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 Received 
 Accessions No. 
 
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ffcew Y orr? kJoard of Coracle ana (transportation 
 
 55 LIBERTY STREET. 
 
 New York, November 23d, 1891. 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I have the honor to send you by this 
 mail a copy of the book published by this 
 Board containing, among other things, its 
 action touching the death of the late Sec- 
 re :a ry of th e Tre asu ry, Willia m V/in do m . 
 Please acknowledge receipt to, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 DARWIN R. JAMES, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
WILLIAM WINDOM 
 
 HIS LAST SPEECH. 
 
 UKI7EESITT 
 
 ANNUAL BANQUET 
 OF 
 
 THE NEW YORK BOARD OF TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION, 
 
 n 
 
PRESS OF 
 
 OEO. F. NESBITT & CO., 
 NEW YORK. 
 
ARTOTYPe. E. BIERSTA 
 
THE HONORABLE 
 
 WILLIAM WINDOM, 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 DIED IN THE SIXTY-FOURTH YEAR OF HIS ACE, 
 
 WHILE THE GUEST OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK BOARD OFTRADE AND TRANSPORTATION, 
 
 AT THEIR ANNUAL BANQUET, 
 DELMONICO S, NEW YORK, JANUARY 29, 1891. 
 
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The speech delivered by MR. WINDOM at 
 the Banquet, together with undelivered speeches, also 
 record of the action taken by the NEW YORK BOARD 
 OF TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION, with remarks thereon, 
 at a special meeting held January 30th, 1891, are 
 published pursuant to a resolution of the Board, as a 
 mark of respect for and in honor of the memory of 
 WILLIAM WINDOM, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Action of the New York Board of Trade and Transporta 
 tion on the death of the Hon. William Windom, 
 Secretary of the Treasury , . , 8 
 
 Proceedings of the Annual Banquet of the New York 
 Board of Trade and Transportation, January 29th, 
 1891., 19 
 
Action taken by the NEW YORK BOARD OF TRADE 
 AND TRANSPORTATION on the death of the Hon. 
 WILLIAM WINDOM, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Special meeting January 30th, 1891. 
 
 ABSTRACT FROM PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 Pursuant to announcement at the close of the Banquet 
 and in the morning papers, a large number of members 
 and directors assembled in the rooms of the Board at 
 one o clock P. M., January 30th, 1891. 
 
 Mr. GEORGE L. PEASE, Vice-President, occupied the 
 chair. 
 
 The Hon. THOMAS F. BAYARD, ex-Secretary of State, 
 honored the Board by his presence and was invited to a 
 seat beside the Chairman. 
 
 The Chairman in calling the meeting to order said : 
 
 Gentlemen /You are all aware ot the sad event which last even 
 ing so suddenly .terminated the festivities at our Annual Banquet. 
 William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, 
 
8 
 
 addressed us, and almost immediately after taking his seat 
 was stricken down by the hand of death. We can never forget 
 that experience, and let us hope none of us shall ever witness 
 such a sad scene again. 
 
 While his remains are being conveyed to his family in Wash 
 ington under escort from this Board consisting of our President, 
 Captain Ambrose Snow, our Secretary, Hon. Darwin R James, 
 Hon. Wm. Henry Arnoux, Mr. Seth E. Thomas, Mr. Norman 
 S. Bentley and Mr. William H. Wiley, we have met at this 
 time to place on record some expression of our high appreciation 
 of Mr. Windom s character and many virtues. 
 
 A committee was appointed last evening to draft a suitable 
 minute and resolution to present to you to-day. 
 
 The Hon. Oscar S. Straus, a member of that Committee, 
 General Stewart L. Woodford and ex Judge Arnoux being his 
 associates, will now present the report. 
 
 Mr. STRAUS then read the following and moved its 
 adoption : 
 
 William Windom, Secretary of the Treasury, died while our 
 guest, and just as he had spoken to us words of weighty wisdom 
 and true courage. It is therefore peculiarly fitting that this 
 Board should express the deep sense of the business men of New 
 York of the services which he has rendered to the Republic and 
 of the personal loss that so many of us have sustained in his 
 sudden death. At the organization of our Board he was our 
 associate and adviser. During all our existence he has been our 
 faithful friend and helper. 
 
The New York Board of Trade and Transportation places this 
 minute upon its records in honor of a good citizen, a wise man, 
 and an honest and brave official. 
 
 For more than thirty years William Windom has been prom 
 inent in American public life. Long service in the National 
 House of Representatives ; repeated terms in the Federal Senate ; 
 the Secretaryship of the Treasury under Presidents Garfield and 
 Harrison had combined to give him rare opportunities to know 
 the needs, appreciate the growth and estimate the possibilities of 
 the nation. He used these opportunities wisely and well. 
 During the entire Civil War he was the trusted friend and ad 
 viser of President Lincoln. As a Representative and Senator he 
 favored all measures that looked towards the practical and effi 
 cient development of our great internal resources. As Secre 
 tary of the Treasury under President Garfield he successfully re 
 funded the maturing national debt by methods so simple, so 
 economical and so masterful as to prove him a truly great finan 
 cier, a worthy successor to Hamilton, Chase, and Sherman. As 
 Secretary under President Harrison he labored courageously and 
 successfully to avert widespread panic in a season of threatened 
 financial trouble. He died speaking earnest and strong words 
 against the madness of free coinage of silver under existing 
 financial conditions. He fell at the post of duty as truly as a 
 soldier fails on the field of battle. 
 
 Resolved, that a copy of this minute be transmitted to the 
 family of the deceased, and also to the President of the United 
 States and members of the Cabinet. 
 
10 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. CHRISTOPHER C. SHAYNE 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen: In rising to second the resolu 
 tion just offered, I am quite sure that I voice the sentiments 
 and express the feelings of every member of the Board of 
 Trade and Transportation who was present at our annual banquet 
 last night. What a picture that banquet presented. At the 
 guests table were seated some of the leading men of this conti 
 nent. Our beloved President, who has filled that office for the 
 past thirteen years, Captain Ambrose Snow, presided. At his 
 right, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States ; the 
 Secretary of the Navy; the Collector and the Appraiser of the 
 Port of New York ; the highly esteemed Mr. Longley, Attorney- 
 General of Nova Scotia ; the Hon. Murat Halstead, one of 
 America s leading journalists, and our own respected Secretary, 
 Darwin R James. At the left of the President was the Hon. 
 ex-Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard ; the Attorney -General 
 of the United States, the Hon. William H. H. Miller ; the Hon. 
 Wilfred Laurier, one of Canada s greatest statesmen ; the Rev. 
 Dr. Morgan, Gen. Stewart L. Woodford, and our two distin 
 guished fellow-citizens and members, Orlando B. Potter and 
 William H. Webb. 
 
 Around the six tables in front were seated two hundred and 
 fifty of the leading commercial men of the Metropolis, represent 
 ing all lines of trade, the bone and sinew of New York, the very 
 life-blood of the nation. Such a sight is rarely witnessed. 
 Everyone was happy and contented. A bountiful menu having 
 
11 
 
 been disposed of, all awaited anxiously the feast of reason. Our 
 venerable President made one of his characteristic, terse speeches 
 and announced the toast-master of the evening, ex-Judge Arnoux, 
 who happily introduced our guests to the members. He then 
 called upon those present to drink to the toast, "Our Country s 
 Prosperity Dependent upon its Instruments of Commerce," and 
 introduced the first speaker of the evening, Hon. William 
 Windom. A handsome man of magnificent physique arose. 
 He was greeted with tumultuous applause, assuring him that he 
 possessed what is most earnestly craved for by all true men, the 
 love and respect of his fellow-man. 
 
 Those who were present will agree with me in declaring his 
 address to be one of the grandest ever delivered in America ; so 
 simple, yet so strong; so plain that all might understand; so 
 <sound in principle, echoing the honest conviction of the solid 
 men of the nation. The sentiments he expressed came from 
 his heart. They were words of golden eloquence, emanating 
 from a sound mind and an honest heart; giving the concentrated 
 ideas of the study of a lifetime; so instructive, so patriotic. 
 How eloquently he spoke of the country he loved so much. Can 
 any of us ever forget it ? 
 
 When Mr. Windom had finished his great effort and had re 
 sumed his seat, there was a spontaneous outburst of applause. 
 Cheer after cheer greeted him ; everyone present indorsed his 
 sentiments. I have attended many banquets where great enthu 
 siasm existed, but I never saw anything to exceed that of last 
 night. It is almost impossible to fitly describe the scene. After 
 the applause had partially subsided Mr. Windom arose in his place 
 and gracefully bowed his. acknowledgment of tbe compliment, 
 
12 
 
 then sat down to rise no more. For before the echo of the 
 applause had died away Mr. Windom was dead ; our friend had 
 passed from us, cut off in his hour of triumph, in the very zenith 
 of glory. Ah ! how true, Mr. President, is it that 
 
 "Death rides on every passing breeze, 
 It lurks in every flower." 
 
 What a change in a moment! A house of joy suddenly trans 
 formed into a house of mourning. Little wonder that men 
 stood appalled, and strong men wept. 
 
 William Windom, our guest, our former associate, has gone. 
 He was the merchants friend, kind-hearted, clear-headed ; always 
 ready to advise. The members of this Board will miss him. He 
 was much attached to our organization. You will recall that 
 he spoke of this in the beginning of his speech. While in con 
 versation with him in the parlor of Delmonico s last night, he said 
 to me that it gave him great pleasure to be present at the banquet 
 because this was one of his pet associations. 
 
 A good citizen, a statesman, and a gentleman is gone. His 
 death is a loss to the whole country. His place will be hard to 
 fill. None will miss him more than the merchants of New York. 
 He was a grand character, a man who ever had uppermost in his 
 mind and thoughts, his God, his family, and his country. Those 
 who knew him well will remember him as one who was too mag 
 nanimous to be vindictive, too wise to be a persecutor, too patri 
 otic to be sectional. The circle of William Windom s affections 
 embraced all parts of this great Republic, and ill-will toward any 
 portion of it he utterly abhorred. I join with you, Mr. Pres 
 ident, and the gentlemen of the Board, in condoling the loss of 
 the merchants friend, the friend of humanity, and hope the res 
 olution will be unanimously adopted. 
 
13 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. FRANCIS B. THURBER. 
 
 Mr. Chairman : I rise to second the resolution in memory of 
 our dead friend, and, as a witness of the most dramatic incident 
 in my life s experience, I cannot but feel that it was a death such 
 as a patriot and a statesman might covet. 
 
 His speech was one of which any statesman might be proud, 
 arid the earnestness with which he delivered it reminded me of 
 the lines: 
 
 " Preached, as though never sure to preach again, 
 And as a dying man to dying men." 
 
 Some portions of his speech in the light of events seem abso 
 lutely prophetic. Speaking of the currency, he said : 
 
 " As poison in the blood permeates arteries, veins, nerves, brain 
 and heart, and speedily brings paralysis or death, so does a de 
 based or fluctuating currency permeate all the arteries of trade, 
 paralyze all kinds of business, and bring disaster to all classes of 
 people.". 
 
 His closing words were scarcely less remarkable, and furnish a 
 programme for the United States which is worthy of being em 
 blazoned in letters of gold set in a frame of silver : 
 
 "Give us direct and ample transportation facilities under the 
 American flag and controlled by American citizens; a currency, 
 sound in quality and adequate in quantity ; an international bank 
 to facilitate exchanges, and a system of reciprocity carefully ad 
 justed within the lines of protection, and not only will our 
 
14 
 
 foreign commerce again invade every sea, -but every American in 
 dustry will be quickened, and our whole people feel the impulse 
 of a new and enduring prosperity." 
 
 The scene was one which can never be forgotten ; the gilded 
 banquet hall and the sudden transition of the mood of the 
 audience from the height of enthusiasm to the depths of despair 
 and sorrow, was something that will last with those present as 
 long as life lasts. It is perhaps best described by Stoddard s 
 lines : 
 
 " Full-blown are the royal roses, 
 
 And ripe are the grapes on the vines ; 
 For the sun in his high pavilion, 
 
 The Sultan of summer, shines. 
 The world is the garden of Irem, 
 
 Or would be with one thing more 
 The absence of Death s black camel 
 
 That is kneeling at every door." 
 
 Mr. Windom was something more than a type of a good 
 American citizen. He was a statesman in all his thoughts and 
 motives. He piloted the financial ship of state between the Scylla 
 of Grangerism and the Charybdis of Wall Street, and he has 
 perished at his post, the third Secretary of the Treasury, in three 
 successive administrations, who has succumbed to the exacting 
 duties of the Treasury Department. 
 
 Is it not about time that those duties were so divided and 
 so regulated that further sacrifices of a like nature may be 
 avoided ? 
 
 The Chairman then invited the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard 
 to address the Board. 
 
15 
 
 REMARKS OF THE HON. THOMAS F. BAYARD. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 
 
 I was partaker in your hospitality and festivity last night, and 
 to-day I am partaker in your grief and sorrow. 
 
 When I was invited to come to New York to attend your 
 banquet and heard that Mr. Windom was to be one of your 
 guests I had great satisfaction, for I had known him long and 
 well, and I may here be permitted to emphasize the fact that in 
 the heat and hurry of business life it sometimes seems to be 
 forgotten by the American people that public men who oppose 
 each other in the political parties often do so only in an honest 
 effort to accomplish the same ends, although by different ways. 
 I was, as you may know, a member of that party organization 
 opposed to that with which Mr. Windom was associated. I 
 served with him for thirteen years in the Senate, and knew him 
 before that when he was a member of the House, and out of this 
 association there grew up between us the consciousness that we 
 were pursuing the same public ends, although we strove to 
 accomplish them by different agencies. 
 
 Mr. Windom s life as a public man, and as a private citizen, 
 was without reproach and unspotted. There was no shadow or 
 breath of suspicion on his personal motives or character. His 
 political acts, of course, encountered the usual partizan and per 
 sonal criticisms and rough opposition of political life, and it is 
 but natural that a man s love for a cause he believes in should 
 be intensified by the opposition he meets. But public men 
 are not all mere factionists for personal and party success and 
 
16 
 
 disinterested motives for the welfare of the whole country 
 often guide their actions. 
 
 In 1881, after this distinguished man was called to the post of 
 Secretary of the Treasury from his place in the Senate of the 
 United States, there was a juncture of grave import to our 
 country, for there were assaults of a serious nature upon the gen 
 eral structure of our public credit, and the agencies of business 
 that sustained it. Congress had adjourned, and strong antag 
 onism to the National Banking System had been expressed in 
 debate and in the public press sufficient to cause great uneasiness 
 to those charged with the management of the financial affairs of 
 the Government. An event then was witnessed unprecedented 
 in the financial history of the world the proposition by holders 
 of government bonds voluntarily to reduce the rate of interest 
 stipulated, and to place time for payment of the principal subject 
 to the option and control of the Government. This voluntary 
 reduction by public creditors of a stipulated interest, and accept 
 ance of the discretion of their debtor for the liquidation of the 
 principal was a proposition unprecedented, and naturally had 
 never been provided for by any law, nor contemplated at the 
 time of the creation of the loan. 
 
 The statesman, whose sudden death we now meet to mourn, 
 did me the honor, and, may I not also say, the justice to 
 come to me, one of his party opponents, to consult in regard to 
 the financial policy and credit of the country. He came to my 
 residence in Washington, accompanied by Attorney-General Mac- 
 Veagh, and laid before me the proposed plan of voluntary refund 
 ing of certain heavy outstanding loans at a lower rate of interest. 
 He asked my opinion and approval of the plan. 
 
17 
 
 Believing tbat the scheme was practicable, and seeing the enor 
 mous moral strength it would carry by implication to the public 
 credit, I felt most desirous of seeing it adopted, but before decid 
 ing I asked a night for careful consideration, and went the next 
 morning to the Treasury Department to deliver the result of my 
 deliberations. 
 
 I then told Mr. Windom that he would not, in my judgment, 
 be true to his public trust and to the country, if he did not accept 
 the offer of the National Bond Holders, (chiefly the banks of New 
 York City), and save the Treasury the heavy amount of interest 
 as proposed and I promised him to justify and sustain his action 
 in public and in private and I have done so on the floor of the 
 Senate, and am glad to be able to do so now. 
 
 You all know the history of that remarkable refund. How 
 quietly and successfully, scarcely at the cost of a dollar, the 
 change was made. There was no sensationalism, no flourish of 
 trumpets, but no finer achievement is recorded in the history of 
 American financiering than that accomplished under Mr. Win- 
 dom s administration of the Treasury. The effect was felt all 
 over the country, and not only saved many millions and placed 
 the credit of the United States on the highest pinnacle, but its 
 good influence entered into the business of the whole country 
 and inspired a solid and enduring consciousness of financial 
 strength and credit which has not yet ceased to benefit us. 
 
 Mr. Windom was a laborious and faithful servant of his coun 
 try. When men fall upon the field of battle the world regards 
 them as heroes; but, gentlemen, I tell you, not all the heroes 
 wear naval or military uniforms, nor do they all die on the battle 
 field. They wear away their vitality in public service and die in 
 
18 
 
 quiet offices, and in seclusion, and yet equally they die the death 
 of heroes; men who have toiled and suffered to serve otheis. 
 This man s health was impaired and his life shortened by serving 
 you and me, and all the people of the United States, and when 
 the call came last night, so sudden as it was, it found him heart 
 and soul striving to serve his country. 
 
 It is but fitting that I should speak these few unpremeditated 
 words of sorrow for his death, and honor and respect for his 
 memory. 
 
 The memorial and accompanying resolution was then 
 unanimously adopted. 
 
 The meeting then adjourned. 
 
The Annual Banquet. 
 
21 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET. 
 
 The ANNUAL BANQUET of the NEW YORK BOARD OF 
 TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION was given at Delmonico s, 
 Fifth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, New York City, 
 Thursday Evening, January 29th, 1891. 
 
 Mr. AMBROSE SNOW, President of the Board, presided, 
 and two hundred and fifty-three members and guests filled 
 the hall. 
 
 At the guests table were seated, on the right of the 
 President, 
 
 The Hon. WILLIAM WINDOM, 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 The Hon. BENJAMIN F. TRACY, 
 
 Secretary of the Navy. 
 
 The Hon. DARWIN R. JAMES, 
 
 Secretary of the New York Board of Trade 
 and Transportation. 
 
 The Hon. JOHN W. LONGLEY, 
 
 Attorney General of Nova Scotia. 
 
 The Hon. MURAT HALSTEAD. 
 
 The Hon. JOEL B. ERHARDT, 
 
 Collector of the Port of New York. 
 
 The Hon. MARVELLE W. COOPER, 
 
 Appraiser of the Port of New York. 
 
22 
 At the left of the President were seated 
 
 The Hon. THOMAS F. BAYARD, 
 
 Ex-Secretary of State of the United States. 
 
 The Hon. W. H. H. MILLER, 
 
 Attorney General of the United States. 
 
 The Hon. WILFRED LAURIER, 
 
 Leader of Her Majesty s Opposition in the 
 Parliament of Canada. 
 
 The Rev. D. PARKER MORGAN, D.D. 
 
 Mr. WILLIAM H. WEBB. 
 
 The Hon. ORLANDO B. POTTER. 
 
 The Rev. D. PARKER MORGAN, D. D., asked the Divine 
 blessing. 
 
 At fifteen minutes after nine o clock the President arose 
 and spoke as follows : 
 
23 
 
 SPEECH OF MR. AMBROSE SNOW, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YOliK BOARD OF TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 Gentlemen : It again becomes my pleasant duty to greet you 
 on the occasion of this your annual banquet, and, as your 
 President, to welcome in your behalf your invited guests. I 
 congratulate you that we have with us this evening a number of 
 very distinguished gentlemen. Their presence at this time is a 
 most pleasing tribute to the commercial utility of the Board of 
 Trade and Transportation. Our guests are not only an honor to 
 us, but they reflect honor upon the communities in which they 
 dwell. They are men whose experience and wisdom fit them to 
 lead, and whose utterances shape public opinion wherever the 
 English language is spoken. Questions of great importance will 
 be touched upon briefly in your presence this evening, and I ven 
 ture to remind our distinguished guests that they have an audi 
 ence in front of them, intelligent, quick to learn, and wise to 
 know ; an audience which has come up through experiences of 
 the kind which fit men to be wise in the knowledge of the 
 world s work. I am confident, gentlemen, that your guests will 
 have your courteous attention to the end of the most interesting 
 programme before us. 
 
 At the conclusion of his speech the President announced 
 that the Hon. ex-Judge William Henry Arnoux would 
 officiate as the Toast Master of the evening, and requested 
 Judge Arnoux to take a place upon the platform. 
 
 Judge Arnoux then took a place at the left of the Presi 
 dent and spoke as follows : 
 
24 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. WM. HENRY ARNOUX. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Board of Trade and Transportation : 
 
 You have done ample justice to the repast that Delmonico 
 has so lavishly spread before you, but I now invite your atten 
 tion to the richer feast the feast of reason and the flow of 
 soul that awaits you, and which, in character and eloquence 
 surpasses anything ever before offered for your consideration 
 and which has rarely been equalled under any circumstances. 
 Statesmen high in the councils of our nation in present and past 
 administrations, and others in other lands, all of whom have 
 achieved world wide fame for their oratory and mental endow 
 ments are our honored guests this evening. They have come 
 upon your invitation from important duties that they may 
 impart to you lessons of wisdom on the living issues of the present 
 hour, and through you on the wings of the press to thinking 
 men everywhere. 
 
 Chiefest among this brilliant galaxy of guests is the Honor 
 able, the Secretary of the Treasury. He comes to us from the 
 great and teeming Northwest, of which our inimitable General 
 Sherman tells the following story. In his march through 
 Georgia, he on one occasion reviewed the Union troops on the 
 shaded piazza of the mansion of an old plantation. As the 
 almost interminable host marched by the amazed planter in 
 quired where they were enlisted. When Sherman told the 
 tens of thousands that Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota had sent, States 
 
25 
 
 known to him only as the Northwest Territory, the old man was 
 filled with despair for the Confederate cause. What the North 
 west then did for the Union she has ever since continued to do. 
 She has furnished men. In wa**, soldiers ; in peace, statesmen. 
 
 Its most distinguished statesman and financier I now have the 
 honor to introduce to you, the Honorable William Windom, of 
 Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury "of the United States. (Long 
 continued applause.) 
 
SPEECH OF 
 THE HON. WILLIAM WINDOM. 
 
29 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. WILLIAM WINDOM, 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 Responding to the toast, " OUR COUNTRY S PROSPER 
 ITY DEPENDENT UPON ITS INSTRUMENTS OF COMMERCE," 
 Mr. WINDOM said : 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New York Board of Trade 
 and Transportation: 
 
 Early association with many of the charter members of this 
 Board, and full sympathy with the objects and purposes of its 
 organization make this a peculiarly interesting occasion to me, 
 for I am reminded to-night of the early days of your association, 
 when I was accustomed to meet with your members to discuss 
 questions of public importance. The country owes you a debt of 
 gratitude for what you have done in the interests of better and 
 cheaper transportation. Eighteen years ago, when your Board was 
 organized and entered upon its work, our facilities for the inter 
 change of products were quite inadequate, and freight charges 
 were more than double what they are now. 
 
 Improvements made by the transportation companies them 
 selves have been very satisfactory, but though much has been 
 accomplished in the cheapening of rates, much more remains to 
 be done. If I might be allowed to suggest another very 
 desirable improvement, it would be that more water be put into 
 our harbors and canals, and less into some of our railroad stocks. 
 
 I am to speak briefly of the instruments of commerce, in their 
 relation to the wealth and prosperity of our country. 
 
30 
 
 The subject is, you will observe, very broad, and my time very- 
 limited. I shall, therefore, confine rny remarks to the two chief 
 instrumentalities of commerce transportation and money. By 
 the former commodities change places, and by the latter they 
 exchange ownership. Even as to these I must content myself 
 with the bare statement of facts and deductions, without any at 
 tempt at argument or elaboration. 
 
 A nation s wealth and prosperity are usually in proportion to 
 the extent and success of its commerce, and commerce itself is 
 dependent upon the adequacy and adaptation of these two essen 
 tial instruments. 
 
 The history of all civilized countries attests the fact that the 
 nation best equipped in these respect*, rapidly becomes the most 
 powerful, the richest and the most prosperous. 
 
 DOMESTIC COMMERCE. 
 
 Our own country is no exception to this rule. No nation has 
 ever fostered more liberally, or protected more carefully its inter 
 nal and coastwise trade than we have done, and the resultant 
 magnitude and prosperity of our domestic commerce is, I believe, 
 without a parallel in the history of the world. (Cheers.) For 
 the accommodation and development of our home trade, we have 
 built 45 per cent, of all the railroads of the world. We have 
 more miles of railroad than all Europe, Asia, and Africa com 
 bined. The floating tonnage of the United States, engaged in 
 coastwise commerce, and on our lakes and rivers, is very far in 
 excess of that of any other nation. One or two comparisons will 
 convey some idea of this stupendous commerce. They have been 
 carefully compiled by the Bureau of Statistics and, I believe, can 
 be depended upon as absolutely correct. The tonnage which 
 
31 
 
 passed through the Detroit River alone during the 234 days of 
 navigation in 1889 exceeded by 2,468,127 tons the entire British 
 and foreign tonnage which entered and cleared at London and 
 Liverpool that year, in the foreign and coastwise trade. (Loud 
 cheers.) 
 
 The freight which passed through the St. Mary s Falls Canal in 
 1890 exceeded by 2,257,876 tons the entire tonnage of all the 
 world which passed through the Suez Canal in 1889. 
 
 The freight carried on railroads of the United States in 1890 
 exceeded by over 36,000,000 tons the aggregate carried on all the 
 railroads of the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia in 
 1889. (Cheers.) 
 
 Commodities are interchanged among our own people with 
 greater facility, and at cheaper rates, (distance being considered), 
 than in any other country on earth. 
 
 The increase of national wealth and prosperity, largely due to 
 this system of protection to our home markets and domestic trade, 
 and to the generous development of these instrumentalities 
 of commerce, has become the marvel of the world. Take a few 
 comparisons, based upon the United States census of 1880, and 
 upon figures furnished by Mr. Mullhall, the English statistician. 
 
 In manufactures we exceeded Great Britain in 1880 by $1,579, 
 570,191, France by $2,115,000,000, and Germany by $2,- 
 305,000,000. 
 
 In products of agriculture we excelled Great Britain by (and I 
 want you to think what a billion is, gentlemen) $1,425,000,000, 
 France by $625,000,000, and Germany by $925,000,000. 
 
 Our earnings or income for 1880 from commerce, agriculture, 
 mining, manufactures, the carrying trade, and banking exceeded 
 
32 
 
 those of Great Britain from the same sources by $1,250,000,000, 
 France by $2,395,000,000, and Germany by $2,775,000,000. 
 
 Our increase of wealth from 1870 to 1880 as compared with 
 that of other nations was : 
 
 United States $13,573,481,493 
 
 Great Britain 3,250,000,000 
 
 France 1,475,000,000 
 
 Germany 3,625,000,000 
 
 164 per cent, more than all the nations combined. 
 
 In 1880 our home markets consumed about ten billion dollars 
 worth of our own products, an amount equal to the entire 
 accumulated wealth of Spain through all the ages past, three 
 times the increase of wealth in Great Britain for ten years, and 
 seven times the increase of France for the same period. Our 
 home markets that year absorbed five times as much of our 
 manufactured products if I have any free trade friends here I 
 wish they would make a note of it (Laughter.) as Great 
 Britain exported of hers to all the markets of the world. Is it 
 any wonder that the world looks with longing eyes upon this 
 market of ours ? 
 
 Of course, I do not claim that all this marvelous development 
 of wealth is due to railroads and ships, but without them it would 
 certainly have been impossible. But for these instrumentalities 
 of commerce, the rich farms of the West and South, and even of 
 the Middle States, would have slumbered in primeval silence, and 
 the myriads of shops and factories would never have existed. 
 Were the ship and the railroad withdrawn, business would be 
 paralyzed, and desolation would reign supreme over more than 
 half of our broad domain. 
 
 FOREIGN COMMERCE. 
 
 I have mentioned these facts not boasting as an American 
 
but for the purpose of showing a contrast. Now contrast 
 these grand results of our liberally developed domestic com 
 merce, operating upon our protected industries, with the 
 present shameful condition of our foreign carrying trade, which 
 has not only been sadly neglected, but sometimes treated with 
 actual hostility by the Government. 
 
 There was a time when we stood first among the nations in 
 ship-building, and Great Britain alone excelled us in ocean ton 
 nage. Once 95 per cent, of our imports and 89 per cent, of our 
 exports were carried in American bottoms, and our merchant 
 marine became the boast of every citizen and the envy of the 
 world. 
 
 Now, so far as foreign trade is concerned, our ship-yards are 
 comparatively silent, and our flag has almost disappeared from 
 the high seas. The relative decline in our foreign shipping has 
 been constant and alarming, until in 1889 only 12| per cent, of 
 our imports and exports was carried in American bottoms, being 
 the smallest percentage in any year since the formation of the 
 Government. Time will not permit me to trace the rise and full 
 of this industry, or to point out in detail the causes which have 
 resulted in our present humiliating and unprofitable condition. 
 Suffice it to say, that the fault was not with the founders of our 
 Government. They fully appreciated the value and the necessity 
 of a strong and healthy merchant marine, and left on record no 
 doubt of their purpose to protect the interests of the Kepublic on 
 the water as well as on the land. The second act passed by the 
 First Congress July 4, 1789 provided for the protection of 
 American shipping by the imposition of a discriminating duty 
 in favor of teas brought in American vessels, thereby signalizing 
 
34 
 
 the first 4th of July under the Constitution by a declaration of 
 commercial independence, as a supplement to the declaration of 
 political independence, made thirteen years before. (Loud cheers.) 
 The third act of Congress, passed sixteen days later, imposed 
 tonnage duties as follows : 
 
 Cents. 
 
 American vessels, per ton 06 
 
 American-built vessels belonging to foreigners, per ton 30 
 
 All other vessels, per ton 50 
 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 On the first of September the same year Congress prohibited 
 any but American vessels from carrying the American flag. 
 
 By the tariff act of 1794, an additional discriminating duty of 
 10 per cent, was levied on all goods imported in vessels not of 
 the United States. And in all changes of the tariff prior to the 
 war of 1812, this discriminating duty of 10 per cent, was 
 re-enacted. So great was the development of our ship-building 
 and shipping interests under the fostering influence of these acts, 
 that we sold ships amounting to hundreds of thousands of tons to 
 foreigners, and soon took front rank among maritime nations of 
 the world. (Applause.) 
 
 Voicing the national pride in 1825, Daniel Webster said : " We 
 have a commerce which leaves no sea unexplored ; navies which 
 take no law from superior force." (Cheers.) How like bitter irony 
 these words would sound in 1891! (Hear, hear.) The brilliancy 
 of our achievements on the ocean begat over-confidence, and lis 
 tening to the siren voice of free trade, we gradually yielded to the 
 seductive phrase, " reciprocal liberty of commerce," which at that 
 time became very popular, until in 1828 Congress swept away 
 all protection to our foreign shipping interest, and opened our 
 
35 
 
 ports to the ships of all nations, on the same terms as to our own. 
 So strong had our position become under the protective policy of 
 the first twenty-five years of national life, that our merchant 
 marine continued to be prosperous so long as wooden vessels 
 were the only vehicles of ocean commerce, and other nations 
 refrained from heavy subsidies to their ships. But when wooden 
 vessels began to be supplanted by iron steamers, and European 
 governments poured their contributions into the treasuries of 
 their steamship companies, the decadence of American shipping 
 began and has continued ever since. How could it be otherwise ? 
 The American people ask no odds against any in the world. 
 Give them an even chance and they will distance all competitors ; 
 but how can they be expected to compete unaided against foreign 
 shipyards and shipowners, backed by the power and the treasuries 
 of their governments ? The amount which has been thus con 
 tributed to sweep our commerce from the seas can not be accu 
 rately stated, but it is known to have reached hundreds of millions 
 of dollars. 
 
 The mischief and its cause are both apparent. What is the 
 remedy ? It can not be found in the re-enactment of the legisla 
 tion of 1789, because treaties stand in the way, and it would not 
 now be expedient even if there were no treaties on the subject. 
 In my judgment the remedy is plain and easily applied. If we 
 would regain our lost prestige, reinstate our flag upon the ocean, 
 and open the markets of the world to American producers, we 
 must make the contest with the same weapons which have proved 
 so successful in the hands of our rivals. No nation can better 
 afford this kind of contest than ourselves. Surely no object is of 
 greater importance than the enlargement of our foreign markets, 
 
36 
 
 and nothing will contribute so much to that end as the 
 command of direct and ample facilities for reaching them. The 
 folly and the danger of depending upon our competitors for the 
 means of reaching competitive markets can not be expressed. 
 (Cheers.) Aid to our merchant marine is not aid to a class, but to 
 the whole people to the farmer, the merchant and the manufact 
 urer, quite as much as to the shipbuilder and the shipowner. 
 
 But it will cost money. Will it pay ? Yes, an hundred fold. 
 The aggregate of our foreign carrying trade for the past twenty- 
 five years, while not more than one-tenth our domestic trade, 
 has, nevertheless, reached the enormous sum of $29,465,124,920. 
 Estimating the cost of transportation at 10 per cent, of the value 
 of the goods, we have an expenditure of about $3,000,000,000, 
 at least 80 per cent, of which $2,400,000,000 has been paid to 
 foreign shipowners. If we add to this $20,000,000 a year paid 
 for passage money, we have a grand total of $2,900,000,000 paid 
 to foreign labor and capital during the last quarter of a century 
 a sum larger by nearly two hundred millions than the maximum 
 of our bonded debt growing out of the late war. Are not the 
 benefits which would accrue from paying these sums to our own 
 people worth saving? During that period we have exported of 
 gold and silver, to pay balances of trade against us, an excess of 
 $607,000,000 more than we have imported. Had we carried a 
 fair share of our own foreign commerce in American ships, 
 owned by American citizens, and manned by American seamen, 
 this vast sum, and much more, might have been retained at home 
 to enrich our own people. 
 
 Suppose that for twenty-five years we had given $5,000,000 a 
 year in aid of our foreign shipping, and reduced by that amount 
 
37 
 
 the prepayments of our bonded debt, should we not have been 
 far better off than we are now? (Loud cheers.) 
 
 Is it not high time these vast interests receive attention ? 
 Have we not tried the do-nothing policy long enough ? Shall 
 we give that protection and support to our foreign merchant 
 marine that other nations give to theirs, (loud cries of "Yes," 
 " Yes," and cheers), and which we freely give to all our other 
 great interests, or shall we accept as inevitable our present 
 shameful position ? I regret to say that the uniform record of 
 indifference, if not actual hostility, during the last fifty years, 
 affords little reason for encouragement. In fact, the tendency of 
 late has been to surrender to foreigners even our domestic com 
 merce, rather than to assert ourselves upon the ocean. (Cries 
 of " Good," " Good.") (Gentlemen will please not applaud but 
 allow me to get through, with my remarks. My time is getting 
 short.) Discriminations of the most astonishing character have 
 been made, both by Congress and by Treasury regulations, in 
 favor of Canadian railroad lines and steamships against our own. 
 One instance of this kind may serve to illustrate the nature and 
 extent of many other discriminations of like character. Asiatic 
 merchandise destined for New York, if brought in American 
 vessels to San Francisco, must undergo all the forms and delays 
 of entry, under the strict scrutiny of customs officers, and be 
 then placed in cars heavily bonded for transportation through 
 our own country to New York, while the same merchandise, if 
 brought in Canadian or British steamships to Vancouver, is trans 
 ferred at once, and without any substantial surveillance, to Cana 
 dian railways, which are not required to give bond, but are per 
 mitted to pass our frontier and proceed to New York or other 
 
38 
 
 Eastern ports unvexed by any of the disagreeable attentions of 
 customs officers. The same discrimination has existed for years 
 in favor of European goods landed at Montreal and trans 
 ferred to Canadian railroads for Western American ports, against 
 goods landed at New York, Boston, and other Eastern ports, to 
 be transported wholly through our own country to their Western 
 destination. The result of these unfair and unjust discrimina 
 tions against our own people and our own transportation lines has 
 been, not only seriously to jeopardize the revenues, but also to 
 build up foreign transportation interests at the expense of our own. 
 
 "Reciprocal liberty of commerce" is a high-sounding, seduc 
 tive phrase, but the kind of liberty our foreign shipping interest 
 has enjoyed, for the last fifty years, is the liberty to die under 
 unjust discriminations of the London Lloyd s Register Association, 
 the crushing power of European treasuries, and the utter neglect 
 and indifference of our own Government. Reciprocity itself is a 
 most valuable thing if kept within the lines of protection, but 
 reciprocity by which we surrender our merchant marine to our 
 rivals, or give away a home market, worth ten times more to us 
 than all the other markets of the world, in the vain attempt to 
 grasp an uncertain market abroad, is a policy freighted with 
 immeasurable disaster. (Loud applause.) 
 
 Presidents of the United States have repeatedly expressed the 
 national humiliation and appealed to Congress for action in be 
 half of our rapidly vanishing merchant marine, but thus far their 
 words have fallen upon deaf ears. Let us hope that the urgent 
 appeals of President Harrison, on this subject, may bear fruit in 
 some well-devised measure of protection and encouragement. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
MONEY. 
 
 Pardon a few words with reference to the instrument by which 
 commodities exchange ownership. 
 
 It is as essential to commerce that the currency with which it 
 is conducted be adapted, both in quantity and quality, to the 
 wants of trade as that the vehicles of transportation should be 
 adapted to their purposes. If the circulation be deficient, trade is 
 crippled, prices fall, obligations are dishonored, distrust is created, 
 and commercial panic and disaster ensue. If, on the other hand, 
 circulation be redundant, prices become temporarily inflated, 
 wild speculations are stimulated, debts are recklessly contracted, 
 credit is dangerously expanded, and for a time trade seems to float 
 upon the high tide of success, when, suddenly, the failure of 
 some large firm, or banking-house, discloses the true situation, 
 and the entire fabric of fictitious prosperity falls with a crash even 
 more disastrous than can be produced by a deficient circulation. 
 
 The ideal financial system would be one that should furnish 
 just enough of absolutely sound currency to meet the legitimate 
 wants of trade, and no more; and that should have enough elas 
 ticity of volume to adjust itself to the varying necessities of the 
 people. I know this seems difficult of attainment, but I believe 
 it is substantially possible. Could such a circulating medium be 
 secured the gravest commercial disasters which threaten our 
 future might be avoided. These disasters have always come 
 when unusual activity in business has caused an abnormal de 
 mand for money, as in the autumn for the movement uf our im 
 mense crops. There will always be great danger at those times 
 under any cast-iron system of currency, such as we now have. 
 Had it not been for the peculiar conditions which enabled the 
 
40 
 
 United States Treasury to disburse over $75,000,000 in about 
 two and a half months last autumn, I am firmly convinced that 
 the stringency, in August and September, would have resulted 
 in wide-spread financial ruin. (Applause.) Like commercial 
 conditions will frequently occur, but it is not at all probable that 
 they can be encountered, and their consequences averted by like 
 action of the Government; nor is it desirable that such power 
 should be lodged with the Secretary of the Treasury. (Applause.) 
 I am thoroughly convinced that a better method can be 
 devised, which will, in a large degree, place the power of 
 expansion and contraction in the hands of the people themselves. 
 The opportunity for securing such a currency may be found in 
 our bonded debt, which should, in my judgment, be in part 
 exchanged for inter-convertible bonds, bearing a low rate of 
 interest, and always interchangeable for money at the will of the 
 holder. (Cheers.) Of course, I can not now enter upon an argu 
 ment on this subject, but I may be excused for briefly mentioning 
 the only objection I have ever heard to the plan which has any 
 apparent weight, viz : that it would cause an outflow of money 
 from the Treasury when speculations run high, and an inflow in 
 times of threatened panic, and would therefore tend to " inflate 
 inflation and contract contraction," This objection was conclu 
 sively answered and the policy triumphantly vindicated in 1862 
 and 1863, under the administration of Salmon P. Chase, who was 
 one of the ablest Secretaries of the Treasury we have ever had. 
 (Cheers.) Mr. Chase had urged and Congress had authorized what 
 he called the " SAVINGS BANK OF THE PEOPLE," whereby they 
 could deposit in the Treasury up to the limit of $100,000,000, and 
 receive an inter-convertible bond, drawing not more than 5 per 
 
41 
 
 cent, interest, which bond was again convertible into cash at the 
 will of the holder on ten days notice. It is well known that the 
 year 1862, and the first half of 1863, was a period of most active 
 speculation, and yet those deposits continually increased until, 
 on June 30, 1863, they had overrun the limit, and amounted to 
 $104,934,102. 
 
 In August and September of 1863 the unusual activity of 
 business had placed the country in the same condition it was last 
 autumn. A severe stringency set in, and panic was threatened. 
 Did this vast deposit of over $100,000,000 remain in safe hiding, 
 and thereby intensify the stringency? Exactly the reverse 
 occurred. At the time when it is argued that everybody who 
 could, would avail himself of this safe and convenient place for 
 hoarding money, and draw four and five per cent, interest on it 
 until the storm should pass, the money actually flowed out at the 
 rate of millions a day, until, on December 1, 1863, $59,427,000 
 had come out to the relief of business, and a commercial crisis 
 had been thereby averted. I commend this item of history as of 
 more value than any theory. 
 
 The quality of circulation is even more important than the 
 quantity. Numerous devices for enlarging credit may, and often 
 do, avert the evils of a deficient circulation, and a redundancy 
 may sometimes modify its own evils before their results become 
 universal ; but for the baleful effects of a debased and fluctuating 
 currency there is no remedy, except by the costly and difficult 
 return to sound money. (Cheers.) As poison in the blood per 
 meates arteries, veins, nerves, brain and heart, and speedily brings 
 paralysis or death, so does a debased or fluctuating currency per 
 meate all the arteries of trade, paralyze all kinds of business, and 
 
42 
 
 bring disaster to all classes of people. (" Hear, hear," and 
 applause.) It is as impossible for commerce to flourish with 
 such an instrument, as it is for the human body to grow 
 strong and vigorous with a deadly poison lurking in the blood. 
 Such a currency is bad enough in domestic trade, but it is 
 absolutely fatal to the prosperity of foreign commerce. The 
 nation that attempts to conduct its foreign trade with a cur 
 rency of uncertain value, or of inferior quality, is placed at a 
 fearful disadvantage. It would seem superfluous to impress 
 this universal and well-known experience were it not too apparent 
 that this nation has been in danger of repeating the costly ex 
 periment with just such a currency. The tendency of events has 
 recently been in that direction, and the apprehension of danger 
 created thereby has caused the loss, since December 1, of over 
 $24,000,000 of gold from the Treasury, and of probably a much 
 larger amount from the circulation. I am happy to say, how 
 ever, that this peril seems now to have passed (loud and long 
 continued cheering) and it is to be hoped its evil effects will soon 
 disappear. The " sober second thought " of the people is asserting 
 itself as usual, and signal lights of safety are here and there 
 becoming visible. 
 
 Let me speak very plainly, although very briefly, on this most 
 important subject. 
 
 Believing 1 that there is not enough of either gold or silver in 
 the world to meet the necessities of business, I am an earnest bi- 
 metalist, and concede to no one a stronger desire than I feel for 
 the free and unlimited coinage of silver, as soon as conditions can 
 be reached through international agreement, or otherwise, by 
 which such coinage shall be safe. (Cheers.) But it is my firm 
 
43 
 
 conviction that for this country to enter upon that experiment 
 now, and under existing conditions, would be extremely disas 
 trous, (Hear, hear) and that it would result not in bi-metalism, 
 but in silver mono-metalism. Such an experiment would, in my 
 judgment, prove a greater disappointment to its advocates than 
 to anyone else. They insist that it would expand the circulation 
 and enhance the value of silver. I believe it would produce a 
 swift and severe contraction, and eventually reduce the market 
 value of silver. Let me briefly suggest some of my reasons for 
 this belief: 
 
 Free and unlimited coinage of silver by the United States, 
 while the other great nations pursue an opposite policy, would in 
 vite all the owners of that metal, throughout the world, to exchange 
 37 1J grains of pure silver, worth about 83 cents, for 23.22 grains 
 of pure gold, worth everywhere 100 cents. (Applause.) Nearly 
 all the nations of Europe are anxious to exchange their silver for 
 gold, and they would at once accept so tempting an offer. The 
 mint statistics of the Treasury Department show that the stock 
 of full legal-tender silver, in Europe, amounts to $1,101,400,000, 
 and that of this amount the banks of France, Germany, Austro- 
 Hungary, The Netherlands, and Belgium hold $428,866,665. A 
 large part of these vast stocks of silver would be ready for trans 
 fer to us at once, and the swiftest steamers would be employed 
 to deliver it to the Treasury, in order that with the proceeds the 
 owners might buy gold exchange on Europe before our stock of 
 gold should be exhausted. 
 
 Would our own people await the arrival of these silver argosies 
 from Europe before acting ? Not unless the Yankee has lost his 
 quick scent of danger, and forgotten his cunning. Bank depositors. 
 
44 
 
 trust companies, the holders of United States notes and gold 
 certificates would instantly lock up all the gold at command, and 
 then join the panic-inspired procession to the Treasury, each and 
 all anxious to be in time to grasp the golden prize before it is too 
 late, Probably before the swiftest ocean greyhound could land 
 its silver cargo at New York, the last gold dollar within reach 
 would be safely hidden away in private boxes and in the vaults 
 of safe-deposit companies, to be brought out only by a high pre 
 mium for exportation, This sudden retirement of $600,000,000 
 of gold, with the accompanying panic, would cause contraction 
 and commercial disaster unparalleled in human experience, and 
 our country would at once step down to the silver basis, when 
 there would be no longer any inducement for coinage, and silver 
 dollars would sink to their bullion value. 
 
 When the silver dollar ceases to have more value than the 
 bullion it contains, there will be little inducement to coin our own 
 silver, and the cost of transportation will prevent its coming from 
 abroad. How then will unlimited coinage either expand the cir 
 culation or enhance the value of silver? 
 
 As if determined to omit nothing which might accelerate 
 these results, the advocates of present free coinage insist that it 
 shall not await the slow process of mint operations, but that the 
 printing-press shall be set to work providing certificates to be 
 issued for silver bullion at one dollar for 371 J grains. 
 
 When this consummation shall be reached, as surely it will be 
 if unlimited coinage be adopted under existing conditions, the too 
 ardent and impetuous lovers of silver will sadly realize the truth 
 uttered by the wise King of Israel : He that loveth silver shall not 
 be satisfied]vtith silver. (Cheers and laughter.) 
 
45 
 
 Mr. President and gentlemen, my subject has tempted me to 
 impose upon your patience. I will close by merely calling your 
 attention to one other thing which I deem very important both to 
 our commercial and financial interest, viz : the passage of the 
 bill now pending in Congress for the establishment of an inter 
 national bank to facilitate our exchanges with Mexico, and Cen 
 tral and South America. New York is destined, at no distant 
 day, to become the financial as well as the commercial center of 
 the world, and such an institution would in my judgment be a 
 long step toward that end, as well as a most valuable instrumen 
 tality for the promotion of commerce with those countries. 
 
 Give us direct and ample transportation facilities under the 
 American flag, and controlled by American citizens ; a currency 
 sound in quality and adequate in quantity ; an international bank 
 to facilitate exchanges, and a system of reciprocity carefully ad 
 justed within the lines of protection, and not only will our 
 foreign commerce again invade every sea, but every American 
 industry will be quickened and our whole people feel the impulse 
 of a new and enduring prosperity. 
 
 When Mr. Windom sat down after speaking forty-three 
 minutes there was deafening applause which lasted 
 several minutes, and when one of the guests proposed 
 "Three cheers for Windom/ 7 they were given most 
 heartily, the whole body of merchants rising in their 
 places, waving their napkins and manifesting their delight 
 in various ways. 
 
 Mr. Windom again arose and bowed his acknowledg 
 ment of the applause and then resumed his seat. 
 
46 
 
 REMARKS OF JUDGE ARNOUX INTRODUCING 
 THE HON. THOS. F. BAYARD. 
 
 Gentlemen: In introducing to you our distinguished guest, 
 the Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, I may be pardoned for narrating a 
 personal reminiscence in which he unconsciously played an 
 important part. When I made my last visit abroad, discarding 
 all ordinary letters of introduction, I carried with me only two, 
 one of which was a brief and unpretentious note with the head 
 ing, "Department of State, Washington," and signed by the late 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 While in Italy my letter of credit became worthless, through the 
 failure of its drawers, leaving me without funds, among strangers 
 in a foreign land. Thus situated, I presented to the banker 
 Mr. Bayard s letter ; he promptly and cordially offered to me all 
 the money that I desired, and it was not paid in silver. (Laughter.) 
 
 With the name I thus conjured so successfully three years ago 
 in Sunny Italy, I come before you to-night 
 
 When Judge Arnoux reached this point a commotion 
 on his right interrupted his remarks. Mr. Windom had 
 apparently fainted. For an instant only Mr.Windom s face 
 showed signs of distress; he grasped a glass of water which 
 stood on the table before him, his head immediately 
 dropped, his body swayed toward the right, and Secretary 
 Tracy, who sat beside him, lowered him to the floor. He 
 
47 
 
 was immediately conveyed to an adjoining room where 
 several physicians from among the assembled company 
 were promptly at his side. Electric batteries and restor 
 atives were brought and the doctors worked industriously 
 to revive him even after all hope had fled. 
 
 Judge Arnoux soon after returned to the Banquet Hall 
 and announced amid profound silence and expectancy that 
 William Windom was dead. The company then quietly 
 and sadly departed to their homes. 
 
 The remaining toasts and speakers on the programme, 
 which was so suddenly interrupted, were the following: 
 
 " The Comity of the States and the Comity of Nations as 
 Related to Trade and Transportation." 
 
 Hon. THOMAS F. BAYARD, ex-Secretary of State 
 of the United States. 
 
 " Our New Navy." 
 
 Hon. BENJAMIN F. TRACY, Secretary of the Navy. 
 
 " The Future of Half a Continent." 
 
 Hon. WILFRED LAURIER, Leader of Her Majesty s 
 Opposition in the Parliament of Canada. 
 
 " The Tariff and American Progress." 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM McKiNLEY, Jr., of Ohio. 
 
 11 The New South." 
 
 Hon. WM. C. P. BRECKINRIDGE, of Kentucky. 
 
 "Better Relations." 
 
 Hon. JOHN W. LONGLEY, Q. C., Attorney- General 
 of Nova Scotia. 
 
 "The Newspaper as an Instrumentality of Commerce". 
 
 Hon. MURAT HALSTEAD. 
 
48 
 
 The Committee of Arrangements, complying with reso 
 lutions of the New York Board of Trade and Transpor 
 tation and the requests of many friends, present herewith, 
 printed from manuscript kindly furnished for that pur 
 pose, the undelivered speeches of the Hon. THOS. F. 
 BAYARD, the Hon. JOHN W. LONGLEY and the Hon. MURAT 
 HALSTEAD. 
 
 Secretary TRACY and the Hon. WILFRED LAI:RIER had 
 prepared no manuscript, and their public duties have 
 since prevented their doing so. 
 
 The Hon. WILLIAM McKiNLEY, Jr., and the Hon. WM. 
 C. P. BRECKINRIDGE were unexpectedly detained by their 
 duties in Congress, and were not present at the banquet. 
 
49 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. THOMAS F. BAYARD, 
 
 EX-SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 in response to the toast, " THE COMITY OF THE STATES 
 AND THE COMITY OF NATIONS AS RELATED TO TRADE AND 
 TRANSPORTATION." 
 
 Gentlemen: Assuredly the American people fulfil the pri 
 meval decree that they shall eat bread by the sweat of their faces 
 as fully as any other portion of the world s inhabitants but the 
 problem of sufficient and even abundant production is to-day 
 coupled with another of equal importance distribution. To the 
 latter and most beneficient purpose, second to none as a factor in 
 the world s welfare, I understand your vigorous and respected 
 association to be dedicated. 
 
 Health in the human body may be described as the equilibrium 
 of the vital forces, and health in the body politic is similarly the 
 equilibrium of the social forces the diffusion and distribution of 
 the products of industry so that congestion shall not paralyze 
 one part of the world, while depletion and want afflict other 
 parts but that through the agency of wise and systematic 
 arrangements of trade and transportation, superabundance any 
 where can be converted into abundance everywhere, and human 
 want and suffering by such agencies as yours will be no longer 
 possible anywhere. 
 
 The remark is attributed to the Duke of Wellington, when 
 asked if he could handle an army of one hundred thousand men 
 in the field, he replied that he " could do more than that, he 
 
50 
 
 could feed them." Napoleon you know said the strength of an 
 army lay in its legs, but Wellington believed it lay in its stomach. 
 
 That eminent and sagacious soldier, had his life been pro 
 longed a few years, would have been quick to appreciate the 
 infinite results, in a military point of view alone, of the marvel 
 ous expansion of trade and transportation of which we to-day 
 are witnesses. 
 
 Such results are well epitomized by Mr. Edward Atkinson in 
 saying that the difference in the cost of one year s supply in 
 Boston, the dearest, and Chicago, the cheapest food market, is 
 procurable by the wages of a single day paid to an average 
 mechanic. 
 
 For the transportation of a barrel of beef and a barrel of flour 
 one thousand miles can be accomplished for one dollar and 
 twenty-five cents thanks to trunk lines of railway. 
 
 The aggregate of such beneficent possibilities, and the result 
 ing sense of the value and importance of each part of our country 
 to every other part, under the ideal and absolute freedom of 
 trade that happily exists within our wide borders, must be deeply 
 gratifying to the contemplation of all patriotic men. 
 
 "When a master of statistics like Mr. Atkinson computes the 
 tonnage of our railway transportation, and along with it the 
 valuation of the merchandize so transported, I confess that my 
 feeble powers are staggered in the effort to grasp the full signifi 
 cance of the figures presented ; but I venture by way of illus 
 tration to quote from a late statement by him. The traffic for a 
 single year over the railways alone has already increased to 
 62,000,000 tons, each ton moved one hundred and eleven miles, 
 and the value so carried amounted to $25,000,000,000. 
 
51 
 
 But, gentlemen, your functions are not even thus limited, but 
 attach themselves to a still wider sphere, not only to the opera 
 tions of that gigantic body, that infinite maze of railway lines 
 within the United States, which extended into a single line would 
 encircle the earth in its folds, with a clasp more than six times 
 repeated, but which have relation equally to the countless 
 arteries of travel and communication, natural and artificial, which 
 spread themselves in silver tracery all over the ample bosom of 
 the Republic. 
 
 Your sphere of action embraces the great streams that pour 
 their tributes into the chain of the inland seas upon our northern 
 frontier others that wend their way to the semitropical gulf 
 on our southern limit and others that merge their floods with 
 one or other of the mighty oceans that beat upon the Eastern 
 and Western flanks of our Empire. 
 
 But not even on the shores of the Pacific or the Atlantic do 
 your duties and capabilities pause or linger, but over and beyond 
 the Pacific to China, Korea, Japan and Australia ; over and be 
 yond the Atlantic to Europe, and through the blue waters of the 
 Mediterranean and the Suez canal you connect your enterprise 
 with the markets of India. 
 
 And is not the day now near at hand when the long-sought 
 and coveted penetration of the Isthmus, which lies like a huge 
 obstructive dam between the great oceans, shall be announced 
 as a new triumph of American skill and enterprise, and the 
 Nicaragua canal be opened and dedicated to the trade and trans 
 portation of all the commercial nations of the world. 
 
 The subject of an inter-continental railway passing through the 
 states of Central America has been fortunately committed to an 
 
52 
 
 able board of commissioners, eminently qualified for the just 
 comprehension and practical accomplishment of the great design 
 of uniting by bands of steel North and South America under 
 relations of liberal and reciprocal exchanges. 
 
 But to assist in comprehending the present, let me again quote 
 Mr. Atkinson s figures, in his computation of the valuation of 
 exchanges of merchandise by rivers, canals, wagons and hand- 
 carriage, in addition to the traffic by railway lines already stated, 
 by which a total is announced of $50,000,000,000. 
 
 How immense, how impressive, how entrancing is the picture, 
 and in its contemplation every American heart must throb with 
 patriotic pride. Such emotions should silence forever all narrow 
 and sectional jealousies and suspicions; schemes of party bitter 
 ness and strife should be driven out of congressional considera 
 tion, and along with them those who live in the hot and unwhole 
 some breath of sectional irritation and the animosities of a dead 
 past. 
 
 One great sentiment should alone fill our hearts and occupy 
 our faculties a sense of the grandeur of our mission as a nation, 
 of our individual and collective freedom under an established 
 government of laws, and of gratitude to the Euler of the world 
 that he has committed such vast interests to the American people. 
 
 And now what is the great demand of our time, and the chief 
 feature essential to secure the fullest and most perfect fraction of 
 these glorious hopes? 
 
 Kemembering that we have already forty-four States and four 
 organized Territories under our Government forty-four con 
 stituents of the United States, as Chief Justice Marshall described 
 them, " Members of one great Empire for some purposes 
 Sovereign for some purposes subordinate." 
 
53 
 
 We must recognize that naturally, almost necessarily, elements 
 of inter-state difference will arise ; and obstructions of rivalry, of 
 short-sighted local selfishness which are hostile to free and liberal 
 exchanges will clog the wheels of trade and transportation 
 and seek to embarrass or defeat many a wise and well conceived 
 plan of commercial enterprise. 
 
 International rivalries exist, and variant public policies ; con 
 flicts of law; conflicts of private interests; jurisdictional ques 
 tions between States or as to the prevalence of Federal or State 
 authority all these have arisen and must forever in one shape 
 or another arise and demand satisfactory adjustment. 
 
 What can most hopefully be invoked to compose such strifes 
 to blend the energies of all parties and induce harmonious 
 co-operation in the great work of assisting to bring about " The 
 parliament of man, the federation of the world " ? The words 
 of your toast furnish the answer : " The comity of the States 
 and the comity of nations as related to trade and transportation." 
 
 Comity is the benignity of human intercourse in all its rela 
 tions. It is the great panacea for social and political discontents ; 
 it is the great lubricant of the wheels of commerce. 
 
 Comity is international legal courtesy, which in the conflict of 
 laws is the basis of the recognition of foreign laws, and for 
 according to them operation in the interests of equity, utility 
 and the welfare of civilized communities. 
 
 It contains the sentiment of Montesquin, that "Nations ought 
 to do each other as much good in peace, and as little harm in 
 war as possible, without injustice to their own interests." 
 
 Comity is reciprocity in its best and fullest sense, for it is 
 based upon consideration of mutual utility and convenience. 
 
54 
 
 Every nation has found its advantages, every citizen has 
 profited by it, for the citizens of every country cannot avoid 
 having interests in business situated abroad, and which at one 
 time or another will need the friendly recognition and support 
 of foreign administration and laws. 
 
 The law and practice of comity do not conform to a necessity, 
 nor to any obligation the fulfilment whereof may be demanded, 
 but only to consideration of utility and reciprocal convenience 
 u ex comitate ad reciprocam utililatem" 
 
 Comity requires that a contract entered into conformably to 
 the laws of the State wherein it was made shall be held binding 
 everywhere provided it shall not prejudice the interests of other 
 States or their citizens, recognizing the maxim "Locus contractis 
 regit actum." 
 
 And Courts of Justice everywhere should be as accessible to 
 foreigners as to natives, and equality and impartiality in the 
 administration of justice should be everywhere guaranteed as an 
 essential of civilization. 
 
 Comity may be created by the express words of a treaty, or 
 by co-ordinate statutes, but the best and most useful comity is 
 found in the reciprocal protection which the tacit convention of 
 civilized people extend to the gratification of reciprocal wants. 
 
 This tacit consent proves its existence in acts of international 
 assistance and courtesy ; in the tone of friendly negotiation ; 
 in judicial and administrative decisions; in the writings of pub 
 licists, and in the practical methods of such important and 
 influential associations as I have the honor to address. 
 
 The decisions of the Inter-State Commerce Commission abound 
 in valuable and important suggestions of the necessity of comity, 
 
55 
 
 and the embarrassments and difficulties that arise wherever 
 it is withheld. 
 
 Following the letter and spirit of the injunctions of the consti 
 tution, the judicial branch of our government has greatly assisted 
 by a course of important decisions to strengthen the law of 
 comity by discouraging obstructions to free commerce between 
 the States of the Union, so that the advantages of each State may 
 be freely enjoyed by the citizens of all the States. 
 
 Equity, utility and mutual convenience, these are the causes 
 of the comitas gentium t the very antithesis of coercion, securing 
 peace and concord between nations, softening asperities, dispell 
 ing prejudices, harmonizing the diversities of jurisprudence, 
 liberalizing and elevating the national character, and blessing 
 alike the nation that receives and the nation that bestows. 
 
 I ask you all to rise with full glasses and drink to the spirit of 
 comity : 
 
 First Between the indestructible States of our indestructible 
 Union ; 
 
 And next Between our friends and neighbors on this conti 
 nent, Canada on the North, and Mexico on the South ; 
 
 And next To Pan America ; and, not stopping there, let us 
 carry the law of comity and the American flag all over the 
 world. 
 
56 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. JOHN W. LONGLEY, 
 
 ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF NOVA SCOTIA, 
 
 in response to the sentiment of "BETTER RELATIONS." 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen: 
 
 I must congratulate myself upon having such an exceptionally 
 excellent opportunity of bringing to the notice of the United 
 States the conditions and circumstances of her great neighbor to 
 the North. In this age it is not so much what one says that is 
 important as the occasion of saying it the audience that can be 
 induced to listen. I see around me the representative men of 
 the great commercial metropolis of North America the million 
 aires and merchant princes who have not only built up a great 
 city, but have brought the greatest enlightenment to the wide 
 reaching principles of trade, and whose intelligence and honor 
 are unsurpassed among the mercantile potentates of the world. 
 The occasion is graced by some of the greatest thinkers and 
 most experienced and distinguished of the statesmen of the 
 country. I see every token of the marvellous development 
 within the compass of scarcely a century, which has marked the 
 history of this great English-speaking nation. In the midst of 
 so much that is great and absorbing in your internal affairs, so 
 varied and so widely extended, it is not strange that only meagre 
 attention is left for the affairs of the outside world. But it must 
 never be forgotten that great powers involve great responsibili 
 ties, and, whatever sage injunctions to abstain from meddling 
 with European entanglements may have dropped from the lips 
 of the venerated father of this Republic, the time has come when 
 
America has got to recognize that her mission extends beyond 
 her own borders and relates to the well-being of the whole 
 human race. But however much wisdom may sanction abstain 
 ing from European entanglements, nothing can prevent the 
 United States from having an interest in the English-speaking 
 people who have just taken on the form of national life, and who 
 are with them the joint occupants of the Continent of North 
 America. Canada is your neighbor, and each day will reveal 
 the innumerable ties which evoke a community of interest which 
 time will only increase and make more manifest. It is stated of 
 Napoleon that during the celebrated Russian invasion of 1812 
 some one spoke to him of General Barclay de Tolly and his 
 prowess. The great commander contemptuously replied that he 
 was not afraid of General Barclay de Tolly, but it was General 
 January and General February that he feared. The result showed 
 the sagacity of his reflection. I feel like adapting his remark. 
 It is not American diplomacy that I fear, nor American hostility 
 or lack of generosity. The great enemy that Canada has to con 
 tend with in the United States is general indifference. Confess 
 it now. Of this large and most influential gathering, in the very 
 heart of the nation s life, how many have ever taken much 
 thought of Canada and the relations which she bears to every 
 problem that you are now working out? How many have 
 stopped to inquire into her vast area, her population, her system 
 of Government, her development in national life the regnant 
 thought of her people her ultimate destiny and how far her 
 growth and power constitute a factor in the destinies which the 
 race is working out on this Continent? And yet she is your 
 nearest neighbor, with a race and language identical with your 
 own and looking forward to a career as great. 
 
58 
 
 Canada has over 5,000,000 of people more than the United 
 States had when she achieved her independence and began 
 national life. In wealth, resources and development no com 
 parison with that period is possible. She has built great trans 
 continental lines of railroad, has growing cities, and a well 
 matured political constitution founded upon the Federal system. 
 She has free education, and vast resources of soil, mine, forest 
 and sea. She is growing more rapidly than any other nation 
 upon the globe. She breathes the free atmosphere of North 
 American civilization. There is scarcely a burning question 
 agitating the minds of American thinkers, writers and public 
 men to-day that does not find its counterpart among the politic 
 al and social problems of Canada. Whatever may be the senti 
 ment of to-day here, the sentiment of to-morrow will be that 
 Canada is worth thinking about. 
 
 It unfortunately happens that the chief agencies which have 
 tended to evoke passing interest in Canada of late have been 
 those which are calculated to provoke unpleasant impressions. 
 There has been a nasty little fishing embroglio, and before this 
 is disposed of a seal question has loomed up, and while these are 
 being debated comes the cognate unpleasantness regarding the 
 railway lines and bonded privileges. Let it be understood that 
 I stand here as a self-respecting Canadian, regarding the interests 
 and honor of his country as of paramount importance, and not 
 disposed because of weakness to yield any right or privilege to 
 which she is in justice entitled, and which no great arid generous 
 nation would seek to usurp. But I cannot help regarding the 
 continued existence of . these unpleasantnesses as needless, and 
 .unworthy of the wisdom of those guiding the affairs of both. 
 
59 
 
 Intrinsically the matters in difference are but of small concern. 
 They are magnified by a lack of that generous confidence which 
 would seek to come together and settle them upon broad and just 
 principles ; and it is sometimes to be feared that they are intensi 
 fied by the low desire to manufacture political capital. That 
 nation makes a profound blunder and degrades its institutions 
 which carries its relations with kindred nations into the arena of 
 party conflict. Whatever other nations may do, the United 
 States and Canada cannot afford to deal with each other in any 
 narrow and petty spirit of haggling. They have too much in 
 common in their relations with each other and their joint rela 
 tions with the rest of the world. 
 
 Some Americans have an easy solution of all present diffi 
 culties it is to absorb Canada into the Union and thus settle 
 all. Let us dismiss this for the present as not in the range of 
 practical action. Just at this period a feeling of national pride 
 is taking root in the rising generation of young Canadians. If 
 their interests point them to a political union with the United 
 States, their sagacity can be trusted to lead them to the discovery. 
 Nor will any suggestions or coercion facilitate their reaching 
 such conclusion. It is infinitely better not to take the political 
 aspect of the case into consideration. 
 
 But there is a way of settling all difficulties, consistent with 
 the interest and honor of both countries. With a boundary line 
 extending close upon 4,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 why should they not agree to take down the customs barriers 
 and trade freely, the one with the other? Kemember I arn 
 speaking my own sentiments when I advocate such a policy. 
 All Canadians do not favor this view. I do not even represent 
 
60 
 
 the Government of the country. But governments come and 
 governments go the sovereign power rests with the people. To 
 day in Canada one of the great parties has adopted as the chief 
 supreme plank in its platform, unrestricted trade with the 
 States. The success of this policy means an end to fishery 
 squabbles, an end to bonding problems. Under such a policy 
 American fishermen can roam our waters and take all the fish 
 they can find. Enter our ports for all the bait and supplies they 
 need, and forward all the fish they desire to their own markets. 
 Under such a policy the great natural resources of Canada are 
 available for the great industrial activities of this nation, and 
 the products of your factories will have exactly the same chance 
 in Canadian markets as in your own. American capital can 
 find investment in the rich and exhaustless mineral deposits of 
 Canada. After a hundred years of industrial development no 
 American will admit that his country is afraid to compete on 
 equal terms with Canada, and in the name of Canadian pluck I 
 say that we are not afraid to compete with you. The conditions 
 are identical. We have no pauper labor in Canada. We pro 
 pose that the hardy men whose toil creates wealth shall receive 
 fair wage for their labor, and have their share in the enjoyment 
 of common luxuries, in this free land of North America. 
 
 This freedom of trade throughout this continent is no dream. 
 It is easily a practical question. , I confidently expect that the 
 party of unrestricted reciprocity in Canada will win at the next 
 elections which are near. If this be so can it be that they will 
 be met in any other than a generous spirit by the men who con 
 trol the affairs of this great nation? Noblesse oblige. Your 
 very greatness your superior strength and power will compel 
 
61 
 
 you to yield most in establishing at once and forever a basis of 
 perpetual friendship and a termination of all petty matters of 
 difference. 
 
 I have spoken for "Better Relations "not, indeed, union, but 
 comity not amalgamation, but commercial unity. But even in 
 this great commercial centre and surrounded by these men of 
 national repute, and under the eye of a metropolitan press, it 
 seems necessary to plead for better knowledge and greater 
 interest. I wish you to recognize that Canada is your nearest 
 neighbor and has a great career. To-day her population is only 
 a little over 5,000,000, but, if we go back 100 years, was there 
 one of your ancestors who thought his country of small import 
 when it contained only 5,000,000 souls ? Sir, the fire of national 
 pride burned as brightly then as it does to day. In two genera 
 tions Canada will have over 20,000,000. Our grandchildren will 
 see it outstripping the nations of Europe in wealth, resources 
 and refinement. Let it be borne in mind that to nations time 
 is not analogous in its effect to the case of individuals. Most of 
 us soon begin to realize how little there is in human life and how 
 soon the period of action is passed, and the years which may be 
 left seem but a short halting ground between us and the great 
 unknown beyond. But to nations there is nothing in age. A 
 long history is no bar to all the elements of prosperity and 
 happiness. We cannot afford to look at this matter 
 solely from the standpoint of to-day. We must look be 
 yond. Who can doubt that North America before 
 many generations is to cut an immense figure in the 
 history of the world ? Who fails to recognize that it will soon 
 be the home of hundreds of millions, with no race prejudices, 
 
62 
 
 with a common language and at the van of human civiliza 
 tion? When that day comes, sir, Canada will be there holding 
 her own place and influence in the counsels of the Continent. 
 She will be working out with you the destinies of North 
 America. She is small to-day, but she is your neighbor and she 
 has the elements of greatness. Look to her with respect. 
 Treat her as a neighbor and an equal. Kecognize that she 
 is of more direct concern to you than any nation of Europe, 
 however populous, and each year her relative importance will be 
 increased. In this great commercial metropolis it ought not to 
 be necessary to plead for unrestricted commercial intercourse. 
 In this center of the great English speaking nation of North 
 America it ought not to be necessary to plead for interest in 
 another growing English-speaking nation, with similar laws, 
 institutions and aims. Let us to-night extend our ideas not alone 
 over this great nation, but over this great continent. Let us not 
 be wholly filled with contemplation of the present, but look be 
 yond to the great future which our children will see, in which 
 North America will be the seat of political power the home of 
 culture and art, the enlightened arbiter of the nations of the world. 
 
