LIBRARY,

SPEECH

OF

Senator Chauncey 1VL Depew

AT THE

Taft and Hughes Meeting
in Brooklyn
Monday Night, October 26th, 1908

Cd3£ zso

Speech of Sen. Chauncey M. Depew
at the Taf t and Hughes Meeting
in Brooklyn, Monday Night,
October 26th, 1908

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
When Darwin first published his theory of evolution it created
universal consternation. Scientists disputed its accuracy and theo
logians thought it an insidiously dangerous attack upon the crea
tion of Adam and Eve and the experiences of the Garden of Eden.
But in time the doubt of the scientists and the fears of the theo
logians have been dissipated and evolution is universally recognized
as one of the great discoveries of the age. This theory of progress
and growth has no better illustration than in the relations of the
statesmanship of the Republican party to the history of the ex
pansion, development and power of our country. We were defeated
in 1856 and successful in 1860 upon a basis so broad to us now
that it is impossible for the present generation to conceive how the
country could have been divided on it. That was the extension
of slavery into that vast region out of which have grown half a
dozen great and prosperous states. Mr. Lincoln had declared in the
eonvass that no country could exist half slave and half free, and
Mr. Seward, the National Republican leader, had appealed to a
higher law than the Constitution and congressional enactments.
All this meant practically that we were not really a nation. Europe
did not fear us, nor did the great powers of the world take us
into consideration in their territorial and commercial aggrandize
ment. The first necessity for the future of the American people
was to have a country. Under the conditions then existing indus
trial advance was checked by fratricidal strife. Mr. Lincoln repre
sented the national idea, and it won at the expense of a half million
of lives and a million disabled, but it was worth the sacrifice. Mr.

Lincoln evoluted himself, and carried the country and his party
with him, to the idea that there could be no nation unless slavery
was destroyed, and he signed the Proclamation of Emancipation.
With the outcome of the Spanish War, where the blue and the
gray fought side by side under the old -flag; with the acquisition
of the Philippines, Hawaii and Cuba under McKinley, which made
us a factor to be reckoned with; in the Pacific Ocean and the
Orient; with the devolution of government upon the natives in the
Philippines, the pacification of Cuba, the settlement of the Vene
zuelan and Dominican controversies and troubles with foreign na
tions and the peace between Eussia and Japan, brought about by
Roosevelt, the United States as a nation became one of the great
powers of the world. So much for the evolution of our nation
ality. It was clear to the Kepublican statesmen that in creating
a nation by placing the Union upon impregnable foundations they
must provide policies to make the people prosperous. Our re
sources must be developed, our manufactures encouraged, cheap
transportation provided for the settlement of our territories and
the different sections industrially welded together by internal com
merce and exchanges. We were importing from Europe a large
proportion of the necessities of life and most of the luxuries. The
necessity was to gain and to hold the home market. This created
a tariff policy upon the lines of protection for American industries
first and revenue after. Its design was to enable American work-
ingmen at higher wages to compete with European workingmen
with low wages. The founders of the new Republic recognized
that a nation resting upon the people and its government existing
by universal suffrage was impossible unless constituencies could
live under conditions much more favorable than those which pre
vailed on the other side of the Atlantic. The first feature of the
tariff bill of 1891 was to encourage capital to go into new enter
prises and to stimulate industries in every department of manu
facture. The second feature was to put the American working-
man in a position to earn wages several times greater than re
ceived by his competitors in other lands. Under this Republican

