The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1900-10-12
ADDRESS TO FIRST VOTERS
President McKinley's Speech to First
Voters October 9. 1896.

81 congratulate all of you upon
having reached your majority;
congratulate all of you upon having
entered into full possession of sover-
eighty in the best government of the
world. (Applause.)
sBorn in the seventies, you have
enjoyed the most marvellous advan-
taSes of the nineteenth century. You
have witnessed the greatest progress
of science, mechanics, and material
development of any period in our
history. ( GU nave enjoyed the advan-
tages Of the free and higher schools
of learning. You have lived in
period of the greatest opportunity for
moral and intellectual growth and
enjoyed most favorable conditions for
forming right opinions. You have es-
capped the extreme bitterness of party
divisions and the passions of a fratri
cidal war. You carry none of the scars
of the past party conflicts,
"You witness only as you come to
your sovereignty, a reunited country
under the Old Flag, blessed in natural
resources beyond any other country
and suffering only because of the I'M
wise policies already inaugurated,
and the dangerous policies yet threat
ened. You approach the exercise of
your sovereignty, therefore, under the
most advantageous circumstances, free
from any past predictions, and pre-
pared in calm Judgment to consider
without bias the issues on which
parties are divided. You have, in this
campaign, as in no former campaign,
the advantage of the most exhaustive
discussion.
sPerhaps some of YOU, who have
oil cto al xync
have had in the last three or four
years some valuable personal expert
ence, which is quite as gooda school in
politics as in anything else. You
come to your majority at time when
people are engaged in national con-
test that will settle some of the most
important questions which ever con-
fronted us, and settle them for years to
come. You are given the ballot at
time when its use for good or evil to
country was never greater. You as
sumo this responsibility at period
fraught with as grave problems as
were ever presented except in time of
war. 1t is of little moment, young
gentlemen, that the Union was saved
by the dread ordeal of war If it cannot
be continued in peace with honor.
(Great applause and cries of Good |"
"Good!") No nation can hold it's
standing before mankind that will de-
preciate it's own currency, any more
than a nation can stand before the
world that will not defend its flag and
honor. (Applause.) No nation can
hold it's position that will violate
p,ighted faith to repudiate any part of
Its indebtedness under any guise what
soever No nation can command
respect at home, or abroad, if it does
not at all times uphold the suprem-
acy of law and and inviolability of its
own sacred obligation. 1t cannot be
denied that free coinage under the
conditions proposed by our allied
opponents will result in debasing our
currency, deprive us of the use of gold
and all paper money based on gold,
thus contracting our currency and
leaving us upon silver basis alone.
Its result would be to give us poorer
money and less volume Of circulation
than we have now.
1 Free silver would depreciate in
vestment; shake public confidence
destroy values; cheat labor; impair
the savings of the poor, and produce
commercial revulsion, the like of
which this country has never known.
Our first voters surely will not want
to use their ballots to bring about
such a result. (Great cheering and
cries of mo, sir - NeverR)
Surely every young voter, who has
his spurs vet to win; his career to
make his fortune to build, will hest
tate before he viii give his ballot to
party which seeks to create hostility
between classes and sections; between
the rich and tn poor; between the
mechanic and the manufacturer be-
tween the farmer and the banker
(Great Applause), He will cast his
ballot to continue the equality of citi-
zenship of privilege of opportunity
of possibility, which has been the
boast of our citizenship and which is
the very cornerstone upon which our
free institutions rest. tApplause.)
No young man will want to place
weights upon his own shoulders, or
raise barriers to his own progress
which hitheSo have never impeded the
progress OF the industrious, clean, am
bilious young man. Tremendous
applause. Away with caste and
classes. Such a doctrine is un-Ameri-
can and unworthy to be taught free
people. cloud and continuous cheer
ing. File who would inculcate that
spirit among our people is not the
lIleNu nuI lub bbSlllN VI tttS pNoI fut
honest young man, whose soul is fired
with worthy ambition for himself.
(Great applause.)
How would LINCOLN, GRANT,
GARFIELD and LOGAN have stood,
if, in their time, they had accepted
the doctrine, which some now teach,
that because they were poor AID of
humble surroundings, they must so
off by themselves and shut the door
of opportunity to the best impulses Of
their souls and the noblest aspirations
of their minds? Continuous APP
pause The ballot of the young
man as well as that of the old man, the
ballot Of the first voter as we'll as that
of all voters should always express
the choice of truth and conscience
II should represent the calm and UNI
biased Judgment f the voter. 1t
should embody the highest welfare
of himself, his home, his community
aud his country 1t should never be
false to his convictions or opposed to
Justice and hs nor, either i'll public or
private concerns. 1t SHOULD express
on its face his best hopes and highest
as ,irations as an individual citizen,