SPEECH OF THE HON. MURAT HALSTEAD, 
 
 in response to the toast, " THE NEWSPAPER AS AN INSTRU 
 MENTALITY OF COMMERCE." 
 
 Gentlemen of the Board of Trade and Transportation : 
 
 The texts before us teach that the prosperity of the country is 
 dependent upon its instruments of commerce, and that the news 
 paper is one of the instrumentalities ; and we find the comity of 
 states and nations related to trade and transportation, aptly 
 associated with our new navy and our neighbors an adjustment 
 too artistic to be accidental. The sweep of a broad design 
 appears in the juxtaposition of the instruments of commerce, the 
 newspaper, our old friends and the new navy. May they always 
 work together for good. 
 
 There is a chance for choice in lines of treatment of newspaper 
 instrumentality in commerce, as there are many possible appli 
 cations. The most direct is the use of the paper as an advertis 
 ing medium, and I venture to commend it in that capacity. We 
 fail to exercise our best intelligence in our own affairs if we do 
 not talk shop, and we should do it frankly and come to business. 
 In advertising, the newspaper has unapproachable facilities. It 
 surpasses the rocks of picturesque Europe and America, so often 
 overloaded with decorations, extra leaves in almanacs and maga 
 zines, the cars on elevated and surface roads, even the magic 
 lantern, the blank wall and the board fence. The spectacular 
 posters are great as art galleries, outshine the old masters, and 
 rival the most brilliant work of the modern painters who paint 
 with their thumbs. 
 
64 
 
 It will hardly be expected that I should speak of the gigantic 
 circulation of the average newspaper, for there is not one that 
 has not got it, and is not willing to tell of it. They all can and 
 do prove it. If the circulation is not acceptably large, it is 
 always extremely select, and the agents of commerce can be 
 introduced to any preferred style of constituency at the regular 
 rates, with a liberal discount to customers contracting by the 
 year. 
 
 In the name of things beautiful, spare the landscape caricature, 
 and yield to the newspapers their natural nourishment expanding 
 the white sails of commerce by extending the sheets that are 
 amply provided as an instrumentality for the proclamation each 
 line duly valued of all its glories. 
 
 There are contentions about the area of commercial utilities 
 the limitations that it is public policy to place on trade. Perhaps 
 the allied farmers may soon shed the light of their inner con 
 sciousness over the history and problems of trade and transporta 
 tion. They have already mastered the science of finance, and 
 their elementary doctrine it is not a discovery, but a very old 
 tale is that money should possess no value in itself, is spoilt for 
 currency when it is worth something, should be made abundant 
 by the Government for the relief of the people, and that the 
 coinage of paper and the prosperity of the populace go hand 
 in hand. 
 
 The application of a great principle like this to commerce will 
 be instructive, as are the rural reforms in transportation, where 
 they hold the more you restrain the natural channels the greater 
 the freedom of the flow. 
 
 The original farmers who busied themselves with the Kepublic, 
 
65 
 
 held that the perfection of trade and transportation was attained 
 when the planters on the tide waters of Virginia rolled their 
 tobacco direct from the fields upon ships, and received in return 
 from the mother and master country fine clothing and furniture, 
 port wine, and brick to build churches. It has been suspected, 
 since that era, that it is the better way to manufacture some 
 things at home, and there is a consensus of public opinion that 
 we should, any how, work our own mud and burn our own brick. 
 Much further than that we do not go altogether. 
 
 All nations are given to the form of selfishness that they 
 call protecting their industries, and raising revenue by charges 
 for the use of their markets. The general purpose is not the 
 restraint of commerce, but the aggrandizement of local interests, 
 and through the development of the resources of a state, the es 
 tablishment of its independence. Tariff reform in the direction 
 of commercial freedom encounters, in advanced countries, the 
 same obstacle that the military empires find to disarmament 
 always some one else must set the example. 
 
 If we cannot agree upon conditions and policies that would 
 restore our prestige on the seas ; if we shrink from the logic of 
 the situation, and find mysterious lack of authority in the consti 
 tution, or incompetency in public men to master the larger mat 
 ters, so that private enterprise has to assume the higher duties, 
 we have, at least, to say that our home market is the best in the 
 world, our internal commerce greater than that of any other peo 
 ple, ojjr railroad channels exceeding even the monster rivers in 
 available ability, transporting the incomparable riches of the 
 continent to this gateway, at once magnificent and marvelous, 
 where Hendrick Hudson found, and knew it not, what he, like 
 Columbus, sought the road to India. 
 
66 
 
 Here we have the East and the West, the energies of Europe, 
 the resources of Asia. Commerce is exalted in honor, and the 
 trophies of ages are gathered. Trade and transportation become 
 expressive of the grandeur of the system that touches the ends of 
 the earth and influences the people along all the railroads and 
 rivers, and on every shore where the kindly lights that tell of 
 civilization shine over the stormy surf, a warning and a welcome 
 to the instrumentalities of commerce, whose career is on the 
 mighty waters. 
 
 We must not confine the newspaper service rendered com 
 merce to that of advertising, though we should include in the 
 sense of that word every form of the irradiation of intelligence 
 promoting the intimate intercourse of men and nations. The 
 newspaper has a part to perform in popular education, and sup 
 plements and enlivens the old stories of the schools with the news 
 of the day. Its easy office is the information of the multitude, 
 and with that goes increase of popular requirements. Upon the 
 humble ways where hope is dim the light falls, and there is a 
 glimpse of better things that kindles aspiration and opens oppor 
 tunity to ambition. The hut becomes the house that is a home, 
 and the industrious, sharing in the prosperity that their hands 
 have wrought, add to their comforts as they thrive subscribe for 
 the newspapers and better the markets and it is found that in 
 an atmosphere of intelligence the commercial interests and instru 
 mentalities are reputable and prosperous. 
 
 There is one thing more, and far above all. It is that which 
 the newspaper may contribute to good government that is, to 
 fair play among men and when we speak of the press and its 
 public force let us have a care that we include the greater part. 
 
67 
 
 There are, say, two score journals of celebrity in this country, and 
 a few familiar names of editors, and there are many thousands of 
 country newspapers and editors who take themselves more seri 
 ously than the metropolitans. 
 
 It is not in good form for a newspaper of wide fame and circu 
 lation to be frequently in desperate earnest. A burning conviction 
 indulged is not conducive to profit or pleasure, and if happiness 
 is pursued by crusaders of principle with fire and sword it is 
 by anticipation in some of the countries that the song tells us are 
 far away, and fairer than this. The tomahawk and scalping knife 
 are barbarous weapons, and in the metropolitan wilderness offend ; 
 and the editor enlisted and disciplined for duty under orders, in 
 a colossal establishment, finds gentle persuasion and gentler co 
 ercion softening away his native barbarism of virtue and his 
 pristine vigor as a warrior. 
 
 In the presence of these superb organizations of newspaperdom, 
 the equipage beyond the dreams of all other days the amazing 
 news service, the presses that are wonders, the staffs of the journals 
 that rival those of monarchs it must be said that the pomp of 
 preparation is more imposing than the spread of performance. In 
 the array that represents investment rather than intellect, the in 
 dividuality that bears edge and point, that masters critical condi 
 tions, and leads public opinion with torch and battle axe, is 
 obscured if not extinguished, and the vivid influences that pene 
 trate like fire, and with insufferable illumination blast the giant 
 evils that crawl upon us in shapes of darkness in the midst of 
 our splendors, fade and never burst into flame. 
 
 Where now shall we seek the instrumentalities that in evil 
 days save the state? Shall we find in the press of this 
 
68 
 
 community the offices full of talent and the papers full of 
 brilliant work the commanding quality that enters the coal and 
 the silver mines of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, 
 that pervades the wheat and the cotton fields, and is felt where 
 the forges glow and where the earth trembles under the rushing 
 shock of the limited lightning express? 
 
 Ah, no ! The brain that divines, the will that directs are not 
 close enough to the mechanism that is consummate and the people 
 who are to be persuaded. There are interposed the telegraph 
 and telephone, the phonograph and the phonographsr, and per 
 haps the photograph, and the staff officers. The irons on the 
 anvil are not hammered into shape red hot, the kindling sparks 
 a flying ! There is no lack of brain or brawn, toil or skill, or 
 zeal or art or facile achievement, but there is wanting the man 
 with self-appointed task, to sit in his own office and write for his 
 own newspaper his own thoughts, indifferent to stockholder, 
 subscriber, advertiser, managing editor, or managing politician : 
 sending his sheets of copy to the printer, every line tingling as if 
 with electricity and still wet with ink, and no time to blot or to 
 smooth away the corners or the edges. 
 
 That was the way Horace Greeley did it, when his lightnings 
 struck home and he educated his countrymen under the fiery 
 lash of his innocent, ardent and righteous indignation. This 
 was before the methods that restrained genius within the solemn 
 limitations of the common place, and the imperial assertion of 
 the polite pre-eminence of complacency were recognized as 
 metropolitan. 
 
 The newspaper reflects and represents rather than creates. The 
 strength and weakness of time and place are in it. Its record of 
 
69 
 
 usefulness overshadows its faults. When the great cities and the 
 great country at large have evolved readiness for good govern 
 ment the press will be a potential instrumentality of reforma 
 tion. Meantime may be a very long time it will aid the enter 
 prise of commerce and clear the paths of progress performing 
 as a continuous occupation the duty of making universal the 
 history of the times from day to day bestowing upon mankind 
 the immense and beneficent justice of equality of information 
 wrapping in the electric radiance of intelligence common to all 
 the great globe we inherit. 
 
VD 12547 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY