Speech 35
RECORD OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
ON CURRENCY, TARIFF, AND TRUSTS

FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK, JULY 27, IQX>4, IN RESPONSE TO THE NOTIFICATION OF THE NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

ASSUREDLY it is unwise to change the policies which have worked so well and which are now working so well.  Prosperity has come at home.  The national honor and interest have been upheld abroad.  We have placed the finances of the Nation upon a sound gold basis.  We have done this with the aid of many who were formerly our opponents, but who would neither openly support nor silently acquiesce in the heresy of unsound finance; and we have done it against the convinced and violent opposition of the mass of our present opponents who still refuse to recant the unsound opinions which for the moment they think it inexpedient to assert.  We know what we mean when we speak of an honest and stable currency.  We mean the same thing from year to year.  We do not have to avoid definite and conclusive committal on the most important issue which has recently been before the people, and which may at any time in the near future be before them again.  Upon the principles which underlie this issue the convictions of half of our number do not clash with those of the other half.  So long as the Republican Party is in power the gold standard is settled, not as a matter of temporary political expediency, not because of shifting conditions, in the production of gold in certain mining centres, but in accordance with what we regard as the fundamental principles of national morality and wisdom.

Under the financial legislation which we have enacted there is now ample circulation for every business need; and every dollar of this circulation is worth a dollar in gold.  We have reduced the interest bearing debt, and in still larger measure the interest on that debt.  All of the war taxes imposed during the Spanish War have been removed with a view to relieve the people and to prevent the accumulation of an unnecessary surplus.  The result is that hardly ever before have the expenditures and income of the Government so closely corresponded.  In the fiscal year that has just closed the excess of income over the ordinary expenditures was nine millions of dollars.  This does not take account of the fifty millions expended out of the accumulated surplus for the purchase of the Isthmian Canal.  It is an extraordinary proof of the sound financial condition of the Nation that instead of following the usual course in such matters and throwing the burden upon posterity by an issue of bonds, we were able to make the payment outright and yet after it to have in the treasury a surplus of one hundred and sixty one millions.  Moreover, we were able to pay this fifty millions of dollars out of hand without causing the slightest disturbance to business conditions.

We have enacted a tariff law under which during the past few years the country has attained a height of material well being never before reached.  Wages are higher than ever before.  That whenever the need arises there should be a readjustment of the tariff schedules is undoubted; but such changes can with safety be made only by those whose devotion to the principle of a protective tariff is beyond question; for otherwise the changes would amount not to readjustment, but to repeal.  The readjustment when made must maintain and not destroy the protective principle.  To the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, this is vital; but perhaps no other man is so much interested as the wage worker in the maintenance of our present economic system, both as regards the finances and the tariff.  The standard of living of our wage workers is higher than that of any other country, and it can not so remain unless we have a protective tariff which shall always keep as a minimum a rate of duty sufficient to cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad.  Those who, like our opponents, " denounce protection as a robbery," thereby explicitly commit themselves to the proposition that if they were to revise the tariff no heed would be paid to the necessity of meeting this difference between the standards of living for wage workers here and in other countries; and therefore on this point their antagonism to our position is fundamental.  Here again we ask that their promises and ours be judged by what has been done in the immediate past.  We ask that sober and sensible men compare the workings of the present tariff law, and the conditions which obtain under it, with the workings of the preceding tariff law of 1894 and the conditions which that tariff of 1894 helped to bring about.

We believe in reciprocity with foreign nations on the terms outlined in President's McKinley's last speech, which urged the extension of our foreign markets by reciprocal agreements whenever they could be made without injury to American industry and labor.  It is a singular fact that the only great reciprocity treaty recently adopted — that with Cuba — was finally opposed almost alone by the representatives of the very party which now states that it favors reciprocity.  And here again we ask that the worth of our words be judged by comparing their deeds with ours.  On this Cuban reciprocity treaty there were at the outset grave differences of opinion among ourselves; and the notable thing in the negotiation and ratification of the treaty, and in the legislation which carried it into effect, was the highly practical manner in which without sacrifice of principle these differences of opinion were reconciled.  There was no rupture of a great party, but an excellent practical outcome, the result of the harmonious cooperation of two successive Presidents and two successive Congresses.  This is an illustration of the governing capacity which entitles us to the confidence of the people not only in our purposes but in our practical ability to achieve those purposes.  Judging by the history of the last twelve years, down to this very month, is there justification for believing that under similar circumstances and with similar initial differences of opinion, our opponents would have achieved any practical result?

We have already shown in actual fact that our policy is to do fair and equal justice to all men, paying no heed to whether a man is rich or poor; paying no heed to his race, his creed, 'or his birthplace.

We recognize the organization of capital and the organization of labor as natural outcomes of our industrial system.  Each kind of organization is to be favored so long as it acts in a spirit of justice and of regard for the rights of others.  Each is to be granted the full protection of the law, and each in turn is to be held to a strict obedience to the law; for no man is above it and no man below it.  The humblest individual is to have his rights safeguarded as scrupulously as those of the strongest organization, for each is to receive justice, no more and no less.  The problems with which we have to deal in our modern industrial and social life are manifold; but the spirit in which it is necessary to approach their solution is simply the spirit of honesty, of courage, and of common sense.