McKinley's masterpieces; selections from the public addresses in and out of Congress, of William McKinley

Front matter

k A

Famous Men Series

McKINLEI 'S M VS'I ERPIfl I S.

Contents

I '. i RODU< I' »R\ STA1 l-MI-.M . Vll

Biographical Sketch • • xi

I. The Republu an Par i y . - 1 1

Chapter I. The Republican Party

It is fitting that these selections should begin with quotations from the speeches of Major McKinley on the general topic — The Republican Party. To this great historic party he lias given a life of devoted service; it, in turn, has honored him to the full measure of possibility.

I. Brief and to the Point.

" My fellow citizens, let us cherish the principles of our party and consecrate ourselves anew to their triumph. We have but to put our trust in the people ; we have but to keep in close touch with the people ; we have but to hearken to the voice of the people, as it comes to us from every quarter ; we have but to paint on our banners the sentiment the people have everywhere expressed at every election during the last tbree years- ' Patriotism, Protection and Prosperity,' to win anm< kinley's masterpieces.

other most glorious and decisive Republican National victory." — Marquette Club, Chicago, Feb, 12, 1896.

•• It is not our habit or our history as Republicans to haul down or lower our colors. We put them where they are. We mean to keep them there." — Columbus, O., June 8,

V-

"The past of the Republican party is secure, its glory fills the world with wonder and admiration, and inspires mankind with new hopes and grander aspirations. The future is now our field; let us look to it. It opens with glorious possibilities and invites the party of ideas to enter and possess it. Let us appeal to the highest judgment and reason of the people, and our appeal will not be in vain." -Dayton, O., Oct. 18,1887.

"The Republican party stands for a foreign policy dictated by and imbued with a spirit that is genuinely American ; for a policy that will revive the National traditions and restore the National spirit which carried us proudly through the earlier years of the century. It stands for such a policy with all foreign nations as will insure, both to us and them, justi< e, impartiality, fairness, good faith,

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 23

dignity, and honor. It stands for the Monroe doctrine as Monroe himself proclaimed it, about which there is no division whatever among the American people. It stands now, as ever, for honest money and a chance to earn it by honest toil. It stands for a currency of gold, silver, and paper with which to measure our exchanges, that shall be as sound as the Government and as untarnished as its honor." — Lincoln Banquet, Chicago^ Feb. 12, t8q6.

" No one need be in any doubt about what the Republican party stands for. Its own history makes that too palpable and clear to admit of doubt. It stands for a reunited and recreated Nation, based upon free and honest elections in every township, county, city, district and State in this great American Union. It stands for the American fireside and the flag of the Nation. It stands for the American farm, the American factory, and the prosperity of all the American people. It stands for a reciprocity that reciprocates and which does not yield up to another country a single day's labor that belongs to the American workingman. It stands for international agreements, which get as much as they give, upon terms of mutual advantage. It stands for an exchange of our surplus home products for such foreign products as we consume but do not produce. It stands for the reciprocity of iJlaine; for the reciprocity of Harrison; for the restoration and extension of the principle embodied in the reciprocity provision of the Republican tariff in 1890." — Lincoln Banquet, Chicago, Feb. 12, 1896.

"Much as the Republican party has done, it has great things yet to do. It will be a mighty force in the future as it has been a mighty force in the past. Its glories will continue to blaze on the heights, a beacon to the world, pointing to a higher destiny for mankind, and the upholding and uplifting of a Nation approved of God It will not pause in its march and achievements until the Flag, the Flag of the Stars, shall be the unquestioned symbol of sovereignty at home and of American rights abroad; until American labor shall be securely shielded from the degrading competition of the Old World, and our entire citizenship from the vicious and criminal classes who are crowding our shores ; never while the advocates of a debased dollar threaten the country with its financial heresies ; and never until the free right to vote in every < oraer of the country shall be protected under the law, and by the law, and for the law; never until the American ballot-box shall be

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 25

held as sacred as the American home." — Niles, 0/iio, Gubernatorial Campaign^ Oct. 22,

I&QI.

II. " The Republican Party. It offers its past as a guarantee for its future."

" Mr. President^ Gentlemen of the Michigan

Republican Club : — It gives me .sincere pleasure to meet with you to-night I have not met with the Republicans of Michigan since the great victory of 1894 — the great national victory and I bring to you my congratulations upon the proud part you bore in that great conflict resulting so triumphantly for Republican principles, and. as I believe, for the best interests of the whole country. I cannot believe that our principles are less dear to us in their triumph than they were in their temporary defeat. I cannot believe that the principles which won a most unprecedented victory from ocean to ocean require now either modification or abandonment. They are dearer and closer to the American heart than they have ever been in the past, and notwithstanding the magnificent victory of 1894, and notwithstanding these great principles are cherished in the hearts of the American people, there is still a greater and more significant battle to be fought in the near future,

Mckinley's masterpieces.

before we can realize those principles in administration and legislation.

•• While, in the situation of the country, there is no cause for congratulation, this is not the time to employ terms of distrust or aggravation. Times are bad enough, and the voice of encouragement is more appropriate than that of alarm and exaggeration. The realities are quite ugly enough, and it is the duty of each of us, by word and act, in so far as it can be done, to improve the present condition. But above all, we must not disparage our government. We must uphold it, and uphold it at all times and under all circumstances, notwithstanding that we may not be able to support the measures and policies of the present administration. Home prosperity is the only key to an easy treasury and a high credit. The Republican party never lowered the flag or the credit of the Government, but lias exalted both. I agree with the President, in his recent message, that a predicament

ironts us. When I was here six years ago, reading from his message, it was a condition that confronted us, and that condition was an

rflowing treasury, under Republican legislation. Now I come back to you, and it is a predicament that confronts the people of the United States, because of a deficiency created

the legislation of a Democratic Congress and administration.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 27

" I am sure, however, that there is wisdom and patriotism ample enough in the country to relieve ourselves from this or any other predicament, and to place us once more at the head of the nations of the world in credit, production, and prosperity. The Republican party needs but to adhere faithfully to its principles — to the principles enunciated by its great national conventions, which guided the republic for a third of a century in safety and honor, which gave the country an adequate revenue, and, while doing that, labor received comfortable wages and steady employment, which guarded every American interest at home and abroad with zealous care — principles, the application of which made us a nation of homes, of independent, prosperous freemen, where all had a fair chance and an equal opportunity in the race of life. You do not have to guess what the Republican party will do. The whole world knows its purposes. It has embodied them in law, and executed them in administration. It has bravely met every emergency, and has ever measured up to every new duty. It is dedicated to the people ; it stands for the United States. It practises what it preaches, and fearlessly enforces what it teaches. Its simple code is home and country. Its central idea is the well-being of the people, and all the

Mckinley's masterpieces.

people. It has no aim which does not take into account the honor of the Government, and the material advancement and happiness of the American people. The Republican party is neither an apology nor a reminiscence. It is proud of its past, and it sees greater usefulness in the future." — Michigan Club, Feb. 22, iSgjj.

Chapter II

J III. PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

Wn ii the great principle of protection the name of McKinley will ever he associated. In no land and in no age has this great economic policy had an abler expounder than he. Wherever this beneficent principle finds complete adoption, and its wisdom becomes demonstrated. M< Kinley's part in bringing about that prosperity and well-being of the social order which will inevitably result can nowhere be forgotten. He is the great philosopher of protection. To select from his voluminous expositions of thi.-. policy has been no

3y task, but perhaps as representative a set of quotations as could be gathered is here found. < >ne selection is taken from his estimate of the Mills Bill, the great tarifl measure of the first Cleveland administration; while another comes from his speech on the Gorman tariff, the product of the second Cleveland administration. Another masterpiece is McKinley's discussion of the project for a tariff commission. It is here presented in part. "What protection means to Virginia" is an exposition of the effect of this economic philosophy, as applied to a particular locality; while McKinley's speech in presenting the tariff bill of 1890 is perhaps his most formal analysis of the protection plan, and from this masterpiece very generous extracts are here reproduced.

