dicate the family, and yet no counterparts in any
family if not for our notice? You can make noth
ing of a boy to whom a tree is a tree, until you
have taught him that it is not so. The boy who has
learned to distinguish a beech from a box alder will
make other distinctions more easily. I am persuaded
that we make too little of childhood in our educa
tional system. The schoolroom gets him soon
enough, perhaps too soon, and with too hard a grip;
but the guide of the two, three, four and five-year
old has been too much off duty. Do not mistake me.
The pupils are not to be called in from play; there
is to be no hour; they are not to be crammed, nor
their feet set in paths, nor to have any suspicion that
they are taking a lesson. The object is not knowl
edge, but the training of a faculty that is then very
alert the faculty of perception. Do not plan to
bring objects to their notice so much as to lead them
to notice more accurately things that have already
attracted their notice. Do not try to be exhaustive,
but only to add something. Senator Stanford told
me that in the training of his young horses he al
ways stopped the exercise inside the fatigue limit.
The faculty of description, of making others see
and enjoy what you have seen and enjoyed, is the
handmaid of perception, and the two should walk
together. Do not do all the talking; let the child
A TALK ABOUT THE LITTLE ONES 423
have a chance. Montaigne says : " Tis the custom
of schoolmasters to be eternally thundering in their
pupils' ears, as though they were pouring into a fun
nel. * * * I would not have him alone to in
vent and speak, but that he should also hear his pu
pils in turn." The tank may be full, but if there is
no tap how shall we draw from it? Composition
will be made easy, and the accuracy of the child's
observation will be tested by drawing him on to de
scribe what he has seen. To make giving out easy
is quite as much in the way of education as a fa
cility of storing up. The filling of the corn crib im
plies the emptying of it. It may be well enough to
have children commit to memory worthy verse and
prose, but a description is better mental exercise than
a recital. Remember the little fellow is often very
modest and very easily squelched. A laugh, and
as a little friend of mine gave the scripture at fam
ily prayers "there was a great clam." The old
saying, "Children should be seen and not heard" has
no truth in it, as applied to family life. Every
child should be heard, not intrusively, but often,
and with attention and sympathy. You are at great
pains about his table manners what he shall eat,
and that he shall not eat it with his knife; but we
have authority for saying that what comes out of
the mouth is more important.
I would not take any of the frolic out of a child's
life no lifting of the finger, no pedantic gravity,
424 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
no forcing or cramming but I would make play and
story, the walk, the evening hour upon the knee, all
contribute little by little to the development of the
faculties of observation and description. It will
make the inevitable composition on the cow much
easier and more instructive if the writer has ob
served that all cows do not have horns, and that the
long brush tail is not worn so much for the milk
maid as for the flies. Said a little girl, who had
with her class just written about the cow, "Mr. Har
rison, there was one thing every one of us forgot."
"What was that?" I asked. "Why, that the cow
has a compound stomach." The truth was, I sus
pect, that they had never known it, had never ob
served the vigorous chewing of the cow as she stood
in the barnyard. But these were city girls, and the
milkman, and not the cow, should have been as
signed 'for their theme.
The person, boy or girl, man or woman, who has
acquired the habit of attention, of close observation,
and the faculty of describing what has been observed,
is an educated person in a truer sense than many an
other who is more learned. The former is in the
way of becoming an intellectual pioneer the latter
may be only a bin of mixed wheat. It must be that
in looking at things for six years a habit of looking
will be acquired, and it is immensely important that
it should be a right habit. Bacon says: "Certainly
custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young
A TALK ABOUT THE LITTLE ONES 425
years, this we call education which is in effect but
an early custom."
I hope these suggestions, misapplied, will not get
any of my young friends into trouble. I do not re
commend the rod as a means of fixing the attention;
though in a way it has that effect. In the case of the
child in the home, the lessons should be chiefly given
as the stimulant was given to the teetotaler, in Mr.
