There are nations across the sea who are hungry for the American market. They are waiting with eager expectation for the adoption of a free-trade policy by the United States. [Cries of "That will never happen!">[ The English manufacturer is persuaded that an increased market for English goods in America is good for him, but I think it will be impossible to persuade the American producer and the American workman that it is good for them. [Applause and cries of "That's right!">[ I believe that social order, that national prosperity, are bound up in the preservation of our existing policy. [Loud cheering and cries of "You are right!">[ I do not believe that a republic can live and prosper whose wage-earners do not receive enough to make life comfortable, who do not have some upward avenues of hope open before them. When the wage-earners of the land lose hope, when the star goes out, social order is impossible, and after that anarchy or the Czar. [Cheering.]
I gratefully acknowledge the compliment of your call, and exceedingly regret that the storm without made it impossible for me to receive you at my house. [Applause and cries of "Thanks! thanks!">[ I will now be glad to take each member of your club by the hand. [Continued cheering.]
[INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 18.]
General Harrison's callers to-day numbered about five thousand, over half of whom came from Vermilion County, Illinois, led by a company of young ladies, in uniform, from the town of Sidell. Hon. Samuel Stansbury of Danville was Marshal of the delegation, aided by E. C. Boudinot, D. G. Moore, Chas. A. Allen, J. G. Thompson, and W. C. Cowan. Col. W. R. Jewell, editor Danville Daily News, was spokesman. General Harrison, in response, said:
My Illinois Friends—The people of your State were very early in giving evidence to our people and to me that they are deeply and generally interested in this campaign. I welcome you and accept your coming as evidence that the early interest you manifested has suffered no abatement. It was not an impulse that stirred you, but a deep conviction that matters of great and lasting consequence to your country are involved in this campaign. Your representative in Congress, Hon. Joseph Cannon, is well known in Indiana. [Applause.] I have known him for many years; have observed his conduct in the National Congress, and always with admiration. He is a fearless, aggressive, honest Republican leader. [Applause and cries of "Good! good!">[ He is worthy of the favor and confidence you have shown him.
If some one were to ask to-day, "What is the matter with the United States?" [laughter and cries of "She's all right!">[ I am sure we would hear some Democratic friend respond, "Its people are oppressed and impoverished by tariff taxation." [Laughter.] Ordinarily our people can be trusted to know when they are taxed; but this Democratic friend will tell us that the tariff tax is so insidious that our people pay it without knowing it. That is a very unhappy condition, indeed. But his difficulties are not all surmounted when he has convinced his hearers that a customs duty is a tax, for history does not run well with his statement that our people have been impoverished by our tariff system. Another answer to your question will be perhaps that there is now a great surplus in the Treasury—he will probably not state the figures, for there seems to be a painful uncertainty about that. I have sometimes thought that this surplus was held chiefly to be talked about. The laws provide a use for it that would speedily place it in circulation. If a business man finds an accumulated surplus that he does not need in his business, that stands as a bank balance and draws no interest, and if he has notes outside to mature in the future he will make a ready choice between leaving his balance in the bank and using it to take up his obligations. [Applause.] But in our national finances the other choice has been made, and this surplus remains in the national bank without interest, while our bonds, which, under the law, might be retired by the use of it, continue to draw interest.
You have a great agricultural State. Its prairies offer the most tempting invitation to the settler. I have heard it suggested that one reason why you have outstripped Indiana in population was because the men who were afraid of the "deadening" passed over us to seek your treeless plains. [Applause.] But you have not been contented to be only an agricultural community. You have developed your manufactures and mechanical industries until now, if my recollection is not at fault, for every two persons engaged in agricultural labor you have one engaged in manufacturing, in the mechanical arts and mining. It is this subdivision of labor, these diversified industries, that make Illinois take rank so near the head among the States. By this home interchange of the products of the farm and shop, made possible by our protective system, Illinois has been able to attain her proud position in the union of the States. Shall we continue a policy that has wrought so marvellously since the war in the development of all those States that have given hospitable access to manufacturing capital and to the brawn and skill of the workingman? [Cries of "Good! good!" and cheers.]
From Louisville, Ky., came 1,000 enthusiastic visitors, led by the Hon. Wm. E. Riley, Hon. R. R. Glover, Hon. Albert Scott, W. W. Huffman, W. M. Collins, M. E. Malone, and J. J. Jonson. A. E. Willson, of Louisville, delivered a stirring address on behalf of the Republicans of Kentucky, to which General Harrison responded as follows:
My Kentucky Friends—There have been larger delegations assembled about this platform, but there has been none that has in a higher degree attracted my interest or touched my heart. [Applause.] It has been quite one thing to be a Republican in Illinois and quite another to be a Republican in Kentucky. [Applause.] Not the victors only in a good fight deserve a crown; those who fight well and are beaten and fight again, as you have done, deserve a crown, though victory never yet has perched on your banner. [A voice, "It will perch there, though, don't you forget it!">[ Yes, it will come, for the bud of victory is always in the truth. I will not treat you to-day to any statistics from the census reports [laughter], nor enter the attractive field of the history of your great State. I have believed that these visiting delegations were always well advised as to the history and statistics of their respective States. [Laughter.] If this trust has been misplaced in other cases, certainly Kentuckians can be trusted to remember and perhaps to tell all that is noble in the thrilling history of their great State. [Great applause.] Your history is very full of romantic and thrilling adventure and of instances of individual heroism. Your people have always been proud, chivalric, and brave. In the late war for the Union, spite of all distraction and defection, Kentucky stood by the old flag. [Applause.] And now that the war is over and its bitter memory is forgotten, there is not one, I hope, in all your borders, who does not bless the outcome of that great struggle. [Applause.] Surely there are none in Kentucky who do not rejoice that the beautiful river is not a river of division. [Great applause.] And now what hinders that Kentucky shall step forward in the great industrial rivalry between the States? Is there not, as your spokesman has suggested, in the early and thorough instruction which the people of Kentucky received from the mouth of your matchless orator, Henry Clay [applause], a power that shall yet and speedily bring back Kentucky to the support of our protective system? [Applause.] Can the old Whigs, who so reverently received from the lips of Clay the gospel of protection, much longer support a revenue policy that they know to be inimical to our national interests? If when Kentucky was a slave State she found a protective tariff promoted the prosperity of her people, what greater things will the same policy not do for her as a free State? She has now opened her hospitable doors to skilled labor; her coal and metals and hemp invite its transforming touch. Why should she not speedily find great manufacturing cities spring up in her beautiful valleys? Shall any old prejudice spoil this hopeful vision? [Great applause.] I remember that Kentucky agitated for seven years and held nine conventions before she secured a separate statehood. May I not appeal to the children of those brave settlers who, when but few in number, composed of distant and feeble settlements, were received into the Union of States, to show their chivalry and love of justice by uniting with us in the demand that Dakota and Washington shall be admitted? [Applause.] Does not your own story shame those who represent you in the halls of Congress and who bar the door against communities whose numbers and resources so vastly outreach what you possessed when you were admitted to statehood? We look hopefully to Kentucky. The State of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln [enthusiastic cheering] cannot be much longer forgetful [cries of "No! no!">[ of the teachings of those great leaders of thought.