I. Nuggets.

"The protective system must stand, or fall, as a whole. As Burke said of liberty : 'It is the clear right of all, or -of none. It is only pcifect when universal.' It must be a protective tariff for all interests requiring the encouragement of the Government, or it must be free trade or a revenue tariff and rest alike upon all classes and all portions of the country." -Address at Atlanta, Ga., Aug. 21, H.

" We are faithfully wedded to the great principle of protection by every tie of party fealty and affection, and it is dearer to us now than ever before. Not only is it dearer to us as Republicans, but it has more devoted supporters among the great masses of the American people, irrespective of party, than at any previous period in our National history. It is everywhere recognized and endorsed as the great, masterful, triumphant American principle — the key to our prosperity in business, the safest prop to the Treasury of the United States, and the bulwark of our national independence and finan- 1 ial honor. The question of the continuance or abandonment of our protective system has n the one great, overshadowing, vital question in American politics ever since Mr. Cleveland opened the contest in December, 1887, to which the lamented James G. Blaine made swift reply from across the sea, and it will

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 3 I

continue the issue until a truly American policy, for the good of America, is firmly established and perpetuated. The fight will go on- -and must go on — until the American system is everywhere recognized, until all nations come to understand and respect it as distinctly, and all Americans come to honor or love it as dearly, as they do the American flag. God grant the day may soon come when all partizan contention over it is forever at an end."- — Lincoln Banquet, Marquette Club, Chicago, Feb. 12, i8g6.

" I believe that it is the duty of American Congressmen to legislate for American citizens, and not for foreign manufacturers. Let us take care of our own interests, and look to the well-being of our own citizens first." — Speech on Tariff of 188 j.

"Hamilton and Madison, Jefferson ami Calhoun, Clay and Webster, ami Adams and Jackson always asserted and maintained the constitutionality of protection. Is Cleveland a better constitutional lawyer than Jefferson? Is Vilas more learned than Madison ? Watterson more profound than Clay? 1 Adlai Stevenson a better expounder of the Constitution than Andrew Jackson ? Are all of them combined safer interpreters of that great instrument than the Supreme Court of the United States, which has never failed, when called upon, to sustain the constitutionality of a protective tariff. If it is in violation of any constitution, it is not that of the United States. It is a manifest violation of the Constitution of the Confederate States. Possibly, that is what they mean." At Beatrice, Nebraska, August 2, i8g2.

"Home competition will always bring prices to a fair and reasonable level, and prevent extortion and robbery. Success, or even apparent success, in any business or enterprise, will incite others to engage in like enterprises, and then follows healthful strife, the life of business, which inevitably results in cheapening the article produced."— Speech in Congress on Wool lar iff Bill, i8y8.

" With me, protection is a deep conviction, not a theory. I believe in it, and thus warmly advocate it, because enveloped in it are my country's highest development and greatest prosperity ; out of it come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manly aspirations, with the best and largest rewards for honest efforts dignifying and elevating our citizenship, upon which the safety, the

I UK PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 33

purity, and permanency of our political sysstem depend." -Fifty-first Congress, May 7, iSgo.

"Protection builds up; a revenue tariff tears down. 1'rotcction brings hope and courage to heart and heme: free trade drives them from both. Free trade levels down; protection levels up." mvention <>/ Republican College Clubs, .lun Arbor, Midi., May 17 > l8Q2.

