Читать книгу Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States - Benjamin Harrison - Страница 39

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At Peru a committee, headed by Hon. A. C. Bearss and Giles W. Smith, waited upon General Harrison, who addressed an audience of over two thousand as follows:

My Friends—I am very much obliged to you for that kindness of feeling which your gathering here to-day evinces. I have had a brief visit for rest, and I am come back to my home with very kind feelings toward my friends in Indiana, who have, not only during this important campaign, but always, when I have appealed to them, treated me with the utmost consideration. I have not time to-day to discuss the issues of this campaign. They are extremely important, and they will have a direct bearing upon the prosperity of our country. I can only ask you to think of them, and not to mistake the issue. It is very plain. It is the question of whether our tariff laws shall be a protection to American workingmen and a protection to American manufacturing establishments. Those who advocate tariff for revenue only do not take any thought of our wage-workers, but let their interests take care of themselves. On the other hand the Republican party believes that high regard should be paid to the question what the effect will be upon wages and upon the protection of our American shops. Those who believe the doctrine agree with us; and those who assail it, and say it is unconstitutional, as has recently been said by a distinguished citizen, would destroy our protective system if they could. We must believe so, because we must impute to them sincerity in what they say. I believe this campaign will settle for many years to come the question of whether legislation shall be intelligently directed in favor of the doctrine that we will, so far as may be, see that our farmers may find home consumers for their home product, and that these populous manufacturing centres may give a larger value to the farms that lie about them. You have these questions to settle. They affect your interests as citizens. I am sure that everything that regards them, as well as everything that regards the candidate, may be safely left in the kind hands of these intelligent citizens of Indiana and of the United States. [Great cheering.]