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About The Alliance herald. (Alliance, Box Butte County, Neb.) 1902-1922 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 1912)
WILSON SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE Insists That the Whole Be Consulted. People THE NATION'S AWAKENING. The Tariff Has B.com. m System of ' Favor Should B Gradually Re duced High 8ohduloa Roaponaibl For Truata and Coat of Living Defi nition of Fundamental Democracy. Mr. .lames and QejBlttUB of the Notification Conuni it ce Speaking for the national Oemocratlc convention, recently assembled at Baltimore, yon have not Hied DM of my Domination by the Deniocrntk party for Um Ugh of flee of bfSsJdanl of the United States. Allow me to thank SOU very warmly for the generous terms In which you have, through your distinguished chair man. conveyed ilin notification and for the thoughtful personal courtesy with which you have performed your Inter esting and Important errand. I accept the nomination with a deep sense of Its unusual significance and of the great honor done me and also with a very profound sense of my responsi bility to the party and to tbe nation. You will expect me ill accepting the honor to nana' twf plainly Um faith that is In lue. You will expect me, in brief, to talk polities and open the cam paign In words whose meaning no one need doubt. You will cxiect tne to speak to the country. We cannot Intelligently talk polities unless we know to whom we are talk ing and in what circumstances. The present circumstances are clearly un usual. No previous political campaign In our time has disclosed anything like them. The audience we address Is In no ordinary temper. It Is no audience of partisans. Citizens of every class and party and prepossession sit to gether, n single people, to learn wheth er we understand their life and know how to afford tliem the counsel and guidance they are now keenly aware that they stand In need of. Vo must sneak not to catch votes, but to satisfy the thought and conscience of n people deeply stirred by the conviction that they have come to a critical turning point in their moral and polltlcnl de velopmenH ' The Awakened Nation. .We stand in tne prescuce of an awakened nation. Impatient of parti san make ballet. The public man who does not realize the fact and feel Its stimulation must be singularly un susceptible to the influences that stir toevei'v quarter n hint hlui. Plainly, it Is a now age. The tonic -of such a time Is very exhilarating. It requires self restraint not to attempt too much, and yet it would ls cow ardly to attempt too 111 tie. It, is' In the broad light of this new day that we stand face to face with what? Plainly not with questions of party, not with a contest for office, not with a petty struggle for advuntnge, Democrat against Itepubllcan, liberal against conservative, progressive against reactionary. With great questions of right and Of justice, rather questions of national development, of the devel opment of character and of standards of action no less than of a better busi ness system, more free, more equitable, more open to ordinary men, practicable to live under, tolerable to work under, or a better Oacsl system v.hose taxes shall not come out of the pockets of the many to go into the pockets of the few and within whose iutrlcacies spe cial privilege may not so easily Sad covert. At such a time and In the preseuce of such circumstances what is the mean lot; of our platform and what is our re sponsibility under it? What are our duty and our purpose? The platform Is meant to show that we kuow what the nation is thinking about, what It Is most concerned about, what it wishes corrected ami what it desires to see at tempted that is new and constructive and intended for Its long future. Hut for us It Is a very practical document We are not about to ask the people of the United Stales to adopt our plat form. We are alsiut to ask them to intrust us with office and power and the guidance of their affairs. They Trill wish to know what sort of men we are and of what definite purpose, what translation of action anil of pol icy We intend to give to the general terms J the platform which the con tention m liaitiutora put forth should re be c'octcd. The Work to Be Done. The platform Is not a program. A program must consist of measures, ad mluistratlve acts and acts of legisla tion. The proof of the pudding is the eating thereof. How do we lutein! to make It edible and digestible? I'roui this tin j- on we shall be under interro gation. How do we evpe.-i to handle each of the great matters iiiat must be taken up by the uext congress and the Bext administration? What Is there to do? It Is hard to sum the great task up. but apparently tli.