Lincoln's story "unbeknownst to him."
AT THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION
MEETING
Carnegie Hall, New York, August 27, 1896
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I am on the Republican
retired list, not by reason of any age limit nor by
the decree of any convention, but voluntarily that the
younger men might have a chance, and that I might
have rest. But I am neither a soured nor a bed
ridden citizen. My interest in my country did not
cease when my last salary check was cashed. I
hoped to add to relief from official duties retire
ment from the arena of political debate. But the
gentlemen having in charge this campaign seemed
to think that I might in some way advance the in
terest of those principles which are not less dear to
me than they are to you, by making in this great
city a public address. I thought they greatly mag
nified the importance of anything that I could say,
but I could not quite content myself to subordinate
what others thought to be a public duty to my pri
vate convenience. I am here to-night not to make
426
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 427
a "keynote" speech, but only to express my personal
views, for which no one else will be in any measure
responsible, for this speech has not been submitted
to the judgment of any one until now.
I shall speak, my fellow-citizens, as a Republican,
but with perfect respect for those who hold differ
ing opinions. Indeed, I have never had so much re
spect for Democrats as I have now; or, perhaps, I
should say I have never had so much respect for so
many Democrats as I have now. That party has
once more exhibited its capacity to be ruptured, and
a party that can not be split is a public menace.
When the leaders of a party assembled in conven
tion depart from its traditional principles and advo
cate doctrines that threaten the integrity of the gov
ernment, the social order of our communities and
the security and soundness of our finances, the party
ought to split and it dignifies itself when it does
split. A bolt is now and then a most reassuring
incident, and was never more reassuring and never
had a better cause than now.
But these Democratic friends, who are disposed
more or less directly to help the cause of sound
finance in this campaign, ought not to expect that
the Republican party will reorganize itself because
the Democratic party has disorganized itself. The
Republican party, if sound money triumphs, as I be
lieve it will, must, in the nature of things, consti
tute the body of the successful army. We ought not,
428 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
therefore, to be asked to do anything that will af
fect the solidity, the loyalty, the discipline or the en
thusiasm of the Republican party.
The Republican party fronts the destructionists and
trumpets its defiance to the enemies of sound money.
It will fight, however, without covering any of the
glorious mottoes and inscriptions that are upon its
banner. When the house is on fire and many of
our Democratic friends believe that to be the pres
ent domestic situation the tenant on the top floor
ought not to ask the tenant in the basement to bury
any of his opinions before he joins the fire brigade.
And our Democratic friends who realize as we realize
the gravity, the far-reaching consequences of this
campaign, ought not to ask the Republican party to
reorganize itself; or to put aside any of the great
principles it has advocated, in order to win Demo
cratic votes. If this opinion is sincerely held, as
they insist and as I believe, it ought to determine
their action without reference to what anybody else
may do. And I submit to these gentlemen, for whose
opinions I have the highest respect, whether, if it
be true, as they say, that the success of the Chi
cago nominee would plunge this country into irre
trievable commercial distress and drag the nation's
honor in the dust, there can be any question for
them but this: "How can we most surely defeat
the Chicago nominee?"
Neither conventions nor committees can create
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 429
issues, nor assign them their places in a campaign.
That is the leading issue of a campaign which most
agitates and most interests the people. In my opin
ion there is no issue presented by the Chicago con
vention more important and vital than the issue
raised as to the powers and duties of the national
courts and the national executive. The defense of
the constitution, of the integrity of the supreme
court of the United States, and of the president's
power and duty to enforce all of the laws of the
United States without awaiting the call or the con
sent of the governor of any state, has again be
come an important and living issue. Tariff and
coinage laws will be of little moment if our consti
tutional government is overthrown. When we have
a president who believes that it is neither his right
nor his duty to see that the mail trains are not ob
structed and that interstate commerce has its free
way, irrespective of state lines, and courts that fear
to use their ancient and familiar powers to restrain
and punish law-breakers, free trade and free silver
will be appropriate accompaniments of such an ad
ministration, and can not add appreciably to the na
tional distress or the national dishonor.