" Our philosophy includes the grower ol the wool, the weaver ol the fabric, the seamstress, and the tailor. Tariff reformers have no thought of these toilers. They can bear their hard t.isks in pun hin- poverty tor the .sake ol cheap coats, which prove by tar tin- dearest when measured by sweat and toil. The tai in reformers concern themselves only about

(heap coats and cheap .shoes. We do not overlook the comfort of those who make the coats and make the shoes, and will provide the wool and the cloth, the hides and the leather.'" /// reply to Mr. Cleveland, Toledo, Ohio, Feb. 12, t8qi.

"The farmer is best oft" with a home market. The fanner himself knows this, and no amount of rhetoric can deceive him. The fathers of the republic saw it and proclaimed it. We can only have a profitable home market by encouraging manufacturing industries. k Plant the forge by the farm," is the old doctrine, and it is as true now as it was when uttered." — Speech on Morrison Tariff Bill, House of Representatives, April jo, 1884.

II. On the Mills Bill.

" What is a protective tariff ? It is a tariff upon foreign imports so adjusted as to secure the necessary revenue, and judiciously imposed upon those foreign products the like of which are produced at home or the like of which we are capable of producing at home, it imposes the duty upon the competing foreign product ; it makes it bear the burden or duty, and, as far as possible, luxuries only excepted, permits the non- competing foreign product to come in free of duty. Articles of common use, comfort and necessity, which we cannot produce here, it sends to the people untaxed and free from custom-house exactions. Tea, coffee, spices, and drugs are such articles, and under our system are upon the free list. It says to our foreign competitor, if you want to bring your merchandise here, your farm products here, your coal and iron ore, your wool, your salt, your pottery, your glass, your cottons and woolens, and sell alongside of our producers in our markets, we will make your product bear a duty ; in effect, pay for the privilege of doing it.

kk Our kind of tariff makes the competing foreign article carry the burden, draw the load, supply the revenue ; and in performing this essential office it encourages at the same time our own industries and protects our own people in their chosen employments. That is the mission and purpose of a protective tariff. That is what we mean to maintain, and any measure which will destroy it we shall firmly resist; and if beaten on this floor, we will appeal from your decision to the people, before whom parties and policies must at last be tried. We have free trade among ourselves throughout thirty-eight States and the Territories and among sixty millions of people. Absolute freedom of exchange within our own borders and among our own citizens is the law of the Republic. Reasonable taxation and restraint upon those without is the dictate of enlightened patriotism and the doctrine of the Republican party." — House of Representatives, May 18, 1888.

III. The Gorman Tariff.

" Mr. President and My Fellow Citizens : — I recall with emotion my last visit to your city.

M< kinley's masterpieces.

It was in the political campaign of 1884, when the great leader and statesman of the State of Maine, the beloved by all the country, was the presidential candidate of the Republican party. He was a leader around whom all Ohio Republicans were proud to rally, and to whom they gave a warm, earnest, and cheerful support. He lost the presidency, but could not be deprived of a place in history which that great office, exalted as it is, could not have brightened, and failure to secure which could not blast.

" For, more and better than all else, he has a place in the hearts of the people, as tender and affectionate as that of almost any other American statesman living or dead."

•• For eighteen months, my fellow citizens, the Democratic President and Democratic ( longress have been running the Government, during which time little else has been running. Industry has been practically stopped. Labor has found little employment, and when employed it has been at greatly reduced wag< Both Government and people have

n draining their reserves, and both have been running in debt. The Government has suffered in its revenues and the people in their incomi The total losses to the counin business, property, and wages are be-

nd human calculation. There has been no cessation in the waste of wealth and wages; no contentment, brightness or hope has anywhere appeared. Discontent and distress have been universal. The appeals to charity have never been so numerous and incessant, nor their necessity everywhere so manifest.

" Congress has disappointed the people, trifled with the sacred trust confided to it, excited distrust and disgust among their constituents and impaired their enterprises and investments. In almost continuous session for thirteen months they have done nothing but aggravate the situation. Pledged, if platforms mean anything, to overthrow our long continued policy of protection, they have quarreled and compromised, and, upon their own testimony, have been compromised.