- Is the sum of the matter: There are two great things to do One Is to set up the rule of justice and or right In such matters as the tariff, the regit- i hit. n of the trusts and the prevention of monopoly, the adaptation of our ban!. lug and currency laws to the vari"d use to which our eople must 'put them, the treatment of those who do the di.i:v labor In our factories and mines and throughout all our great In dustrl.il and commercial undertakings, and the pollthal life of the people of the Philippines, for whom we bold governmental power in trust, for their service, not our own The other, the additional duty is the great task of protecting our people and our resources and of keeping open to the whole peo pie the doors of opportunity through which they must, generation by gener ation, pass If they are to make con quest of their fortunes In health, In freedom, In peace and In contentment In the performance of this second great duty we are face to face wit I questions of conservation and of de velopnient, questions of forests and water powers and mines anil water ways, of the building of an adequate merchant marine, and the opening of every highway and facility, and the setting up of every safeguard needed by nn Industrious, expanding nation. In Partnerehip With the People. These are all great matters iiKn which everybody should be heard. We have got Into trouble In recent years chiefly liecause these large tilings, which ought to have been ban lied by taking counsel with ns large a num ber of persons as possible, because they torn lied every interest and the life of every cUlM anil region, have In fact been too often handled In private conference. They have been settled by very small and often de liberately exclusive groups of men who undertook to spook for the whole nation, or, rather, for themselves In. the terms of the whole nation- very honestly It may be, but very Ignorunt ly sometimes and very shortsightedly, too a poor substitute for genuine com M counsel. No group of directors, economic or political, can speak for a people. They have neither the point of view nor t lie know ledge. We need no revolution; we need DO excited change; we need only a new point of view and a new met hod and spirit of counsel.- We are servants of the people, the whole people. The nation has been unnecessarily, unreasonably at war within Itottlt interest has clashed with interest when there were com mon principles of right and of fair dealing which might and should have bound them all together, not as rivals, but as partners. As the servants of all we nre bound to undertake the great duty of accommodation and ad justment. We cannot undertake It except in a spirit which some find It hard to un derstand. Some people only smile when you speak of yourself as a serv ant of the people; It seems to them like affectation or mere demagogy. They ask what the unthinking crowd knows or comprehends of great coin plicated matters of government. They shrug their shoulders and lift their eyebrows when you speak as If yon really lielleved In presidential prima ries. In the direct election of United States senators and In an utter ptilt llclty about everything that concerns government, from the sources of cam paign funds to the Intimate deliote of the highest affairs of state. The Public a Noble Whole. They do not or will not compre hend the solemn thing that is in your thought. You kuow as well as they do that there an1 all sorts and condi tions of men the unthinking mixed with UM wise, the reckless with the prudent, the unscrupulous with tin fair and honest -and you know, what they sometimes forget, that every class, without exception, affords a sample of the mixture, the learned and the fortunate no less than the unedu cated and the struggling mass. Hut you sM more than they do. You see that these multitudes of men. mixed, of every kind and quality, constitute somehow an organic and noble whole, a single people, and that they have In terests which no man can privately determine without their knowledge and counsel That Is the meaning of reprcKctitat ive government itself. You may think that I am wandering I off into a general disquisition that has little to do with the business In hand, but 1 am not. This is business busi ness of the deepest sort. It will solve our difficulties If you will but take it as business. The Tariff. 8ee how it makes business out of the tariff question. The tariff question as dealt with in our time at any rate has not been business. It has been politics. Tariff schedules have been made up for the purpose of keeping as large a tuimU-r as possible of the rich and in tlueuMal manufacturers of the country lu a good humor with the Republican party, which desired their constant financial support. The tariff has be come a system of favors, which the phraseology of the schedule was often deliberately contrived to conceal. It becomes a matter of business, of legiti mate business, ouly when the partner ship and understanding It represents are between the leaders of congress and the whole people of the L'nited States iustead of between the leaders of con gress and small groups of manufac turers demanding special recognition and consideration. That Is why the general Idea of representative govern uient becomes a necessary part of the tariff question. Who when you come down to the hard fa-ts of the matter have been represented in recent years when our tariff schedules were lieing discussed and determined not on the floor of congress, for that Is not where they liuve been determined, but In the committee rooms and conferences? That Is the heart of the whole affair Will you. can you. bring the whole I I'le Into the partnership or not? No one Is discontented with representa tive government It falls under ques tion only when It ceases to lie repre s- t.tatlve. It is at bottom a question of good faith and morals. How does the present tariff look In the light of It? say nothing for the moment atout the policy of protection conceived anil carried out as a dlsln- 1 tercsted statesman might conceive It. j Our own clear conviction as Ietno- : '-rats Is tb.'i in the last analysis the only safe and legitimate object of tariff duties, as of taxes of every other kind, I Is to raise revenue for the support of