|
William McKinley’s Last Public Address
P
M, D
B, C,
L G: I
am glad to be again in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings
with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger,
and with whose good-will I have been repeatedly and signally honored.
To-day, I have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome
to the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and
participation in this exposition have contributed in so marked a
degree to its interest and success. To the commissioners of the
Dominion of Canada and the British colonies, the French colonies,
the republics of Mexico and of Central and South America, and the
commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this
undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with
them upon the triumphs of art, [297][298]
science, education, and manufacture which the old has bequeathed
to the new century.
Expositions are the timekeepers of
progress. They record the world’s advancement. They stimulate the
energy, enterprise, and intellect of the people, and quicken human
genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily
life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information
to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to
some onward step. Comparison of ideas is always educational, and
as such instructs the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows,
which is the spur to industrial improvement, the inspiration to
useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human
activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts, and even the
whims of the people, and recognizes the efficacy of high quality
and new prices to win their favor. The quest for trade is an incentive
to men of business to devise, invent, improve, and economize in
the cost of production. Business life, whether among ourselves or
with other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle for success. It will
be none the less so in the future. Without competition we would
be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated processes of farming and
manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth
would be no further ad- [298][299]
vanced than the eighteenth century. But though commercial competitors
we are, commercial enemies we must not be.
The Pan-American Exposition has done
its work thoroughly, presenting in its exhibits evidences of the
highest skill, and illustrating the progress of the human family
in the western hemisphere. This portion of the earth has no cause
for humiliation for the part it has performed in the march of civilization.
It has not accomplished everything; far from it. It has simply done
its best; and without vanity or boastfulness, and recognizing the
manifold achievements of others, it invites the friendly rivalry
of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits of trade and commerce,
and will coöperate with all in advancing the highest and best interests
of humanity. The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too
great for the world’s work. The success of art, science, industry,
and invention is an international asset, and a common glory.
After all, how near one to the other
is every part of the world! Modern inventions have brought into
close relation widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted.
Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances
have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan.
They invade fields which a few [299][300]
years ago were impenetrable. The world’s products are exchanged
as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities come
increasing knowledge and larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical
precision by supply and demand. The world’s selling prices are regulated
by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter
space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the
fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same
important news is read, though in different languages, the same
day in all Christendom. The telegraph keeps us advised of what is
occurring everywhere, and the press foreshadows, with more or less
accuracy, the plans and purposes of the nations. Market prices of
products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial
mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own
national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions
are conducted, and international exchanges are made, by the tick
of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined.
The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit,
are of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of
the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special
messenger of the Government, with every facility known at the time
for rapid travel, nineteen [300][301]
days to go from the city of Washington to New Orleans with a message
to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a treaty
of peace had been signed. How different now!
We reached General Miles in Porto
Rico by cable, and he was able, through the military telegraph,
to stop his army on the firing line with the message that the United
States and Spain had signed a protocol suspending hostilities. We
knew almost instantly of the first shots fired at Santiago, and
the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known at Washington
within less than an hour of its consummation. The first ship of
Cervera’s fleet had hardly emerged from that historic harbor when
the fact was flashed to our capital, and the swift destruction that
followed was announced immediately through the wonderful medium
of telegraphy. So accustomed are we to safe and easy communication
with distant lands that its temporary interruption, even in ordinary
times, results in loss and inconvenience. We shall never forget
the days of anxious waiting and awful suspense when no information
was permitted to be sent from Pekin, and the diplomatic representatives
of the nations in China, cut off from all communication, inside
and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded by an angry and
misguided mob that threatened their lives; nor the joy [301][302]
that thrilled the world when a single message from the Government
of the United States brought, through our minister, the first news
of the safety of the besieged diplomats.
At the beginning of the nineteenth
century there was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe; now
there are enough miles to make its circuit many times. Then there
was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have a vast mileage
traversing all lands and all seas. God and man have linked the nations
together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And
as we are brought more and more in touch with each other, the less
occasion is there for misunderstandings, and the stronger the disposition,
when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of arbitration,
which is the noblest forum for the settlement of international disputes.
My fellow-citizens: Trade statistics
indicate that this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity.
The figures are almost appalling. They show that we are utilizing
our fields and forests and mines, and that we are furnishing profitable
employment to the millions of workingmen throughout the United States,
bringing comfort and happiness to their homes, and making it possible
to lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people
are participating in this great prosperity is seen in every Amer-
[302][303] ican community, and shown
by the enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks.
Our duty is the care and security of these deposits, and their safe
investment demands the highest integrity and the best business capacity
of those in charge of these depositories of the people’s earnings.
We have a vast and intricate business,
built up through years of toil and struggle, in which every part
of the country has its stake, which will not permit of either neglect
or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will subserve
it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and
producers will be required to hold and increase it. Our industrial
enterprises, which have grown to such great proportions, affect
the homes and occupations of the people and the welfare of the country.
Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously, and our products
have so multiplied, that the problem of more markets requires our
urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy
will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In these
times of marvellous business energy and gain we ought to be looking
to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and
commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or strain.
[303][304]
By sensible trade arrangements which
will not interrupt our home production, we shall extend the outlets
for our increasing surplus. A system which provides a mutual exchange
of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful
growth of our export trade. We must not repose in the fancied security
that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If
such a thing were possible, it would not be best for us or for those
with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their
products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor.
Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial
development under the domestic policy now firmly established. What
we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad.
The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should
sell everything we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge
our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for
home labor.
The period for exclusiveness is past.
The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem.
Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly
trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are
in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation
are not. [304][305]
If perchance some of our tariffs are
no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries
at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our
markets abroad? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service.
New lines of steamers have already been put in commission between
the Pacific coast ports of the United States and those on the western
coasts of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be
followed up with direct steamship lines between the eastern coast
of the United States and South American ports. One of the needs
of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of
production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely
touched.
Next in advantage to having the thing
to sell is to have the convenience to carry it to the buyer. We
must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They
must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by Americans.
These will not only be profitable in a commercial sense,—they will
be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go. We must build
the Isthmian Canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight
line of water communication with the western coasts of Central and
South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot
be longer postponed. [305][306]
In the furtherance of these objects
of national interest and concern you are performing an important
part. This exposition would have touched the heart of that American
statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for
a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the
New World. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here.
He needs no identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere,
for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American
movement which finds its practical and substantial expression, and
which we all hope will be firmly advanced, by the Pan-American Congress
that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico. The good work
will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear,
this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight,
but their influence will remain to
“Make it live beyond its too short living,
With praises and thanksgiving.”
Who can tell the new
thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired, and the high
achievements that will be wrought through this exposition? Gentlemen,
let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict;
and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not
those of war. We hope [306][307] that
all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort
for their own and the world’s good, and that out of this city may
come, not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more
essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence, and
friendship which will deepen and endure.
Our earnest prayer is that God will
graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness, and peace to all our
neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.
|
