thousands and thousands and tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of tons of steel from
Great Britain, we made it here in our own country, and it went down as
low as thirty dollars a ton. Under this "rascally protection" it went
down to one-fourth of what free trade England was selling it to us for.
And so I might go on all night with a thousand other articles; all I
want to show you is that we want these industries here, and we want
them protected just as long as they need protection. We want to rock the
cradle just as long as there is a child in it. When the child gets to
be seven or eight feet high, and wears number twelve boots, we will say:
"Now you will have to shift for yourself." What we want is not simply
for the capitalist, not simply for the workingmen, but for the whole
country.
If there is any object worthy the attention of this or any other
government, it is the condition of the workingmen. What do they do? They
do all that is done. They are the Atlases upon whose mighty shoulders
rests the fabric of American civilization. The men of leisure are simply
the vines that run round this great sturdy oak of labor. If there is
anything noble enough, and splendid enough to claim the attention of a
nation, it is this question, and I hope the time will come when labor
will receive far more than it does to-day. I want you all to think of
it--how little, after all, the laboring man, even in America, receives.
[A voice: "Under protection."]
Yes, sir, even under protection. Take away that protection, and he is
instantly on a level with the European serf. And let me ask that good,
honest gentleman one question. If the laborer is better off in other
countries, why does not the American laborer emigrate to Europe?
There is no place in the wide world where, in my judgment, labor reaps
its true reward. There never has been. But I hope the time will come
when the American laborer will not only make a living for himself, for
his wife and children, but lay aside something to keep the roof above
his head when the winter of age may come. My sympathies are all with
them, and I would rather see thousands of... '' palaces of millionaires
unroofed than to see desolation in the cabins of the poor. I know that
this world has been made beautiful by those who have labored and those
who have suffered. I know that we owe to them the conveniences of life,
and I have more conveniences, I live a more luxurious life, than any
monarch ever lived one hundred years ago. I have more conveniences than
any emperor could have purchased with the revenue of his empire one
hundred years ago. It is worth something to live in this age of the
world.
And what has made us such a great and splendid and progressive and
sensible people?
[A voice: "Free thought."]
Free thought, of course. Back of every invention is free thought. Why
does a man invent? Slavery never invents; freedom invents. A slave
working for his master tries to do the least work in the longest space
of time, but a free man, working for wife and children, tries to do the
most work in the shortest possible time. He is in love with what he is
doing, consequently his head and his hands go in partnership; muscle and
brain unite, and the result is that the head invents something to help
the hands, and out of the brain leaps an invention that makes a slave
of the forces of nature--those forces that have no backs to be whipped,
those forces that shed no tears, those forces that are destined to work
forever for the happiness of the human race.
Consequently I am for the protection of American labor, American genius,
American thought. I do not want to put our workingmen on a level with
the citizens of despotisms. Why do not the Democrats and others want the
Chinese to come here? Are they in favor of being protected? Why is it
that the Democrats and others object to penitentiary labor? I will tell
you. They say that a man in the penitentiary can produce cheaper. He has
no family to support, he has no children to look after; and they say, it
is hardly fair to make the father of a family and an honest man compete
with a criminal within the walls of a penitentiary. So they ask to be
protected.
What is the difference whether a man is in the penitentiary, or whether
he is in the despotism of some European state? "Ah, but," they say, "you
let the laborer of Europe come here himself." Yes, and I am in favor of
it always. Why? This world belongs to the human race. And when they come
here, in a little while they have our wants, and if they do not their
children do, and you will find the second generation of Irishmen or
Germans or of any other nationality just as patriotic as the tenth
generation from the first immigrant. I want them to come. Then they get
our habits.
Who wants free trade? Only those who want us for their customers, who
would like to sell us everything that we use--England, Germany, all
those countries. And why? Because one American will buy more than one
thousand, yes, five thousand Asiatics. America consumes more to-day
than China and India, more than ten billion would of semi-civilized and
barbarous peoples. What do they buy--what does England sell? A little
powder, a little whiskey, cheap calico, some blankets--a few things of
that kind. What does the American purchase? Everything that civilized
man uses or that civilized man can want.
England wants this market. Give her free trade, and she will become the
most powerful, the richest nation that ever had her territories marked
upon the map of the world. And what do we become? Nobodies. Poor.
Invention will be lost, our minds will grow clumsy, the wondrous,
deft hand of the mechanic paralyzed--a great raw material producing
country--ignorant, poor, barbaric. I want the cotton that is raised in
this country to be spun here, to be woven into cloth. I want everything
that we use to be made by Americans. We can make the cloth, we can raise
the food to feed and to clothe this Nation, and the Nation is now only
in its infancy.
Somehow people do not understand this. They really think we are getting
filled up. Look at the map of this country. See the valley of the
Mississippi. Put your hand on it. Trace the rivers coming from the Rocky
Mountains and the Alleghanies, and sweeping down to the Gulf, and know
that in the valley of the Mississippi, with its wondrous tributaries,
there can live and there can be civilized and educated five hundred
millions of human beings.