policy our industries advanced by leaps and bounds until checked
in 1893 by the Wilson-Gorman Democratic Tariff Bill. But prog
ress was resumed after the Dingley Tariff Bill passed in 1897.
Nineteen hundred and seven witnessed a marvel in industrial evo
lution, in forty years our country having advanced from the low
est to the first place in manufacture, in agriculture and in min
ing and also in that barometer of the industrial activity and
prosperity of nations, the production of iron and steel.
But these founders of the new Republic also recognized that
trade, commerce and employment could not be regular and per
manent without sound finance. The irredeemable greenback was
a device to carry on successfully the Civil War. It became almost
a fetich, and at one time there was nearly as much regard for it
as there was for the national Flag. It required a terrific struggle
for sound economic principles to triumph over a sentiment so
closely allied to patriotism. But fiat money and an irredeemable
currency was defeated in 1873 under the leadership of John Sher
man; the resumption of specie payments was brought about in
1879, and in 1896 the people, rudely awakened by what they had
suffered and the perils which were before them from the free-
silver craze, voted for the gold standard and the placing of the
United States in accord with the highly developed nations of
the world under the leadership of William McKinley.
In this brief retrospect we have the birth of a new nation
and its evolution under the master minds of the Republican party
to a position of prosperity within its borders and peace without,
of power among nations and of industrial and financial standing
which makes us to-day foremost among nations.
The Republican party is now on trial. It cannot rely upon
these mighty achievements — national, industrial and financial — for
success. Each administration has had its problems, and the one
which is going out must satisfy voters that it should be succeeded
by an administration in harmony with its achievements and its
policies. In other words, Theodore Eoosevelt and his administra
tion are now to be judged. In the long line of Republican ad
ministrations commencing with Lincoln none has been more fruit-

ful in measures for the protection and advancement of the people
and in power and glory for the United States. As the public lands
are exliausted for the homesteader the Republican administration
has inaugurated a system for the reclamation of the deserts. Al
ready a territory two-thirds as large as the State of New York
has been won from the sage brush and the rattlesnake and given
to the American farmer under a policy by which the money for
fhe lands sold goes back into the reclamation service. This great
rescue from worthlessness to productiveness has not cost the United
States a dollar. It is an old proverb that the man who makes
two blades of grass to grow where only one did before is a bene
factor of his time. But the Bepublican party in bringing about
by its policies this marvelous creation of national wealth and in
dividual prosperity easily occupies the front rank among political
organizations of any country. We have still arid lands six times
greater than the State of New York, most of which under this
beneficient system will be reclaimed from the wilderness and made
into happy homes. No class or condition has reaped more benefit
during the seven years of the Roosevelt administration than the
farmer. Recognizing that individual resources are insufficient to
meet the recurring necessities and perils of agriculture, the ques
tion has been wisely taken up by the Government. With the great
est scientific skill it has successfully fought the San Jose scale
which was ruining the orchards; it is conquering the boll weevil
which threatened to destroy the cotton; it has taught the people
how to cheaply turn almost impassable highways into good roads,
thereby doubling the value of the farms, and by scientific testing
of the quality of soils it has brought abandoned farms into profit
able production and enormously increased the value of agricul
tural products. Under a system wisely inaugurated, by rural free
delivery the isolation of the farmer has been relieved. In ten
years these routes have been extended forty thousand miles, reach
ing sixteen millions of people. Rural communities are no longer
bound by the narrow limits of the neighborhood. They are&in
daily touch with the markets of this and other countries, with

the daily happenings of the world and with the politics and the
policies of statesmen and politicians. Secretary Wilson says that
the new wealth from lands this year will reach the prodigious
amount of eight billions of dollars.
Labor has gained more in these seven years than in any preced
ing generation. The Eight Hour Law which had become a dead
letter on Government contract work has been vigorously enforced.
Prison labor which is in competition with free labor has been pro
hibited. Chinese Coolie immigration has been suppressed. Liberal
laws have been enacted for the protection of seamen. Safety ap
pliances on railroads have been made compulsory. Formerly when
Government employees were injured or killed there was no redress
for them or their families, but this year Congress passed a govern
ment liability law. One of the most perfect of child-labor laws
has been enacted for the District of Columbia. A bill freeing em
ployees engaged in interstate commerce from the rigid require
ments of the common law, under which it was almost impossible
to recover damages, became a law three years ago. The supreme
court declared it unconstitutional, and this last session Congress
re-enacted it so framed as to meet the objections of the court,
but embodying all its beneficient provisions for workingmen.
Democrats have resolved and adopted platforms on these vital sub
jects, but when in power, with a President and a large majority
in both houses of Congress during Cleveland's administration,
crystallized none of them into law.
The balance of trade in our favor during this administration
reaches now the sum of nearly two thousand millions, of dollars.
It makes other nations our debtors and insures permanency to our
finances and solvency to our industrial life. Figures are always
dry, but these hundreds of millions of the balance of trade in our
favor, the thirteen billions of deposits in our banks, of 'which
three and a half billions are in our savings banks, which have nearly
nine millions of depositors, tell beyond words of general prosperity
and individual thrift and happiness. They are not accidents, but
the result of wise and efficient government.
The development of our resources and acceleration of our

productions from the election of McKinley in 1896 to 1907 created
an era of speculation and overtrading. It also caused many con
ditions which required correction. Mr. Bryan says we had a
Democratic panic and we have also had a Republican panic. But
the Republican panic lasted three months and the Democratic
(panic lasted forty-eight months. The Democratic panic came in
with the Democratic administration and its/ effects lasted for a
year after that administration went out of power. The Republican
panic began in October and was over on the first of January.
The Democratic panic kept three millions of men out of employ
ment for three years, established soup houses everywhere and
carried Coxey's Army to Washington. The panic of 1907 did not
last long enough to exhaust the savings in the savings banks of those
who had been thrifty and frugal. Now the savings banks report
that they have received back again from reviving business all that
they lost in necessary withdrawals during the brief industrial
panic. But the Roosevelt administration has met successfully the
dangers threatened by the creation of trusts and great corpora
tions because of phenomenal prosperity. The problem was how to
minimize these perils without stopping progress, how to prevent
disaster without checking development, how to prevent illegitimate
employment of capital without so frightening investors that capital
and labor would both be injured. The manner in which the Roose
velt administration has handled these problems will be an era in
the history of American industry, and it is a cause for congratula
tion that these policies will be completed by a candidate so sound,
so judicial, so able and so experienced as William H. Taft.
The policies advocated by Taft and those advocated by Bryan
are regulation on the one hand and ruin on the other. I have
always believed that the safety of both the stockholders and bond
holders of the railroads lay in the closest governmental supervision.
I think I can fairly claim credit for the creation of the first rail
road commission in the State of New York. Railroad commis
sions with sufficient power place in the hands of a judicial body
these acute railway problems for solution. We must look at the
matter without prejudice because the prosperity of the whole conn-

try is involved in the manner in which the railway problem is
adjusted. We must remember that one million, six hundred and
seventy-five thousand voters of the United States are on the pay
rolls of the railroads and one billion, seventy-five millions a year
is paid them in wages. We must remember that the wages and
employment of two millions more, who are engaged in digging
the coal, cutting the ties and manufacturing the rails, locomotives
and other supplies, and the merchants who sell the necessaries of
life to the families of these railway men, are also dependent upon
railway prosperity. Railway commissions, whether state or na
tional, can hear the complaints of the shippers and localities, can
hear the defense of the railways, and then, appointed by the people
and acting for the people, and the whole people, can justly decide.
I will not now discuss the question of Government ownership
of railroads and the far-reaching effects of such a policy upon our
civil service and the efficiency of our transportation system. While
Mr. Bryan says that matter can wait awhile, it is well known that
he never gives up a pet theory, but keeps it in reserve to try as
soon as possible. It is a question of vital importance to the hundred
thousand railway employees in this State. Under the rules con
trolling Government employees, they are prohibited from having
unions to raise wages or from appealing to Congress for that pur
pose under pain of instant dismissal. Undoubtedly under Govern
ment ownership the different unions of railway men, like the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, of Locomotive Firemen, of
Conductors, of Trainmen and of Switchmen, which are the best of
labor organizations, would be instantly dissolved. The pay; in
countries where Government ownership exists, to railway employees
in every grade is about one-third what it is in the United States.
A strike of Government employees is a crime, but lawful under
corporation ownership by a decision rendered by Judge Taft. One
other view: The taxes and assessments paid by the railroads in
the State of New York amount annually to $5,500,000. In the
towns through which the railways run the railways are always the
largest taxpayers. This amount locally relieves to a' large extent
the taxes of the farmers and builds the highways and school

houses. The Government pays no taxes upon its property, and
therefore what is now paid by the railroads in the different villages
and cities would, under Government ownership, be assessed upon
the houses and lands of the people.
One of the most beneficient acts of legislation were railway bills
prohibiting rebates and discriminations. I do not believe that
there is a railway manager in the country who is not thankful to
have rebates and discriminations prohibited.
Under President Harrison the Sherman Anti-Trust Bill was
passed for the purpose of curbing corporations and the prevention
of monopolies. It was not in operation during Cleveland's admin
istration. Since the pathway for its operation was cleared by a
brilliant decision in the Circuit Court of Appeals by Judge Taft
it has been an efficient weapon for the curbing of trusts and the
prevention of monopolies, and was so used by McKinley and Roose
velt. The panic came when the country was never so prosperous,
business never so good, employment never so universal and wages
never so high. It was due to lack of confidence and sudden dis
trust. The failure of a great trust company in New York precipi
tated it. It was evident to everybody that unless the panic was
stopped immediately in New York it would spread over the
country and close most of the banks, national, state and savings,
in the land, and stop a majority of the industries and throw mul
titudes out of employment. The Government had over two hun
dred millions in the Treasury which could be used. Now what
was the Bryan and Democratic proposition? It was to distribute
this money in the banks all over the country when most of the
country banks had nearly twice the reserves required for solvency.
But Roosevelt and Cortelyou, regardless of this clamor, put the
money where the trouble was and saved the situation and the
country. The Democratic idea was when there is a fire to order
the fire department to distribute the water in the wards and dis
tricts all over town, giving to the flames only the proportion be
longing to that section. Under such procedure the water would
be widely distributed and so would the fire.
10

Mr. Bryan makes it clear to us what he proposes to carry
out if elected. First, and most important, he will destroy the
tariff and have a tariff for revenue only. We had the experience
of this threat and its partial fulfilment in the Cleveland adminis
tration. The United States is the greatest market in the world.
Our internal commerce is larger than that of all the rest of the
world combined. The commerce of the world, exclusive of the
United States, is in value $20,000,000,000, while the internal com
merce of the United States is $27,000,000,000. A revenue tariff
would make the United States the dumping ground of Europe and
Japan. European nations would capture our market on the At
lantic seaboard, but the greatest danger would be from Japan.
The Japanese have our skill, they have our machinery, they have
the cheapest of labor, they have driven our merchant marine off
the Pacific Ocean, and with the Japanese artisans working for
twenty cents a day and living on rice and the subsidized merchant
marine of Japan carrying their productions across the Pacific they
could undersell us, especially on the Pacific. The repeal of the
tariff would bring starvation to the doors of the artisans and
mechanics of the United States. Mr. Bryan's next proposition
is whenever a corporation has reached a point where it produces
one-half the products in its line it shall immediately stop until
the rest of the country catches up. He also proposes that when
any manufacturing company reaches a point where its output
consists of twenty-five per cent of that article which is sold in
this country it shall take out a federal license or shut up shop.
Thomas Jefferson furnished the Democratic party and the
country with a doctrine which was the cornerstone of the Demo
cratic faith. Mr. Bryan claims to be the disciple of Jefferson
and the heir of his policies. The Jefferson declaration was "that
government is best which governs least." We have in this country
two hundred and seventeen thousand manufactories. The capital
interested is twelve billions, seven hundred millions of dollars.
The number of people employed are in round numbers six mil
lions. The wages and salaries paid are in round numbers three
billions of dollars. The product is fifteen billions a year. These
11

manufactories are the industries and sources for living of thou
sands of places scattered all over the United States. They are in
competition with each other and with foreign concerns in the
same line who in spite of the tariff are able to a certain extent
to invade our markets. The Democratic platform and Mr. Bryan
complain of the increase of officials under the Roosevelt adminis
tration, but the inspectors, accountants and bookkeepers necessary
to find out when each of these multitudinous industries has reached
twenty-five per cent of its product and must take out a license,
and when in bad times it has fallen below twenty-five per cent
and can drop the license, would surpass a plague of locusts. When
the skill, enterprise and inventive genius of a manufacturer have
given him largely the control of the market in his particular
line without any monopolistic efforts other than skill, economy,
industry and thrift, that manufacturer under this novel process
must lay upon his oars until his patent expires or his trade-marks
become worthless.
A friend of mine is a large manufacturer, producing many
useful articles, among others buckles. Every human being in
the United States uses buckles, and it is an important attachment
to every harness and many kinds of machinery. A genius recently
invented a buckle which can be manufactured and sold at one-
third the price of buckles made in the old way, giving the com
pany of my friend a monopoly for this article, while the public
is getting it at much lower prices than ever before. Under Mr.
Bryan's proposition, the buckle inspectors in Portland, Maine,
Portland, Oregon, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco
and New Orleans, and in every place where tailors, harness makers,
dressmakers and householders are buying buckles, will be counting
the output of this factory as compared with others to report in
tabulated statements to the great ratio bureau at Washington.
Then will come to the buckle manufacturer a notice that he must
take out a license and subject his books to monthly examination
and inspection, so that the exact minute when his output of
buckles reaches fifty per cent of the whole buckle sale of the
country he must shut down part of his machinery and discharge
12

a proportionate number of his men. But as he is working under
a patent which no one else can use, he will have to wait seventeen
years until his patent expires before his product can comply with
the fifty per cent rule, and in the meantime the public will buy
dear buckles. We are the keenest and shrewdest traders and the
most inventive manufacturers in the world, and the people of the
United States will never permit their energies and their indus
tries to be buckled down by this policy. That strap won't work.
But we will leave the ratio proposition for the broader and
more comprehensive statement of the Democratic candidate that
"The people shall rule." We are every day receiving many proofs
of the rule of the people. The primary election in New Jersey
recently with its varied and unexpected results showed conclusively
that the people ruled. The greatest majority ever- given to a
President was when seven million, six hundred and twenty-three
thousand, four hundred and eighty-six voted for Mr. Roosevelt and
five million, seventy-seven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-
one voted for Judge Parker. This proved conclusively that the
people ruled. In our State two years ago the people decided to
elect a Republican Governor and all the rest of the State officers
Democratic. They evidently wanted to try the experiment of one
party watching the other in office. It was their judgment as
exhibited by their votes that in this matter of watchfulness for
the public good a Republican as Governor, in the person of Gover
nor Hughes, was quite equal to a Democratic Lieutenant-Governor,
Secretary of State, Attorney-General, Comptroller, State Treas
urer and State Engineer and Surveyor. In another form it was
the old idea of the parity of values between gold and silver, only
in this instance it was six to one. On election night in 1900 as
the incoming returns indicated that Roosevelt's majority over
Bryan was about a million a devoted admirer of Mr. Bryan tele
graphed him: "The people are in a minority. God save our
country." When I was a student one of my tasks was to translate
Ctesar's commentaries. After sixty years all that I remember
of them is that the great conqueror wrote, "Gaul is divided into
13

three parts." Certainly -the gall of Mr. Bryan is both great and
divided into three parts when he claims that the people are de
prived of self-government because the Constitution is not amended
so as to elect Senators by the popular vote, because of the rules
of the House of Representatives, and because of the corrupt use
of money in elections. The people elect the legislators who elect
the Senators, and they instruct the legislature whom they pre
fer should be the representative of the State in the upper house
at Washington. But on the question of the amendment to the
Constitution a little history will demonstrate Democratic inconsist
ency on this subject. The last time a proposed amendment to the
Constitution for the election of United States Senators by the
people of the several States, 'having passed the House of Repre
sentatives, came to the Senate it was referred to the Committee
on Privileges and Elections, of which I am a member. An amend
ment to the constitution requires the two-thirds vote of both houses.
The Republicans have not two-thirds and therefore an amendment
must receive Democratic votes. While it was under consideration
in the Committee on Privileges and Elections I prepared and of
fered an amendment to the amendment, the effect of which was -
that in the election 'of United States Senators by the people the
people entitled to vote under the Constitution of the United
States should be permitted to vote and have their vote counted.
This of course meant that in the thirteen southern States where
the negro voter is disfranchised, in the election of a United States
Senator, Congress would pass laws so that he as well as all other
citizens should cast his vote and have it counted as cast. This
amendment of mine was adopted in the committee. The Republi
cans all voted for it and the Democratic Senators all voted against
it. Then the Democratic Senators announced that they would
oppose the amendment to the Constitution in that form, both in
the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and the late vener
able Senator Pettus remarked, "Before this amendment of the
Senator of New York every white man in the State of Alabama
was in favor of this proposition and now every white man in the
State of Alabama is opposed to it." That opposition of the Demo-
14

