William McKinley

“ Trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines and that we are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of workingmen throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and disability. That all the people are participating in this great prosperity is seen in every American community and shown by the enormous and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. ”

“ Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get more. In these times of marvelous business energy and gain we ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places in our industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or strain. By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production, we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. ”

“ We shell never forget the days of anxious waiting and awful suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Peking and the diplomatic representatives of the nations of China, cut off from all communication, inside and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded by an angry and misguided mob that thrilled the world when a single message from the government of the United States brought, through our minister, the first news of safety of the besieged diplomats. ”

“ We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to a higher a nobler effort for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. ”

“ We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil and struggle, in which every part of the country has its stake, which will not permit of wither neglect, or of undue selfishness. No narrow, sordid policy will subserve it. ”

“ A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it would not be best for us or those with whom we deal. We should take from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to our industries and labor. ”

“ Every event of interest is immediately bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor and the courage of the government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the city of Washington to New Orleans with a message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and that a treaty of peace had been signed. ”

“ Without competition we should be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century. But though commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we must not be.
The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly, presenting in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and illustrating the progress of the human family in the Western Hemisphere. ”

“ What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad. The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell anywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. ”

“ Modern inventions have brought into close relations widely separated peoples and made them better acquainted. Geographic and politic divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and larger trade.
Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports. ”

“ God and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other. And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other, the less occasion is there for misunderstandings, and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in court of arbitration, which is the noblest form for the settlement of international disputes. ”

“ Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial market, and the investments of people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. ”

“ We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by our fathers. Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom. ”

“ The greatest skill and wisdom on the part of manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and increase it. Our industrial enterprises which have grown to such great proportions affect the homes and occupations of the people and the welfare of the country. ”

“ Our duty is the care and security of these deposits, and their safe investment demands the highest integrity and the best business capacity of those in charge of these depositories of the people's earnings. ”

“ They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step. Comparison of ideas is always educational ”

“ These will mot only be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go. We must build the Isthmian Canal, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central and South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot be longer postponed. ”