" The result of their long wrangle is a tariff law with which nobody is satisfied.

" A law which even those who made it apologize for.

" A law which the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means and almost the entire Democratic side of the House condemned by a yea and nay vote only a few days before its passage, affirming their intention in the most solemn manner not to permit it to be enacted.

" A law which was never approved by a majority of either the House Committee on

Mi kinley's masterpieces.

Ways and Means or the Senate Committee of Finance, who were charged with the preparation and management of the bill.

•• A law which all factions of the Democratic party agree is the work of a monstrous trust, which Chairman Wilson confessed, amid the applause of his confederates, with deep chagrin and humiliation, ' held Congress by the throat.'

"The history of the new tariff legislation is interesting and instructive. The House, which alone has the power to originate revenue bills, passed what is known as the Wilson bill, a measure which has the unenviable distinction of being the only tariff bill in our history that was ever indorsed by a President in his annual message to Congress before it had been reported to the House, and before it had ever been officially adopted by the Ways and Means Committee. It was ostensibly a tariff bill for revenue, and yet on its face it did not raise sufficient revenue to conduct tin- Cox-eminent. If that bill had become a law. every estimate I have seen touching its revenue- raising power created an annua] deficiency of from $40,000,000 to 00,000.

The bill went to the Senate and took the usual course of reference to the Committee on Finance, which is, barged with the revenue legislation of the Senate. After long consideration by the committee, the Wilson bill, with more than four hundred amendments, was reported to the Senate. But after much talking and wrangling it was soon made manifest that neither the Wilson bill, nor the Wilson bill with the Finance Committee's amendments could pass that body.

" And so, taking the matter out of the hands of the Senate and out of the hands of the Finance Committee of the Senate, a selfconstituted Adjusting Committee, — a committee unknown to the Constitution, a committee unauthorized by the rules of the Senate or by party caucus or custom, — an Adjusting Committee, consisting of Messrs. Jones of Arkansas, Vest of Missouri, and Harris of Tennessee, undertook to make a bill which would receive the votes of forty -three Senators or a bare majority of all.

" The Democratic party is a most remarkable party. They are for anything to get power, but they are never for anything which got them power.

"They were for free raw materials in the campaign of 1892. But they were opposed to free raw materials after the campaign was successful, and when they possessed the power to make them free.

" They were vociferously opposed to trusts

KINLEY's MASTERPIECE-.

in their platform and on the stump when they

e trying to £et back into office. But it is

ied that they became the willing tools

and advocates of trusts when opportunity

came to strike the blow against them.

• I'hcy posed as the true and only friends of labor during the summer and fall of 1892. and even pointed to the Homestead riots as the direct and logical fruits of Republican g - uion. But since that time they have indicted upon American labor the deadliest blow it has received. Their policy had reduced wages and beggared labor beyond -cription. 1 hey promised the farmer better prices his wheat and wool when thev were seeking vote. But when they once obtained his sur g .heir economic policy began to force down the prices daily until it has now reached the 1 - point known for nearly fiftv

disappointed even- reasc lable

they raised in the campaign of

but justified even- fear or evil prediction

them. They have ignored even

"• ken faith with a trusting

; sed their insincerity and

They appear before the

pie to-day totally discredited and in disgrace, upon their own confessions, before the close of half of the presidential tenn. They have utterly failed to redeem any pledge made to the people, and after more than a year's continuous session of Congress are forced to acknowledge their infirmity, imbecility, and the lack of united purpose to carry out any single one of the great promises of the campaign. They have exhibited their inherent weakness and have disclosed irreconcilable differences with the party.

" The Senate does not agree with the House, nor the House with the Senate, nor either with itself or the President, while the great body of the people is decidedly at variance with all of them.