the government. Hut that Is uot my j present point. We denounce the Payne- j Aldrlch tariff act as the most eonsplcu-1 ous example ever afforded the country f the special favors and monopolistic advantages which the leaders of (he Republican party have so often shown themselves willing to extend to those fo whom they looked for campaign con trthuflona. Tariff duties, as they have employ el tliem, have not been a means of setting up an equitable system of protection. They have been, on the contrary, a method of fostering special privilege. They have made It easy to establish monopoly In our domestic markets. Trusts have owed their ori gin and their secure power to them. No Sudden Disturbance. We do not Ignore the fact that the business of a country like ours is ex ceedingly sensitive to changes In legis lation of this kind. It has been built up, however ill advisedly, upon tariff schedules written In the way I have Indicated, and Its foundation must not be too radically or too suddenly disturbed. When we act we should act with caution and prudence, like men who kOOW what they are about and not like those in love with a theory. It is obvious that (he changes wo make should be made only nt such a rate and in such a way as will least Interfere with the normal and health ful course of commerce and manufac ture. Hut we shall not on that ac count act with timidity, os If we did not know our own minds, for we are Certain of our ground and of our ob ject. There should be an Immediate revision, and It should be downward, unhesitatingly and steadily downward. It should begin with the schedules which have been most obviously used tc kill competition nnd to raise prices in the United States, arbitrarily and without regard to the prices pertain ing elsewhere in the markets of the world, and It should, before It Is fin ished or Intermitted, be extended to every Item In every schedule which affords any opportunity for monopoly, for special advantage to limited groups of beneficiaries or for subsidiz ed control of any kind In the markets or the enterprises of the country until special favors of every sort shall have btn absolutely withdrawn and every part of our laws of taxation shall have leen transformed from a system of governmental patronage into a system of Just and reasonable charges which shall fall where they will create the least bnrden. Tariff Demoralizes Politico. There has lieen no more demoraliz ing Influence In our politics Ip our time than the Influence of tariff legls lation, the Influence of the Idea that the government was the grand dis snser of favors, the maker and nn maker of fortunes, ami of opportuni ties such as certain men have sought In order to control the movement of trade and Industry throughout the Continent It has made the govern ment a prize to be captured and par ties the means of effecting the capture It has made the business men of one of the most virile nnd enterprising M tlons In the world timid, fretful, full of alarms; has robliod them of s-i.' confidence and manly force until thev have cried out that they eould do nothing without the BSlstaOCe of the government at Washington. It has made them feel that their lives de iendod upotl the ways and means committ) f the hnnss and the finance committee of the senate (in tl. we later years particularly the tlnan -e commit tee of th senate). They have insist ed very anxiously that these commit tees should lie made up only of their "friends'- until the country in Its turn grew suspicious nnd wondered how those committees were being guided and controlled, by what influences and plans of personal advantage. Govern ment cannot be wholesomely conduct ed lu such an atmosphere. Its very honesty Is In Jeopardy. For what has the result been? Prosierlty? Yes. if by prosperity you mean vast wealth, no matter how dis tributed, or whether distributed st all. or not: If yon mean vast enterprises built up to le presently concentrated under the control of comparatively small bodies of men. who can deter mine almost tit pleasure whether there shall lie competition or not. The nation as a nation has grown immensely rich Hut what of the other side of the pic ture? It Is not as easy for us to live as it used to lie. Our money will not buy as much. High wages, even when we can get them, yield us no great comfort. Tariff Causes High Prices. Moreover, we U-gin to perceive some things about the movement of prices Thai concern us very deeply and fix our ittontkM upon the tariff schedules with a more definite determination than ever to get to the bottom of this mm ter. We have been looking Into It at trials held under (lie Sherman oct and hi investigation In the committee rooms of congress, where men who wanted to know the real facts have Ihm-u busy with Inquiry, and we begin to see very clearly what at least some of the methods are by which prices are fixed. We know that they are not lived by the competitions of the mar ket or by the ancient law of supply and demand, which Is to be found slated in all the primers of economics, but by private arrangements with regard t what the supply should be and agree inents among the producers themselv es Those who buy nre uot even represent ed l y coutnel The high cost of living Is arranged by private understanding. We naturally ask ourselves How did these gentlemen get control of these things? Who handed our economic laws over to them for legislative and contractual alteration ? We have In ihese d'sclostires still another view of the tariff, still another proof that uot the people of the 1'nitoil States, but only a very small number of t hem. have been partners lu that legislation The trusts do not belong to the peri od of Infant Industries. Theare not the products of the time, that old la horlous time, when the great conti nent we live on was undeveloped, the young nation struggling to find itself and get upon Its feet amidst older and more experienced competitors. They belong to a very recent and very so phlsticated age, wheu men knew what they wanted and knew bow to get It by the favor of the government. It Is another chapter In the natural his tory of power and of "governing classes." The next chapter will set us fris again. I am not one of those who think that competition can bo established by law against the drift of a world w ide economic tendency; neither am I one of those who believe that business done upon I groat scale by n single organization call it corpoiation or what yon will is necessarily danger ous 0 the li'iertles, even the economic liberties, of u great people like our own. full of Intelligence and of In domitable energy. I um not afraid of Anything that is normal, i dare say we shall never return to the old order of Individual Competition and that the organization of business Upon I great scale of co opera tl in Is, up to n certain polut, itself normal and Inevitable. Shermjn Law Amendments. Power In the hands of great busi ness men does, not make me appre hensive, unless It springs out of RtV vatitagos which they have not created for themselves. Rig lustiness Is not dangerous ho.-ausi it Is big. but be cause Its bigness Is an unwholesome inflation created bjf privileges and ex emptions w hich It ought not to enjoy. The general terms of the present federal antitrust law, forbidding "combinations in restraint of trade," have apparently proved Ineffectual. Trusts have grown up under Its ban very luxuriantly and have pursued Uw methods by which so many of them have established virtual monop olies without serious let or hindrance. It has roared against them like any sucking dove. I am not assessing the responsibility: lam merely stating the fact. Hut the means and methods by which trusts have established monop olies have now become known. It will be necessary to supplement the prev ent law with such laws, lioth civil and criminal, as w-ill effectually punish and prevent those methods, adding such other laws as may Ive neoessirrv to provide suitable and adequate judicial processes, whether civil or. criminal, to disclose them and follow them to final verdict and Judgment. But the problem and the difficulty are much greater than that. There are not Ulerely great trusts and COStt hinutiotis which are to be controlled and deprived if their power to create monopolies nnd destroy rivals. There is something bigger still than they are j and more subtle, more evasive, more , difficult to deal with. There are vast confederacies las I may perhaps cll j them for the sake Of convenience! of , banks, railways, express companies. Insurance companies, manufacturing ; corporations. mining corporations, power and development companies i and all the rest of the circle, bound together by the tact that the owner hip of their stock and the members of j their boards of directors are controlled i and determined by comparatively I small and closely Interrelated groups of persons who, by their Inform:-1 Con federacy, may control. If they please and when they will, both credit and enterprise. They are part of our prob lem. Their very existence gives rise to the suspicion of a "money trust." a concentration of the control of credit which may at any time become In finitely dangerous to free enterprise. If such a concentration and control do not actually exist It Is evident that they can easily lie set up and used at will. Ijiws must lie devised which will prevent this. If laws can le work ed out by fair and free counsel that will accomplish that result without destroying or seriously embarrassing any sound or legitimate business un dertaking or necessary and wholesome arrangement. The Labor Question. Let me say again t'.'t what we nre Paring is not ib-Mru "on of any kind nor the disruption of any sound or hon est thing, but merely the rule of right and of the common advantage. I am happy to say that a new spirit has be gun to show itself in the last year or two among influential men of business and. what is perhaps even more slgniti cant, among the lawyers who are their expert advisers and that this spirit has displayed itself very notably in the last few months In an effort to return in some degree at any rale to the prac tlces of genuine competition. If I am right about this. It Is going to lie easl -r to act in accordance with the rule of right and Justice In deal ing with the labor question. The so called labor question is a question only liecause we have not yet found the rule of right In adjusting the inter ests of labor and capital. The welfare, tin- happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the dally work in our mines and factories, on our railroads, in our offices and marts of trade, on our farms ami on the sea. are of the essence of our na tional life. There can tie nothing wholesome unless their life Is whole some: there can Is no contentment un less they are contented. Their physi cal welfare affects the soundness of the whole nation. We shall never get rj m la the self lenient of th?se vital matters to long as we regard can nag off tne seas. BMN are an everything done