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

by Benjamin Harrison

The great characteristic of our American institutions—the compact of our Government—is that the will of the majority, expressed by legal methods at the ballot box, shall be the supreme law of all our community. To the Territories of the United States a measure of local government has always been given, but the supervisory control, the supreme legislative and executive power has been, continuously, as to the Territories, held and exercised by the general Government at Washington. The territorial state has always been regarded as a temporary one. The general Government has always looked forward to a division of its vast domain—first, the territory northwest of the Ohio, then the Louisiana purchase, then these accessions upon the Pacific coast—into suitable sections for the establishment of free and independent States. This great work of creating States has gone forward from the Ohio to the Pacific, and now we may journey from Maine to Puget Sound through established States. [Cheers.]

The purity of the ballot-box, the wise provisions and careful guardianship that shall always make the expression of the will of the people fair, pure and true, is the essential thing in American life. We are a people organized upon principles of liberty, but, my good countrymen, it is not license. It is liberty within and under the law. [Great applause.] I have no discord, as a public officer, with men of any creed or politics if they will obey the law. My oath of office, my public duty, requires me to be against those who violate the law.

The foundation of American life is the American home. That which distinguishes us from other nations whose political experience and history have been full of strife and discord is the American home, where one wife sits in single uncrowned glory. [Great applause and cheers.] And now, my countrymen, I beg to assure you that every hope you have for safe running on these lines of free government, on these lines of domestic and social order, I have. For every one of you I have the most cordial greeting. God bless and keep you and guide you in the paths of social purity, order, and peace, and make you one of the great communities of the American Union. [Cheers.]

Chamber of Commerce Speech.

The visitors were then taken to the new Chamber of Commerce, where the business men of the city greeted the Chief Executive. The occasion was also the formal opening of the building for business.

President Harrison made an address. He said:

I am very glad to witness in this magnificent structure which you are opening to-day for your use an evidence of the commercial importance of the city. Organizations of this character are very useful when rightly conducted, very promotive of the business prosperity of the cities in which they are established, and of the best interest of their membership. It is quite right that those who may be engaged in the rivalries of business, pushing their several lines of trade with the energy and enterprise that characterize our people, should now and then assemble and lay aside things that are personal and selfish and consider the things that affect the whole community. These organizations, as I have known them in other States, have been the council chamber in which large and liberal things have been devised for the development of the interests and prosperity of the community. I do not doubt that you will do so here; that new enterprise will be welcomed, and that the friendly business hand will be extended to those who are seeking investments. I wish you all success in this enterprise, and I hope you may grow until its membership shall embrace all of your commercial classes, and that its influence may do for your business here what the water of your mountain streams has done for the plains—make them grow longer and more productive, and at the same time expel from them those mean jealousies which sometimes divide men. [Prolonged Cheers.]

Address to the School Children.

The party visited the Mormon Tabernacle, which was profusely decorated with bunting and flags. On the side of the Temple in large letters was the motto "Fear God; Honor the President." The entire city was tastefully decorated. The President reviewed the school children, about 2,000 in number. They rendered patriotic songs, and he addressed them in the following happy speech: