Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States

by Benjamin Harrison

We are great enough and rich enough to reach forward to grander conceptions than have entered the minds of some of our statesmen in the past. If you are content, I am not, that the nations of Europe shall absorb nearly the entire commerce of these near sister republics that lie south of us. It is naturally in large measure ours—ours by neighborhood, ours by nearness of access, ours by that sympathy that binds a hemisphere without a king. [Cheers.]

The inauguration of the Three Americas Congress, or more properly the American Conference, the happy conduct of that meeting, the wise and comprehensive measures which were suggested by it, with the fraternal and kindly spirit that was manifested by our southern neighbors, has stimulated a desire in them and in our people for a larger intercourse of commerce and of friendship. The provisions of the bill passed at the last session looking to a reciprocity of trade not only met with my official approval when I signed the bill, but with my zealous promotion before the bill was reported. [Great and prolonged cheering.]

Its provision concerning reciprocity is that we have placed upon our free list sugar, tea, coffee and hides, and have said to those nations from whom we receive these great staples: Give us free access to your ports for an equivalent amount of our produce in exchange, or we will reimpose duties upon the articles named. The law leaves it wholly to the Executive to negotiate these arrangements. It does not need that they shall take the form of a treaty.

They need not be submitted for the concurrence of the Senate. It only needs that we, having made our offer, shall receive their offer in return; and when they shall have made up an acceptable schedule of articles produced by us that shall have free access to their ports, a proclamation by the President closes the whole business. [Cheers.] Already one treaty with that youngest of the South American republics, the great republic of Brazil, has been negotiated and proclaimed. I think, without disclosing an Executive secret, I may tell you that the arrangement with Brazil is not likely to abide in lonesomeness much longer [great and prolonged cheering]; that others are to follow, and that as a result of these trade arrangements the products of the United States—our meats, our breadstuffs, and certain lines of manufactured goods—are to find free or favored access to the ports of many of these South and Central American States. All the States will share in these benefits. We have had some analysis of the manifests of some of our steamers now sailing to South American ports, and in a single steamer it was found that twenty-five States contributed to the cargo.

But we shall need something more. We shall need American steamships to carry American goods to these ports. [Great cheering.] The last Congress passed a bill appropriating about $1,500,000, and authorized the Postmaster-General to contract with steamship companies for a period not exceeding ten years for the carrying of the United States mail. The foreign mail service is the only mail service out of which the Government has been making a net profit. We do not make a profit out of our land service.

There is an annual deficiency which my good friend the Postmaster-General has been trying very hard to reduce or wipe out. The theory of our mail service is that it is for the people, that we are not to make a profit out of it, that we are to give them as cheap postage as is possible. We are, many of us, looking forward to a time when we shall have one-cent postage in this country. [Cheers.] We have been so close and penurious in dealing with our ships in the carrying of foreign mails that we have actually made revenues out of that business, not having spent for it what we have received from it. Now we propose to change that policy and to make more liberal contracts with American lines carrying American mail. [Cheers.]

Some one may say we ought not to go into this business, that it is subsidy. But, my friend, every other great nation of the world has been doing it and is doing it to-day. Great Britain and France have built up their great steamship lines by Government aid, and it seems to me our attitude with reference to that is aptly portrayed by an illustration I mentioned the other day. In olden times no wholesale merchant sent out travelling men to solicit custom, but he stood in his own store and waited for his customers. But presently some enterprising merchant began to send out men with their samples to seek the trade, to save the country buyer the cost of the trip to New York or Philadelphia, until finally that practice has become universal, and these active, intelligent travelling men are scurrying this country over, pushing and soliciting in their several lines of business. Now imagine some conservative merchant in New York saying to himself: "All this is wrong; the trade ought to come to me." If he should refuse to adopt these modern methods what would be the result? He must adopt the new methods or go out of business. We have been refusing to adopt the universal method of our competitors in commerce to stimulate their shipping interest and have gone out of the business. [Laughter and cheers.] Encouraged by what your spokesman has said to-night, I venture to declare that I am in favor of going into business again, and when it is re-established I hope Galveston will be in the partnership. [Great cheers.]

It has been the careful study of the Postmaster-General in preparing to execute the law to which I have referred to see how much increase in routes and ships we could secure by it. We have said to the few existing American lines: You must not treat this appropriation as a plate of soup, to be divided and consumed. You must give us new lines, new ships, increased trips, and new ports of call. Already the steamship lines are looking over the routes to see what they can do, with a view of increasing their tonnage and establishing new lines.

The Postmaster-General has invited the attention and suggestion of all the boards of trade of all our seaboard cities. Undoubtedly you have received such a letter. This appropriation is for one year; what the future is to be must depend upon the deliberate judgment of the people. If during my term of office they shall strike down a law that I believe to be beneficial or destroy its energy by withholding appropriations, I shall bow to their will, but I shall feel great disappointment if we do not make an era for the revival of American commerce. I do much want that the time shall come when our citizens living in temporary exile in foreign ports shall now and then see steaming into these distant ports a fine modern man-of-war, flying the United States flag [cheers], with the best modern guns on her deck, and a brave American crew in her forecastle. [Cheers.] I want, also, that in these ports, so long unfamiliar with the American flag, there shall again be found our steamships and our sailing vessels flying the flag that we all love, and carrying from our shores the products that these men of toil have brought to them to exchange for the products of other climes.

I think we should add to all this, and happily it is likely to be accomplished by individual efforts, the early completion of the Nicaragua Canal. [Cheers.] The Pacific coast should no longer be found by sea only by the passage of the Horn. The short route should be opened, and it will be, and then with this wondrous stirring among the people of all our States, this awakening to new business plans and more careful and economical work, there will come great prosperity to all our people. Texas will spin more of the cotton that she raises.