Let us have some sense. I want to show you how far this goes beyond the
intellectual horizon of some people who hold office. For instance: We
have a tariff on lead, and by virtue of that tariff on lead nearly every
silver mine is worked in this country. Take the tariff from lead and
there would remain in the clutch of the rocks, of the quartz misers,
for all time, millions and millions of silver; but when that is put with
lead, and lead runs with silver, they can make enough on lead and silver
to pay for the mining, and the result is that millions and millions are
added every year to the wealth of the United States.
Let me tell you another thing: There is not a State in the Union but
has something it wants protected. And Louisiana--a Democratic State,
and will be just as long as Democrats count the votes--Louisiana has the
impudence to talk about free trade and yet it wants its sugar protected.
Kentucky says free trade, except hemp; and if anything needs protection
it is hemp. Missouri says hemp and lead. Colorado, lead and wool; and so
you can make the tour of the States and every one is for free trade with
an exception--that exception being to the advantage of that State, and
when you put the exceptions together you have protected the industries
of all the States.
Now, if the Democratic party is in favor of anything, it is in favor of
free trade. If President Clevelands message means anything it means free
trade. And why? Because it says to every man that gets protection: If
you will look about you, you will find that you pay for something
else that is protected more than you receive in benefits for what is
protected of yours; consequently the logic of that is free trade. They
believe in it I have no doubt. When the whole world is civilized, when
men are everywhere free, when they all have something like the same
tastes and ambitions, when they love their families and their children,
when they want the same kind of food and roofs above them--if that day
shall ever come--the world can afford to have its trade free, but do not
put the labor of America on a par with the labor of the Old World.
Now, about taxes--internal revenue. That was resorted to in time of war.
The Democratic party made it necessary. We had to tax everything to beat
back the Democratic hosts, North and South. Now, understand me. I know
that thousands and hundreds of thousands of individual Democrats were
for this country, and were as pure patriots as ever marched beneath the
flag. I know that--hundreds of thousands of them. I am speaking of the
party organization that staid at home and passed resolutions that every
time the Union forces won a victory the Constitution had been violated.
I understand that. Those taxes were put on in time of war, because it
was necessary. Direct taxation is always odious. A government dislikes,
to be represented among all the people by a tax gatherer, by an official
who visits homes carrying consternation and grief wherever he goes.
Everybody, from the most ancient times of which I have ever read, until
the present moment, dislikes a tax gatherer. I have never yet seen in
any cemetery a monument with this inscription: "Sacred to the memory of
the man who loved to pay his taxes." It is far better if we can collect
the needed revenue of this Government indirectly. But, they say, you
must not take the taxes off tobacco; you must not take the taxes off
alcohol or spirits or whiskey. Why? Because it is immoral to take off
the taxes. Do you believe that there was, on the average, any more
drunkenness in this country before the tax was put on than there is now?
I do not. I believe there is as much liquor drank to-day, per capita,
as there ever was in the United States. I will not blame the Democratic
party. I do not care what they drink. What they think is what I have to
do with. I will be plain with them, because I know lots of fellows
in the Democratic party, and that is the only bad thing about
them--splendid fellows. And I know a good many Republicans, and I am
willing to take my oath that that is the only good thing about them. So,
let us all be fair.
I want the taxes taken from tobacco and whiskey; and why? Because it is
a war measure that should not be carried on in peace; and in the second
place, I do not want that system inaugurated in this country, unless
there is an absolute necessity for it, and the moment the necessity is
gone, stop it.
The moral side of this question? Only a couple of years ago, I think
it was, the Prohibitionists said that they wanted this tax taken from
alcohol. Why? Because as long as the Government licensed, as long as the
Government taxed and received sixty millions of dollars in revenue, just
so long the Government would make this business respectable, just so
long the Government would be in partnership with this liquor crime. That
is what they said then. Now we say take the tax off, and they say it is
immoral. Now, I have a little philosophy about this. I may be entirely
wrong, but I am going to give it to you. You never can make great men
and great women, by keeping them out of the way of temptation. You have
to educate them to withstand temptation. It is all nonsense to tie a
man's hands behind him and then praise him for not picking pockets. I
believe that temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. Just as life
becomes valuable, people take care of it. Just as life is great, and
splendid and noble, as long as the future is a kind of gallery filled
with the ideal, just so long will we take care of ourselves and avoid
dissipation of every kind. Do you know, I believe, as much as I believe
that I am living, that if the Mississippi itself were pure whiskey and
its banks loaf sugar, and all the flats covered with mint, and all
the bushes grew teaspoons and tumblers, there would not be any more
drunkenness than there is now!
