THE PEOPLE A JURY.
This audience is a part of that great jury, who, after the evidence is all in, will decide one way or the other, with an avalanche of snowy ballots, as spotless in their purity as the honest hearts of the voters who cast the verdict into the ballot boxes. As Americans we are justly proud of our birthright—proud of the air of freedom that kisses the stars and stripes—our nation's ensign, emblematical of mighty victories in the past, a guarantee of protection in the present to all who stand beneath its folds and laden with rich promises of future prosperity. Our country is greater than the men whose election it is our pleasure to advocate. It is not men but measures which we are to consider. An earnest conscientious desire to investigate and determine the right, should absorb and thrill the heart of every patriotic American voter. The great parties in the present campaign do not differ so much in regard to the amount of money as they do in regard to its quality. "It is not the medium of exchange so much as it is an active exchange of the medium itself." On the tariff question we do not differ in schedules, but principles—principles which we, as republicans believe, involve the welfare of all our people and the prosperity of all classes. Personally I have every respect for a conscientious, earnest opponent in this crusade of education, and while honestly differing from them, yet will endeavor to wound the feelings of none. If I speak bitterly of doctrines which I believe to be pernicious in theory and ruinous in practice, do me the justice of not interpreting my remarks as in any sense personal.
MORAL QUESTIONS INVOLVED.
Fellow citizens, this is a campaign embracing both political and moral questions. It is a political conflict, which the people will sooner or later acknowledge, to be one of patriotism. A moral conflict, which they will acknowledge to be indeed sublime.
WE MUST NOT FORGET THAT PATRIOTISM IN TIME OF PEACE IS A SCARCER ARTICLE THAN IN TIMES OF WAR.
In the guise of citizens men like "Coin" Harvey are attempting ignorantly or otherwise to undermine and overthrow our nation's honor and credit, and it is these alone that can perpetuate our liberties and insure us prosperity.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY COMES BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ADVOCATING THE MAINTENANCE OF THE GOLD STANDARD AND THE USE OF SILVER AS MONEY, IN THE LARGEST VOLUME POSSIBLE, CONSISTENT WITH SAFETY; ADVOCATING THE MAINTENANCE OF OUR NATION'S HONOR AND CREDIT; ADVOCATING A TARIFF, NOT FOR REVENUE ONLY, BUT A PROTECTIVE TARIFF THAT WILL ENCOURAGE DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES AND GIVE EMPLOYMENT TO ALL OUR PEOPLE; ADVOCATING RECIPROCITY.
A DOCTRINE WHICH WILL OPEN AN UNLIMITED MARKET FOR THE AMERICAN FARM AND THE AMERICAN FACTORY A DOCTRINE BEQUEATHED TO THIS GENERATION BY THE NOW SAINTED JAMES G. BLAINE.
Upon these issues the Republican party comes confidentially to the people, asking for their suffrage, appealing not to their prejudice but to their reason, not to their passions, but to their judgment. In this holy crusade we are lead by that valiant champion of the people's rights, "that advance agent of prosperity," Maj. William McKinley. On the other hand we find the Bryanized democrats, populists, and believers in Coin's Financial School arrayed in a solid phalanx against these cherished principles which we so ardently believe in.