cratic 'Senators killed the amendment to the Constitution, and they
will always kill it so long as it includes the right of every citizen
under the Constitution of the United States in every State in the
Union to cast his ballot for United States Senator.
The claim that the corrupt use of money in elections deprives
the people of their power to rule is a monstrous proposition. There
is no more useful work in the way of education of the citizens,
and especially of the new citizen or the young citizen who casts his
first vote, than the literature which is distributed by the two parties
and the speeches which are made in every locality. But literature
costs enormously. Its distribution among fifteen millions of voters
takes an immense amount of money, and the necessary expense of
an army of speakers, of the hiring of halls and other paraphernalia
is very great. The use of money corruptly means that the voters
are bribed, and every citizen knows that this is a slander upon the
voter. The third place, according to Mr. Bryan, where the people do
not rule is in the House of Representatives. The people want Con
gress to enact laws to meet the constantly recurring necessities of
a great and growing country. They want those measures which are
crystallized into the statutes to be thoroughly studied, considered
and debated. With three hundred and ninety-one members of the
House of Representatives and an average of twenty-five thousand
bills introduced every season, if there were no rules necessary
legislation would be lost and foolish legislation often passed. The
House of Representatives up to the time of the great speaker
Thomas B. Reed was in the hands of the minority. They could
stop all legislation until the majority conceded to them what they
wanted, and until then they would not permit the majority to have
what they deemed wise. Our government is necessarily a govern
ment by majorities, otherwise it would be anarchy. The clearest
refutation of this charge of the Democratic candidate is that dur
ing the period when he was a member of Congress the House was
Democratic, the Speaker was a Democrat, Mr. Bryan was a mem
ber of the majority and they adopted almost verbatim the rules of
Czar Reed. 15

The President of the United States has become the most
powerful ruler in the world. In him is concentrated for the time
being in large measure the power of the people. We have witnessed
as our country has grown the enormous increase of executive au
thority and influence. Mr. Bryan recognizes this in those confident
assertions made in recent speeches that he can carry the measures
which he desires through both houses of Congress because of the
public sentiment which he can place behind them by virtue of his
office. The ability, experience and characteristics of the candi
dates are more important for the welfare of the country than party
platforms or professions. Happily both candidates have lived in
the light and we know all about them. Mr. Bryan's only expe
rience in public life was as a member of the Ways and Means
Committee in the House of Representatives, where he did his part
in framing the Wilson-Gorman tariff measure. That bill proved
to be the most disastrous piece of legislation in the history of our
country. Since then Mr. Bryan has been the most versatile creator
of theories of government and the greatest lightning-change artist
in the promotion of political expedients known to our public life.
He says that he is bound as much by the omissions of the Demo
cratic platform as by its declarations. We must understand, there
fore, that the omissions of the Democratic platform by which he
considers himself bound are the policies which from time to time in
the last twelve years he has advanced and advocated. Happily the
experience of the country has taught us what would have happened
if his policies had been adopted in 1896, 1900 or 1904.
We all cheerfully recognize Mr. Bryan's brilliant gifts as an
orator and the charm of his personality. I heard him in a political
speech when President Roosevelt was present claim the authorship
of Roosevelt's policies and that he was their father. At" the open
ing of the present, campaign he took the position that he was the
heir of Roosevelt's policies, and now in his recent tour through
our State he says they are doing nothing anyhow. I think he
may make good the title to inventor of the phrase "Paramount
Issue." In every campaign he has declared that one issue pre
sented was a paramount issue. In 1896 it was the unlimited coin-
16