As long as you say to your neighbor "you must not" there is something in
that neighbor that says, "Well I will determine that for myself, and you
just say that again and I will take a drink if it kills me." There is no
moral question involved in it, except this: Let the burden of government
rest as lightly as possible upon the shoulders of the people, and let it
cause as little irritation as possible. Give liberty to the people. I
am willing that the women who wear silks, satins and diamonds; that the
gentlemen who smoke Havana cigars and drink champagne and Chateau Yquem;
I am perfectly willing that they shall pay my taxes and support this
Government, and I am willing that the man who does not do that, but is
willing to take the domestic article, should go tax free.
Temperance walks hand in hand with liberty. You recollect that little
old story about a couple of men who were having a discussion on
this prohibition question, and the man on the other side said to the
Prohibitionist: "How would you like to live in a community where
every body attended to his own business, where every body went to bed
regularly at night, got up regularly in the morning; where every man,
woman and child was usefully employed during the day; no backbiting,
no drinking of whiskey, no cigars, and where they all attended divine
services on Sunday, and where no profane language was used?" "Why," said
he, "such a place would be a paradise, or heaven; but there is no such
place." "Oh," said the other man, "every well regulated penitentiary is
that way." So much for the moral side of the question.
Another point that the Republican party calls the attention of the
country to is the use that has been made of the public land. Oh, say the
Democratic party, see what States, what empires have been given away
by the Republican party--and see what the Republican party did with it.
Road after road built to the great Pacific. Our country unified--the two
oceans, for all practical purposes, washing one shore. That is what
it did, and what else? It has given homes to millions of people in a
civilized land, where they can get all the conveniences of civilization.
And what else? Fifty million acres have been taken back by the
Government. How was this done? It was by virtue of the provisions put in
the original grants by the Republican party.
There is another thing to which the Republican party has called the
attention of the country, and that is the admission of new States where
there are people enough to form a State. Now, with a solid South, with
the assistance of a few Democrats from the North, comes a State, North
Dakota, with plenty of population, a magnificent State, filled with
intelligence and prosperity. It knocks at the door for admission, and
what is the question asked by this administration? Not "Have you the
land, have you the wealth, have you the men and women?" but "Are you
Democratic or Republican?" And being intelligent people, they answer:
"We are Republicans." And the solid South, assisted by the Democrats
of the North, says to that people: "The door is shut; we will not have
you." Why? "Because you would add two to the Republican majority in
the Senate." Is that the spirit in which a nation like this should be
governed? When a State asks for admission, no matter what the politics
of its people may be, I say, admit that State; put a star on the flag
that will glitter for her.
The next thing the Republican party says is, gold and silver shall both
be money. You cannot make every thing payable in gold--that would
be unfair to the poor man. You shall not make every thing payable in
silver--that would be unfair to the capitalist; but it shall be payable
in gold and silver. And why ought we to be in favor of silver? Because
we are the greatest silver producing nation in the world; and the value
of a thing, other things being equal, depends on its uses, and being
used as money adds to the value of silver. And why should we depreciate
one of our own products by saying that we will not take it as money? I
believe in bimetalism, gold and silver, and you cannot have too much
of either or both. No nation ever died of a surplus, and in all the
national cemeteries of the earth you will find no monument erected to a
nation that died from having too much silver. Give me all the silver I
want and I am happy.
The Republican party has always been sound on finance. It always knew
you could not pay a promise with a promise. The Republican party always
had sense enough to know that money could not be created by word
of mouth, that you could not make it by a statute, or by passing
resolutions in a convention. It always knew that you had to dig it out
of the ground by good, honest work. The Republican party always knew
that money is a commodity, exchangeable for all other commodities, but a
commodity just as much as wheat or corn, and you can no more make money
by law than you can make wheat or corn by law. You can by law, make a
promise that will to a certain extent take the place of money until the
promise is paid. It seems to me that any man who can even understand the
meaning of the word democratic can understand that theory of money.
Another thing right in this platform. Free schools for the education of
all the children in the land. The Republican party believes in looking
out for the children. It knows that the a, b, c's are the breastworks of
human liberty. They know that every schoolhouse is an arsenal, a fort,
where missiles are made to hurl against the ignorance and prejudice of
mankind; so they are for the free school.
And what else? They are for reducing the postage one-half. Why? Simply
for the diffusion of intelligence. What effect will that have? It will
make us more and more one people. The oftener we communicate with each
other the more homogeneous we become. The more we study the same books
and read the same papers the more we swap ideas, the more we become true
Americans, with the same spirit in favor of liberty, progress and the
happiness of the human race.
What next? The Republican party says, let us build ships for
America--for American sailors. Let our fleets cover the seas, and let
our men-of-war protect the commerce of the Republic--not that we can
wrong some weak nation, but so that we can keep the world from doing
wrong to us. This is all. I have infinite contempt for civilized people
who have guns carrying balls weighing several hundred pounds, who go and
fight poor, naked savages that can only throw boomerangs and stones.