There is only one rule by which we can live use
fully as a nation or peacefully as citizens. It is the
rule of the laws, constitutionally enacted and finally
interpreted by the judicial tribunal appointed by the
constitution. When it becomes the rule that vio-
43O VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
lence carries its end, we have anarchy a condition
as destructive to honest labor and its rewards as
death is to the tissues of the human body.
The atmosphere of the Chicago convention was
surcharged with the spirit of revolution. Its plat
form was carried, and its nominations made with ac
companying incidents of frenzy that startled the on-
loo'kers and amazed the country. The courts and the
president were arraigned for enforcing the laws, and
government by the mob was given the preference
over government by the law enforced by court de
crees and by executive orders. The spirit that ex
hibited itself in this convention was so wild and
fierce that Mr. Bryan likened it to the fiery zeal that
possessed the crusaders who responded to the im
passioned appeals of Peter the Hermit to rescue the
sepulcher of our Lord from the hands of the infidels.
His historical illustration was more apt then he knew,
for the zeal of the crusaders was a blind and ignorant
zeal; they sought to rescue the transient and ineffect
ual sepulcher that had held the body of the Son of
God, while* they trampled upon the precepts of love
and mercy which He had left for their guidance in
life. He tells us further that this silver crusade has
arrayed father against son, and brother against
brother, and has sundered the tenderest ties of love.
Senator Hill, watching the strange proceedings, had
to extend that brief political creed from which he
has gained so much renown. He felt compelled to
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 43!
say: "I am a Democrat, but I am not a revolu
tionist." Senator Vest, realizing that they were in
augurating a revolution, reminded the convention
that revolutions did not begin with the rich and pros
perous. Mr. Tillman felt that the change in the
management of public affairs was to be so radical
that he proposed sulphur fumigation for the ship be
fore the new crew took possession of it.
Now, my friends, all these things indicate the
temper in which the platform was adopted and the
nominations made. There was no calm deliberation.
There was frenzy. There was no thoughtful search
ing for the man who, from experience, was most
able to direct public affairs. There was an impuls
ive response to an impassioned speech. Not amid
such surroundings as these, not under such influ
ences, are those calm, discreet things done that will
commend themselves to the judgment of the Ameri
can people. They denounce in their platform inter
ference by federal authority in local affairs as a vio
lation of the constitution of the United States and a
crime against free institutions. Mr. Tillman, in his
speech, applied this declaration. It was intended to
be a direct condemnation of Mr. Cleveland, as presi
dent of the United States, for using the power of
the executive to brush out of the way every obstacle
to the free passage of the mail trains of the United
States and of interstate commerce. My friends,
whenever our people elect a president who believes
432 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
that he must ask of Governor Altgeld, or of any
governor of any state, permission to enforce the laws
of the United States we have surrendered the vic
tory the boys won in 1861.
In 1 86 1 the question was raised whether the
United States coufd pass its troops through Ken
tucky to meet a rebel army in Tennessee. We were
four years in settling the question fully but it was
settled forever. My friends, this division of pow
ers between the general and local authorities is a
plain and easy one. A disturbance which is purely
local in a state is a state affair. The president can
not send troops or lend any aid unless the legisla
ture calls upon him for help, or the governor, if the
legislature is not in session. But when a law of the
United States is resisted, it is the sworn duty of the
president to execute it; and this convention arraigns
the president for doing what his oath compelled him
to do. Comrades of the war for the Union, sons
of those that went out to battle that the flag might
not lose its luster, will you consent, after these years,
that the doctrine that was shot to death in the great
war shall be revived and made victorious in a civil
campaign ?
But this assault does not end there. The supreme
court of the United States and the lower federal
courts are arraigned because they use the familiar
writ of injunction to suppress violence, to restrain
men from breaking the law; and that platform plain-
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 433
ly means I will show you that it was so under
stood in the committee on resolutions that when
the supreme court, exercising its constitutional pow
er and duty, gives an interpretation to a law of the
United States that is not pleasing to congress, they
will increase the number of judges and pack the
court to get a decision to please them.
Our fathers who framed this government divided
its great powers between three great departments
the legislative, the executive and the judicial. They
sought to make these independent, the one of the
other, so that neither might overshadow or destroy
the other. The supreme court, the most dignified
judicial body in the world, was appointed to inter
pret the laws and the constitution, and when that
court pronounces a decree upon any constitutional
question, there is but one right method, if we dis
agree, to overturn the decree, and that is the meth
od pointed out by the constitution, to amend it to
conform to the views of the people. Mr. Hill said
in his convention speech as to this assault upon the
court: "That provision, if it means anything,
means that it is the duty of congress to reconstruct
the supreme court of the country. It means" and
now note his words "and it was openly avowed
that it means the adding of additional members to
it or the turning out of office and reconstructing the
whole court. I will not follow any such revolution
ary step as that."
434 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
You are to answer, then, my fellow-citizens, in
all the gravity of a great crisis, whether you will
sustain a party that proposes to destroy the balance
which our fathers instituted in our system of gov
ernment and to inaugurate the policy that whenever
a tumultuous congress disagrees with the supreme
court and a subservient president is in the White
House, the judgment of the court shall be reconsid
ered and reversed by increasing the number of
judges and packing the court with men who will
decide as congress wants them to. I can not exag
gerate the danger of this assault upon our constitu
tional .form of government. One of the kindest and
most discriminating critics who ever wrote with a
foreign pen about American affairs, Mr. Bryce, in
his "American Commonwealth," pointed out the dan
ger growing out of the fact that the constitution
did not fix the number of the supreme court judges,
and that it was possible for a reckkss congress and
a reckless executive to subordinate and practically
destroy the supreme court by the process I have just
described. After speaking of this he says: "What
prevents such assaults on the fundamental law?
Nothing but the fear of the people, whose broad,
good sense and attachment to the principles of the
constitution may be generally relied upon to con
demn such a perversion of its powers."
Our English friend did not misjudge us, I think.
The sound, good sense of the American people,
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 435
when an issue like this is presented, can be depended
upon to save the courts from the threatened destruc
tion. The question is whether Mr. Bryan's view
or Mr. Tillman's view of a constitutional question
shall prevail, or that of the august tribunal appointed
by the constitution to settle it. The courts are the
defense of the weak. The rich and powerful have
other resources, but the poor have not. A high-
minded, independent judiciary that will hew to the
line on questions between wealth and labor, between
the rich and the poor, is the defense and security of
the defenseless.
I do not intend to spend any time in the discussion
of the tariff question. That debate has been won
and need not be protracted.
It might have run on eternally upon theoretical
lines. We had some experiences, but they were his
torically remote, and so not very instructive to this
generation. We needed an experience of our own,
and we have had it. It has been a hard lesson, but
a very convincing one, and everybody was in the
school-house when it was given. Mr. Depew, whose
absolute accuracy and verity when he tells a story you
all know, in telling that story of our talk on the
White House 'steps, did an unintentional injury to
my modesty. I did not say or for a moment sup
pose that any influence or act of mine had lifted the
tide of American prosperity to a mark on the stone
higher than any other flood record. The Republican
436 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
policies were the lifting forces. As I have more than
once said, it is a conflict of policies, not of men.
And in this tariff debate, if it is to go on, we have
history so fresh and recent, history so indelibly writ
ten on the hearts and minds of our people, that cer
tain things must be admitted, and among those
things is this historical fact that in 1892 we had the
most prosperous times, the most general diffusion of
prosperity, and the highest mark of prosperity that
we have ever attained as a nation.
Now what has happened since? Then our busi
ness prosperity was like the strong current of a
mighty river flowing bank full; now itis like a fail
ing spring in an August drought. A panic in 1893
of a most extraordinary character has been succeed
ed by a gradual drying up less and less and less, un
til universal business distraction and anxiety pre
vail in all our communities. I do not believe there
has ever been a time, except perhaps in the very
stress of some active panic, when watchfulness even
to the point of desperation has so characterized this
great metropolis as it does to-day. Men have been
afraid to go away for a vacation. They have felt
that they must every day in this burning heat come
into the city and watch their business. That is the
situation.
What has brought it about? Gentlemen, who is
there to defend the Wilson tariff bill? Who says
it is a good tariff measure? I do not believe a
THE REPUBLICAN RATIFICATION MEETING 437
Democrat can be found to say that it is. Mr. .Cleve
land repudiated it. It was so .bad that he would
not attach his official signature to it, and it became
a law without it. He said it was full of incongru
ities and inequalities. And yet it was a better one
than he wanted to give us. What has been the re
sult of that measure? When, two years ago, dur
ing the Morton campaign in New York, I discussed
this question, I said that the old Democratic doc-
'trine was that the burden of our. public expenses
should be laid upon importations, that the tariff
should provide for the cost of running our govern
ment, and I pointed out then how our Democratic
friends had left that platform and were now endeav
oring to obtain revenue by internal taxation rather
than to allow the support of the government to fall
upon the importations of foreign goods. What has
been the result? One of these experiments in inter
nal taxation, the income tax, was held to be uncon
stitutional by the supreme court.
So eager were our Democratic friends to put di
rectly upon our people, according to the English sys
tem, taxes to support our government, that they
passed an unconstitutional act in order to levy inter
nal taxes and help out a tariff bill which had reduced
the duties upon imports. Now, what has been the
effect of that? The Wilson bill has failed to pro
duce revenue enough, supplemented by our internal
taxes, to maintain the government. There has been
438 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT
an annual deficit approaching $50,000,000, and the
national treasury has been continually in a state of
embarrassment. Our manufacturers, left without ade
quate protection, have been successively and grad
ually closing up and putting out their fires. But
not only has it produced this effect, it has directly
and strongly contributed to the financial depression
that we are in. The maintenance of the gold re
serve at $100,000,000 by the government for the re
demption of our notes is essential to confidence in
the stability of our finances. When the government
reserve runs down people begin at once to say : "We
may come to a silver basis; gold is going out; the
reserve is going down."
But how can you keep a gold reserve of $100,000,-
ooo when you have not got $100,000,000 in the
treasury all told? How can you maintain the gold
reserve when you have an annual and continual def
icit in your income?
So that, my friends, this tariff bill has not only
contributed by increasing importation, by taking
away needful support from our own manufacturers,
but it has contributed by increasing the silver scare
to bring us into the condition of distrust and dis
may which now prevails. The bond sales have been
made necessary by reason of this deficit. It is one
thing when you have a good surplus in the treasury
to keep up the gold reserve, and quite another when
you have no surplus at all.
THE REPUBLICAN. RATIFICATION MEETING 439
But I do not intend to follow the tariff question
further. I am quite as much, however, opposed to
cheapening the American workingman and working-
woman as I am to cheapening our dollars. I am quite
as strongly in favor of keeping day's work at home
as gold dollars. If it could be known to-night that
that gallant soldier, that typical young American,
that distinguished and useful statesman, William Mc-
Kinley of Ohio, would certainly be elected president,
how the bears would take to cover on the stock ex
change to-morrow!
My friends, as a Republican I am proud of many
things, but I can sum up as the highest satisfaction I
have had in the party and its career that the pros
pect of Republican success never did disturb business.
In connection with this financial matter, do we all
realize how important the choice of a president is?
Do you know that as the law is now, without the
passage of any free coinage law at all, it is in the
power of the president of the United States to bring