This audience is a part of that great jury, who, after the evidence
is all in, will decide one way or the other, with an avalanche of snowy
ballots, as spotless in their purity as the honest hearts of the voters
who cast the verdict into the ballot boxes. As Americans we are justly
proud of our birthright--proud of the air of freedom that kisses the
stars and stripes--our nation's ensign, emblematical of mighty victories
in the past, a guarantee of protection in the present to all who stand
beneath its folds and laden with rich promises of future prosperity.
Our country is greater than the men whose election it is our pleasure
to advocate. It is not men but measures which we are to consider. An
earnest conscientious desire to investigate and determine the right,
should absorb and thrill the heart of every patriotic American voter.
The great parties in the present campaign do not differ so much in
regard to the amount of money as they do in regard to its quality. "It
is not the medium of exchange so much as it is an active exchange of the
medium itself." On the tariff question we do not differ in schedules,
but principles--principles which we, as republicans believe, involve the
welfare of all our people and the prosperity of all classes. Personally
I have every respect for a conscientious, earnest opponent in this
crusade of education, and while honestly differing from them, yet will
endeavor to wound the feelings of none. If I speak bitterly of doctrines
which I believe to be pernicious in theory and ruinous in practice, do
me the justice of not interpreting my remarks as in any sense personal.