The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-03-10
PRESIDENT HARRIsoN's ADMINS

years of peace, of prosperity, of progress
and of solid achievement, and through
out them the President, who tomorrow
retires to the life of a private citizen,
has acted nanful and honorable part.
The country knew little of Mr.. Harrison
four years ago. 1t knows him we'll now,
and thoroughly respects him for his abil-
ity, his courage and his conscientious de-
votion to principle. HE has made a
good President is the spontaneous YER
diet which will be pronounced by
millions of his fellow-countrymen of all
States and parties and shades of political
opinion as he relinquishes his Office to-
morrow to his successor. A nobler
eulogy an American could scarcely ask.
In point of positive results, no Admin
istration since the war has been so gener-
ously favored Besides tariff act en-
bodyiRg a complete readjustment of the
hundreds of intricate schedules of our
great customs system, which it's bitter
est enemies admit to be well-nigh per-
feet in scientific detail, President Harri-
sons term Of office has given to the coun-
try an international copyright law, which
for the first time recognizes the prilIci-
pie of ownership in an important class of
property; law which has crushed the
colossal lottery iniquity and driven it
from our borders, and law which Sc
cured equitable treatment for American
meat products in foreign lands, freeing
an important branch of trade frOm often
sive and intolerable determinations
This Administration has successfully dis
posed of another long standing question
by refunding the direct tax of 1862; it
has made new just and liberal provision
fer disabled soldiers and sailors in the
dependent pension law; it has grappled
with the gigantic problem of trusts and
monopolies; it has relieved an over
hurdened Supreme Court. organized the
mighty machinery of the Worlds Fair
admitted new States, created new
Territory out of Oklahoma, carried
through the decennial Congressional re-
apportionment, and, in the passage of
the Postal Aid law, made the American
flag once more familiar sight on the
high seas. 1t has materially strength
ened the barriers against obnoxious i'm
migration aud removed blot from the
national honor by providing for the pay
ment of the French spoliation claims
On all these questions the influence of
President Harrison has invariably been
cast on the right side. He has done
more than any other Executive to pro-
mote the extension of civil service re-
form, and in making his important APP
pointments he has so scrupulously CON
suited fitness as to win time after time
the unstinted approval of his political
opponents.
The financial record of the Admins.
tration has justified the confidence of the
business interests 9th country. Presi-
dent Harrison has stood like rock
against the mad torrent of free coinage
which more than once has come danger
ously near inundating US. With an ac-
kRowledged majority in favor of the
short dollar in both houses of the Fifty
second Congress, no legislation on that
line has been seriously attempted be-
cause the silver leaders knew that they
were absolutely certain to be met with a
veto from an unflinching Republican
Executive. At the end of the Cleveland
Administration the interest charge on
he public debt was S34,57S, 459. Under
the present Administration this charge
has been reduced to $50, sos, 900, and
$25, Don, 900 of bonds have been refunded
at rate'of 2 per cent.-the lowest figure
in our history. The Mckinley tariff cut
off at one blow upward of 100000, 900
of our annual revenue. The Harrison
Administration has expended about $40
100000 more for rebuilding the navy
than its predecessors did, and S21O,0OO,-
900 more fer pensions. 1t has done all
this while decreasing the national debt
by almost $3.50, 0OO,O 900, and with these
enormous special expenditures and a
closely-shorn revenue, the gold reserve
in the Treasury still stands at $1O4, OO0,-
600 against $196, 100000 under the gold
boarding and surplus-nursing policy of
the Cleveland Administration. To
meet all obligations and maintain the
public credit amid the adverse conditions
of the past two years has only been pos
sible by the exercise Of extraordinary
ability and foresight.
Harrison and Blaine-whose names are
forever interlinked-achieved within
their term more diplomatic triumphs
than have fallen to the lot of any other
one Administration since the beginning
of our Government. At the very outset,
having to take up the broken and tangled
threads of the Samoan trouble, which
came within an ace of involving us in a
war with Germany, the President and
his great Secretary so managed affairs
that by the universal acknowledgment
of Europe the United States came off
victorious. Then in succession came
the Behring Sea affair and its several
crises, the Itata and Barrundia episodes,
the controversy with excitable Italy over
the New Orleans riot, and the sensa-
tional dispute with Chilli. There were