" Under such anomalous circumstances, is it any wonder that President Cleveland, in his letter to Chairman Wilson, should have mournfullv exclaimed :

J

- ' There is no excuse for mistaking or misapprehending the feeling and the temper of the rank and file of the Democracy. They are downcast under the assertion that their party fails in ability to manage the Government, and they are apprehensive that efforts to brins; about tariff reform may fail ; but they are much more downcast and apprehensive in their fear that Democratic principles may be surrendered.'

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"No party can be safely trusted with the

red interests of the people or the Government, without it possesses a fixed, honest, and enlightened purpose. Singleness of purpose is i: uv to every reform, indispensable to

wise administration and legislation. The want

this quality is the infirmity of the present Administration and the present Congress.

• Failure and disappointment were bound to follow an Administration and Congress thus chosen, and the whole country suffers as a result. Tiie Administration and Congress are without compass or rudder. They have at length passed a tariff law, such as it is, but if we credit Democratic testimony alone the

►pie burn with impatience for an opportunity to repudiate both it and them.

•• We could bear with resignation their party differences and demoralization if the Demo-

:i< party was the sole sufferer. But when

ntemplate the widespread ruin to busi-

nd enterprise, and employment, we ap-

the dreadful sacrifice which this

Administration has entailed, and the appalling

' keofi Bangor, Me., Sept. 8, 1894.

IV. The Tariff Commission.

'I he tariff question has again forced itself • promineno While it lias never ceased to be a question upon which the political parties of the country have made some declaration, yet for many years other issues have in a great measure determined party divisions and controlled party discipline. The last presidential campaign brought recognition and discussion of this issue, and it may be fairly said that Republican advocacy of the protective principle contributed in no small degree to the success of the Republican national ticket. It can safely be asserted that the doctrine of a tariff for revenue and protection as against a tariff for revenue only is the dominant sentiment in the United States to-day ; and if a vote upon that issue, with every other question eliminated, could be had, the majority would not only be large, but surprisingly large, for the protective principle. " The Democratic majorities in the Fortyfourth, Forty-fifth, and Forty-sixth Congresses, although committed by party utterances and by platforms as well as the pledges of leaders to a reduction of duties to a revenue basis, were unable, with all their party machinery and the free use of the party lash, to advance even a step in that direction. Every proposition for a change was met with the almost solid opposition of this side of the House, which, with the assistance of a few Representatives on the other side from Pennsyl-

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vania and the New England States, was strong enough to insure, and did insure, the substantial defeat of every measure looking to a disturbance of the existing tariff rates.

" Much criticism is indulged in by the I democratic party upon the enormities of our tariff, and yet with those years of power, in absolute control of the House, and a part of that time controlling the Senate as well, nothing was accomplished by way of removing the so-called enormities, and at last the party was compelled to confess that it was unable to make any progress in that direction.

'This is some evidence at least of the domination in this country of the protective idea, or else it demonstrates the infidelity of the Democratic party to its professed principles ; one or the other. I prefer to interpret the former as its meaning. The sentiment is m. rely growing. It has friends to-day that it never had in the past. Its adherents are no '">'- >n!ined to the North and the East,

but are found in the South and in the West.' Hie idea travels with industry, and is the late of enterprise and thrift. It encourthe development of skill, labor, and •".us as part of the great produc- "e forces. Its advocacy is no longer limited

'"• manufacturer, but it has friends the devote d among the farmers, the wool growers, the laborers, and the producers of the land. It is as strong in the country as in the manufacturing towns or the cities ; and while it is not taught generally in our colleges, and our young men fresh from universities join with the free-trade thought of the country, practical business and every-day experience later teach them that there are other sources of knowledge besides books, that demonstration is better than theory, and that actual results outweigh an idle philosophy. But, while it is not favored in the colleges, it is taught in the school of experience, in the workshop, where honest men perform an honest day's labor, and where capital seeks the development of national wealth. It is, in my judgment, fixed in our national policy, and no party is strong enough to overthrow it.