Читать книгу Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States - Benjamin Harrison - Страница 35

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General Harrison left Indianapolis on the morning of August 21, '88, for a two weeks' outing and vacation at Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie, where he was the guest—upon invitation of ex-Gov. Charles Foster, of Ohio—of the Middle Bass Fishing Club, Mather Shoemaker, Sr., President.

He was accompanied by Mrs. Harrison, Judge Wm. A. Woods and wife, Miss Woods, Samuel Miller, and representatives of the Associated Press and Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette.

His departure was not generally known, consequently there was no demonstration along the line until Defiance, Ohio, was reached, where several hundred people had gathered. Hon. C. A. Flickinger delivered a brief address of welcome.

General Harrison, speaking from the train, said:

Gentlemen—I am very much obliged to you for this reception. You will excuse me, I am sure, for not attempting to make any speech. This evidence of your friendly feeling is gratifying to me. We were intending to travel to-day in quietness, and I am confident you will conform to our wishes in that respect by allowing me to say simply, "How do you do" and "Good-by."

Toledo was reached early in the evening, and several thousand citizens and militia welcomed the distinguished travellers. A committee of reception, comprising James M. Brown, Chairman, Mayor Hamilton, Hon. E. D. Potter, J. C. Bonner, John Berdan, C. A. King, Calvin Barker, Fred Eaton, Col. S. C. Reynolds, Judge R. F. Doyle, Judge Joseph Cummings, Hon. John F. Kumler, Hon. Richard Waite, Wm. Baker, and Judge Austin, escorted General Harrison and his party to the residence of Wm. Cummings, whose guests they were. At night an open-air mass-meeting was held in Memorial Hall Square, where ten thousand men assembled. Gov. Foster spoke at length, and was followed by General Harrison, who was introduced by Hon. J. M. Brown, President of the Executive Committee United Republican Clubs, and spoke as follows:

My Friends—You have already been told that this reception was not planned by me, and yet I do not regret that I have yielded to the urgent solicitation of your representatives and have consented to stand for a few moments in the presence of this magnificent and instructive audience. [Applause.] I say instructive, for that public man is dull indeed who does not gather both instruction and inspiration from such meetings as this. [Applause.] I thank you for any measure of personal respect and interest which your coming here to-night may witness, but I do not see in this immense gathering any testimony that is personal to me. I prefer to regard it as another witness added to the long number I have seen before of the deep-seated and earnest interest of our people in the public questions that are to be settled in November. [Applause.] I choose rather to regard it as a pledge that this interest you manifest in me to-night will not stop here, but is the pledge of continued and earnest personal work by each one of you for those principles which have won the consent of your minds and the love of your hearts. [Applause.] I cannot enter in any detail into the discussion of public questions; I would not at all put myself between you and these great, important issues. I would, in all I may say, put them to the front. We are here citizens of a great, prosperous, magnificent Nation. We have common interests. We are here charged with the common duties to perpetuate, if we can, the prosperity and to maintain the honor of this great Republic. [Applause.] We are here to-night in the enjoyment of free government. We are here in the individual possession of better opportunities of development, of a larger prosperity, and of more individual comfort than are possessed by any other people in the world. [Applause.] The great economic question as to what shall be our future legislative policy is stated with a distinctness in this campaign that it has never had before, and I believe the verdict and decision will have an emphasis and finality that it has never had before. [Applause.] If there is any one here present to-night that knows of any land that spreads a more promising sky of hope above the heads of the poor and the laboring man than this, I would be glad if he would name it. The one fact that I do not need to stop to demonstrate by statistics, the one fact that I could call out of this vast audience hundreds of witnesses to support by their personal testimony, is that the scale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in the world. [Applause.] If this were not true, why is it that the workingmen and the working-women of the older lands turn their faces hitherward? If there is a better country, one that offers better wages, fuller hopes than this, why is it that those who are in quest of such better things have not found it out and turned their faces thitherward? Now, if that is true, then why is it true, and how is it to be continued—this condition of our country? It is because, and only because, we have for years, by our protective tariff, discriminated in favor of American manufacturers and American workingmen. [Applause.] Strike down this protective system, bring our workingmen and working-women in equal competition in the products of their toil with those who labor abroad, and nothing is clearer than that these mills and factories must reduce wages here to the level with wages abroad, or they must shut down. You have the choice to make; you, the free citizens of this country, whose ballots sway its destiny, will settle these questions in November. [Applause.] I ask you how? Don't be deceived by the suggestion that this is any contest over a seven per cent. reduction in the tariff schedule. We are allowed now to say, I think, that all those who are entitled to speak for the Democratic party have declared that it is opposed to protection. That being so, the issue is clearly, distinctly, strongly drawn. I beg you all—not in my interest, but in your own; in the interest of your families and the country you love—to ponder this question; to think upon it with that seriousness its importance demands, and when you have thought it out, settle it, settle it in November, so that we shall be free for years to come from this agitation in behalf of free trade. [Great applause.]

I thank you again for this kindly demonstration. I beg you to accept these brief suggestions as the only but inadequate return that I can make you for this kindness. [Applause.]