for the worklngnian. necessary if you will but undo some by law or by private agreement, as a concession yielded to keep him from agitation and a disturbance of our waec Here again the sense of uni versal partnership must come Into play If we are to act like statesmen, as those who serve not a class, but a aatlon. The working people of America If they must lie distinguished from the minority that constitutes the rest of It are, of course, the baeklvone of the nation. No law that safeguards their life, that Improves the physical and moral conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of lalsir rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own In terest and that protects them when' they cannot protect themselves can ptoperly l regarded as class legisla tion or ns anything but as a measure aken In the Interest of the whole people, whose partnership In right, ac tion we are trying to establish and make real and practical. It Is In this spirit that we shall act If we are genu ine skesmcn of the whole country. Currency Lawa. As our program Is disclosed for no HUH -an forecast It ready made and before counsel Is taken of every one concerned this must be Its measure and standard, the Interest of all con cerned. For examt le in dealing With the complicated ar.d difficult question i and pouring out million upon million of of tlie reform of ot.r banking and cur ' y upon its construction merely to of the things that have been done. Without a great merchant marine we cannot take our rightful place in the commerce of the world. Merchant who must dceiid upon the carriers of rival mercantile nations to carry their goods to market are at a disadvantage in internt... .ial tMde too maaLfest to need to 1k polnteu out. and our mer chants will not long suffer themselves ought not to suffer themselves to be placed at such a disadvantage. Our Industries have expanded to such a point that they will burst their Jackets If they cannot find a free outlet to the markets of the world, and they cannot find such an outlet unless they ! given ships of their own to -arry their goods ships that will go the routes they want them to go -and prefer the interests of America In their filing orders aud their equipment. Our do mestlc markets no longer suffice. We need foreign markets. That Is an other force that Is going to break the tariff down. The tariff was once a bulwark; now It Is n dam. 1'or trade Is reciprocal; we cannot sell unless we also buy. The very fact that we have at last taken the Panama canal so-otisly In hand and are vigorously pushing It to ward Completion is eloquent of our re awakened Interest In international trade. We nre not building the canal rency laws It Is plain that we ottght to consult very many persons besides the bankers, not becaoet we distrust the bankers, but because they do not necessarily Comprehend the business of the country, notwithstanding they are indispensable servants of It and may do u vast deal to make It hard of easy. No mere bankers' plan will meet the requirements, no matter DOW honestly conceived. It should be a merchants and farmers' plan us well, elastic in the hands of those who use It as an indispensable part of their daily business. In dealing with the Philippines we establish a water connection between the two coasts of the continent, Im poftnnt and desirable as that may he, particularly from the oint of view of naval defense. It Is meant to be a great international highway. It would be a little ridiculous if we should build It and then have no ships to send through it. There have been years when not a single ton of freight pass ed through the great Suez canal In an American bottom, so empty are the seas of our ships and seamen. Induatrial Education. There Is another duty which the Democratic party has shown Itself should not allow ourselves to stand Krilflt enough and close enough to the uix.n any mere point of pride as If, in peopv (o perceive, the duty of govern order to- keep our countenance in the ,uent to suaro q prmotIng agricul famllies of nations. It were necessary turaU industrial, vocational education for us to make the same blunders of ln every way poorfbla within its con selfishness that other nations bare stitutiorial powers. No other platform made. We are not the owners of the nllH given this intimate vision of a par Phillpplne Islands. We hold them In , tv's dutv. Education Is part of the trust for the people who live ln tliem. They are theirs for the nses of their life. We are not even their partners. It is our duty as trustees to make great task of conservation, part of the task of renewal and of perfected power. We have set ourselves a great pro- whatever arrangement of government mm. and it will be a great party that will be most serviceable to their free I carries It out. It must be a party with- dom and development, Here again we are to set up the rule of Justice and of right. Prss-dential Primaries. The rule of the people Is no Idle out entangling alliances with any spe cial Interest whatever. It must have the spirit and the point of view of the new age. Men are turning away from the Republican party as organized un- phrase. Tlnwe who believe ln Itas I der its old leaders because they found who does not that has caught the real I that it was not free, that it was entau splrlt of America? believe that there gled, aud they are turning to us be- can be no rule of right without it that rbxlit In iiolitles Is made up of the interests of everybody, unii every body should take part lu the action cause they deem ns free to serve them. We should go Into this campaign confident of only one thing confident of what we want to do if intrusted that Is to determine it We have lieen t with the government. It is not a parti keen for presidential primaries and san fight we arc entering upon. We the direct election of United States are happily excused from personal at seiiators because we wanted the ac- j tacks Upon opponents and from all gen tlon Of tha government tO be determln- eral Indictments against the men op ed by persona whom the people had nosed to us. The facts are patent to actually designated as men whom they everybody; we do not have to prove were ready to trust and follow. We ' them; the more frank among our oppo have been anxious that nil campaign neiits admit them. Our thinking must contributions and expenditures should be constructive from start to finish, be disclosed to the public in fullest We must show thai we understand the detail because we regarded the Infin- I problems that Confront us and that we ences which govern campaigns to lie are soberly minded to deal with them, as much a part of the people's busi- , applying to them not nostrums and lio ness as anything else connected with tlons, but hard sense and good courage, their government We are working , A Govwment For publlc Goodi toward a very de.iu.te object the unl ptnnldenttal campaign may easily versa I partnership in public aflalrs , 1 , . , , ' , .. .Z . , degenerate Into mere persons con uH.n which the purify of isilitics aud , , . . ,,irtlIt ,, i il uv u r nnv ,c t uiBiUiij u its aim and spirit depend. I do not know any greater question than that of conservation. We have been a spendthrift nation and must now husband what we have left. We must do more than that. We must de velop as well as preserve our water powers aud must add great waterways to the transportation facilities of tbe nation to supplement the railways within our borders as well as upon the isthmus. We must revive our mer- slgniflcance. There Is no indispensa ble man. The government will not collapse and go to pieces If any one of the gentlemen who are seeking to he intrusted with its guidance should lie left at home. But men are Instrn ments. We are as important as the cause we represent, and in order to be Important must really represent a cause. What Is our cause? The peo ple's cause? That Is easy to say, but vvtctl il.M-s It menn? t ti, common iw chatit marine, too, and fill the seas agaia8t nQy artu.u,ar lntpppBt what. again with our own fleets. We must add to our present pontadtos service a parcels, post as complete as that of any Jther nation. We must look to the ever? Yes, but that, too. needs trans lation into acts aud Klicles. We rep resent the desire to set up an unen- ineleil imveriimcllt n imv-ormtutnt tleil aealtl, of our people upon every hand , eann((t (e U8od for rivate pnrpoB0H as well as hearten them with justice ,n f)f bmdJ or ,n and Opportunity. This Is the construe- : fhi ((f M,tk.H. &Vi.rinwnt that live work of government. This is the uot tolsrnto the use of the organ- policy that has a vision and a hoie and ,7atllU (f Knat (arty t( sefve ,he that looks to serve mankind. personal aims and ambitions of any There are many sides to these great : pMlvldonl nnd that will not penult matters. Conservation is easy to gen- ,,,,.,,,,,. , i. mi,i(vlH, to fnrtw ernllss about, but hard to particularize j any I)rivilf(, i.uerent It is a great con- aoout wisely, ueservatiou is not tne whole of conservation. The develop ment of great states must not be stay ed indefinitely to await a policy by which our forests and water iiowers can prudently be made use of. Use aud development must go hand In hand. The policy we adopt must be caption, but 1 am free to serve it, as you also are. I could not have ac cepted a nomination which left me bound to any man or any group of men. No man can be just who Is not free, and no man who has to show favors ought to undertake the solemn responsibility of government lu any progresslve-uot negative merely, as if rtllk or ,,mt wnateveri ,eagt of al, , we did uot kuow what to do. j the 8Uprmi,e )08t of president of the Improving Our Rivers. j United States. With regard to the development of ( To be free Is not necessarily to be greater and more numerous waterways j wise. But wisdom comes with conn- and the building up of a merchant ma rine, we must follow great constructive lines aud not fall back upon the cheap device of liounlles and subsidies. In the case of tbe Mississippi river, that sel, with the frank and free confer ence of iintramnieled men united ln the common interest. Should I tie In trusted with the great office of presi dent I would seek counsel wherever great central artery of our trade. It Is It could U had upon free terms. I plain that the federal government must know the temper of the great conven- luilld and maintain the levees ami keep lion Which nominated me: I kuow the the great waters In harness for the temper of the country that lay back general use. The question of a merchant marine turns back to the tariff again, to which all roads seem to lead, and to our reg tstrv laws, which, if coupled with the tariff, might almost Is supposed to tr ie serv ants of the people, ha"" been Intended to take the Ameri '"'' mJ W'H take courage. of that convention and sioke through It. I heed with deep thankfulness (he message you bring me from it. I fi-el that I am surrounded by men whose principles and ambitions are those of I thank