age of silver at the ratio to gold of sixteen to one. In the light
of subsequent events we know if that suggestion had been em
bodied into law we would have been plunged into national and in
dividual bankruptcy. But has he abandoned that idea? No. He
apparently entertains the same views he did then, but explains
that the necessity is postponed because of the large and unexpected
production of gold. In other words, if there should be a check
in the gold production of the world, the ratio of sixteen to one
would become a paramount issue again. In 1900 the paramount
issue was imperialism, and the liberties of the Filipinos were to
be crushed because of McKinley's lust for power, and the Fourth
of July was to be only a memory. But under the brilliant adminis
tration of Governor Taft the Philippines advanced in self-govern
ment more in four years than the people of India have in half a
century, and the Fourth of July is not only the most glorious
day under the American flag within the confines of the United
States, but is hailed with equal enthusiasm by the Filipinos.
In 1904 Mr. Bryan succeeded in creating as a paramount issue
the imminent and pressing danger of militarism and executive
tyranny to the world's peace and the liberties and the prosperity
of the country. Instead of this terrible prophecy coming true the
Republican administration has accomplished more for peace than
all other instrumentalities in the world. The historic journey of
Secretary of State Root to and among the South American repub
lics did more to bring them into amicable relations with each other
and to establish a friendly feeling toward the United States than
anything else which has ever occurred. The Central American
republics were disgracing the name with their revolutions and
fratricidal warfare, but the agreement brought about with Mexico
to compel them to arbitrate their differences has created a new
era of law and established government in those republics. During
the war between Russia and Japan, the bloodiest of this generation,
which threatened to involve the world, the masterful mind and
signal diplomacy of Roosevelt concluded a peace between them
with honor to both.
The military policy of the administration has been to make
17

the army efficient without any substantial increase and to enlarge
the navy. The cruise of the battleships has been a voyage of peace,
compelling peace by display of power. The superb success of this
fleet around the globe forced the Democratic convention of 1908
to run away from its fear of militarism of 1904 and advocate a
still larger navy.
In 1906 Mr. Bryan went abroad. He was received everywhere
by the ambassadors and ministers of the United States very prop
erly as one of our most distinguished citizens. He came in
familiar touch with emperors, kings and queens and the statesmen
and public men of European nations and of the East. His charm
of manner and his eloquence left a good impression among them.
His return marked the flood of his career. "There is a tide in
fhe affairs of men which taken at its flood leads on to- fortune."
Republican fortunes' were rather at an ebb because of one of those
waves of sentiment for a change in government without any other
reason than the desire for a change. All who had ever voted for
him were waiting to give him the warmest possible welcome, and all
who had voted against him to extend a cordial greeting. The
lesson of the hour was transparently political silence, but he could
not escape from the old fascination of new policies and fresh
schemes. He said in effect to an expectant people, who were wait
ing to hear his fresh impressions of other lands, civilizations and
governments, "I have discovered at last a cure for all our ills and
a panacea for all our woes. It is not free silver at sixteen to one,
it is not fighting imperialism or executive tyranny, but it is govern
ment ownership of the railroads of the country." That one idea
striking against the hard sense of the American people dissipated in
a moment the most brilliant political opportunity of the times.
But the great necromancer eternally finds new schemes and
discovers new tricks. Government ownership of railroads as a
policy disappeared for a time with the breath that uttered it, and
now business confidence is to be restored, credit re-established and
prosperity regained by guaranteeing bank deposits., We of New
York are here upon solid historical ground. Seventy-eight years
ago Martin Van Buren, the most adroit and resourceful politician
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of his period, as Governor of our State, passed a law through the
Legislature called the Safety Fund Law. The banks were taxed to
provide for the safety of deposits and note circulation. In the
course of twenty years the scheme had utterly failed, the safety
fund was exhausted and the public credit being involved the State
had to sell six per cent, bonds to replenish the fund and pay the
losses. When our free banking law went into effect the scheme was
utterly repudiated. Mr. Bryan cites the scheme in Oklahoma as
a phenomenal success, but that scheme has been in operation only
six months. We see now that the bank examiner of Oklahoma has
refused new charters to mushroom banks which are starting up all
over the State, and is asking the courts to sustain him. Two in
stances are cited from the daily papers : One where there are five
hundred' inhabitants and two banks and a charter requested for a
third, and another where there are four hundred and fifty inhab
itants and two banks and a charter requested for a third.
Experienced bankers know that there is no more dangerous or
difficult business in the world for the inexperienced than banking.
The Colonel Sellers and Wilkins Macawbers, who exist in every
community, believe that with a bank and other people's nioney
they can "get rich quick." Deposits are secured for banks by the
reputation of their officers and directors. It is their well-known
ability and integrity which lead the community to intrust its money
with them. But deposits are also attracted by high rates of in
terest. Nearly everybody knows that no bank can live which pays
five per cent, upon its deposits, and bankruptcy is certain if it pays
ten. Under this scheme by which caution, honesty and ability are
to guarantee speculation, exploitation or dishonesty we would have
the overthrow of all canons of business morality and confidence,
and we would enter upon a world of speculation which would craze
and demoralize whole communities. The temptation would be* so
great that all risks would be taken where the speculators could
secure as many depositors as the conservative bankers, or more, by
paying ruinous rates of interest, and then launch their schemes
with the depositors' money. The depositor would feel safe because
he would have the entire banking capital of the State or Country
19

behind his deposit. The depositor should be put upon his inquiry
for the sake of good business as much in making deposits in the
bank as in selling his goods or his labor to a customer.
We have a State canvass of unusual interest. The press is full
of congratulation that the Republican State Convention obeyed the
popular will in the nomination of Governor Hughes. But it has
equally emphatically asserted that the Democratic ticket was in the
mind and control of the two State and city leaders until it was
finally announced and adopted by an obedient convention. The
people of this State have demonstrated efficiency and devotion to
the public service in our candidate, Governor Hughes, who possesses
unusual claims upon the public confidence.
But, my friends, in the more than half a century in which
upon the platform I have advocated candidates for the Presidency
and Vice-Presidency of the United States I recollect no campaign
fuller of that inspiration which comes from supporting the fittest
possible men for these high places. For twenty years our candidate
for Vice-President, James S. Sherman, a favorite son of New York,
has been performing such service in the House of Representatives
as to secure from that body signal recognition as a wise, intelligent
and resourceful legislator and natural leader. He was usually
selected as the chairman of the Committee of the Whole in the lower
house of Congress, a place which requires unusual tact, information
and brains. He will come to the presidency of the Senate with an
equipment rarely found in a presiding officer.
I cannot recall a candidate for the Presidency who has had an
experience of successful administration in so many branches of the
public service as William H. Taft. He was a distinguished judge
in the federal court, executive and organizer of the government,
civilization, education and devolution of power upon the people of
the Philippines, the pacificator of Cuba in her most difficult and
perilous revolution, the guiding mind in the construction of the
Panama Canal — -the greatest industrial work our country has ever
witnessed — the envoy who with the rarest diplomatic skill settled to
the satisfaction of everybody the difficult question of the land dis
putes in the Philippines, and the Secretary of War and adviser
20

of the President which brought him in touch with every department
of the government. Where in our history has there been such an
all-round and triumphant career as a preparation for the Presi
dency? Sane, safe, judicial and wise is the universal verdict on
William H. Taft. «
I was talking with President McKinley soon after we had
acquired the Philippines. He was filled with anxiety on the sub
ject. He said : "We never have had any experience in colonization
and the government of distant colonies. The honor . of our people
and the credit of the administration are dependent almost entirely
upon the man who is appointed governor of those islands. He must
possess the rarest of qualifications, and I know the man. He has
one overwhelming ambition and that I intended should be gratified.
Tt is to become one of the Justices of the Supreme Court. I know
that in asking him to be governor of the Philippines I am urging
him to lay aside the ambition of a lifetime, to risk health and life
in a tropical climate and his reputation in an untried field. But
I believe he will accept."
Judge William H. Taft did not hesitate a moment. We all
know the marvelous results of his administration. Where there was
no law there are now courts presided over by native jurists, where
there were no schools there are now three thousand seven hundred
schoolhouses with half a million scholars and eight hundred school
teachers from the United States and six thousand Philippine
teachers who received their instructions from Americans, where
there was no orderly industry there is now a development of re
sources and the construction of lines of intercommunication, and
where there was no liberty there is now a native assembly educated
sufficiently in ten years to creditably discharge the duties of repre
sentative government. Twice while Judge Taft has been perform
ing this great work there has been presented to him the opportunity
for the fulfillment of the wish, the desire and the dream of his life
to be upon that greatest of courts, the Supreme Court of the United
States. Twice he has pushed it aside because he thought his duty
to the Philippines had not yet been fully performed. Now the
American people have an opportunity to show their appreciation
21

of this unusual public spirit and to reward a man who thus has
sacrificed himself for the best interests of their country and its
dependent peoples and at the same time to secure in the prime of
life the ablest and fittest man in the country to be President of the
United States.

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