The Lamar register., 1900-10-17
TO FIRST VOTERS.
President McKinleys Speech of -Four
Years Ago, Made to First Voters at
Cleveland, Ohio, October 0, 1896.

ing reacneu your MAJORITY cOnSratu-
late you upon having entered into full
government of the world. (Applause)
Born in the seventies you have en-
joyed the most marvellous advantages
| Of the nineteenth century. You have
| witnessed the greatest progress of sci
ence, mechanics and material develop
ment of any period IN our history. You
have enjoyed the advantages Of the
free and higher schools of learning.
You have lived in period of the great
est opportunity for moral and intel
lectual growth, and enjoyed most ia
opinions. Yop have escaped the e1-
treme bitterness Of party divisions and
the passions Of a fratricidal war. You
carry none of the scars of the past
party conflicts.
"You witness only as you come to
your sovereignty, reunited country
under the Old Flag, blessed in natural
resources beyond any other country
and suffering only because of the un-
wise policies already inaugurated, and
the dangerous policies yet threatened.
You approach the exercise of your SOW
ereignty, therefore, under the most ad-
vantageous circumstances, free from
any past predictions and prepared 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 advant-
agee of the most exhaustive discussion,
Perhaps some of you, who have al
ready started out for yourselves, have
had in the last three or four years
some valuable personal experience,
which is quite as good a school in poll
lticS as in anything else. You come TO
your majority mt n time when the peo-
pie are engaged in national contest
that will settle some of the most i'm
portant questions which ever confront
us, and settle them for long years to
come. You are given the ballot at Il
time when its use for good or<evil to
country was never greater. Yon 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 "Goodw
"Good!o
mo nation can hold its standing be-
fore mankind that win depreciate its
own currency, any more than nation
can stand before the world that will
not defend its flag and honor. ZAP
plause) No nation can hold its posi-
tion that will violate plighted faith or
repudiate any part Of its Indebtedness
under any guise whatsoever. No ma
hon can command respect Mt home, or
abroad, if 1t does not at all times up
hold the supremacy of law and invio-
liability of its own sacred obligations.
1t cannot be denied that free coinage
under the conditions proposed by our
allied opponents will result in debas-
currency, dep''i-'l.us of the uso>
2nd all r .yeen 3-cen based on
r9rnecn $40 and rrency,
aione. rs seGs1Iases :lon1.s, aaYi,a1.ls,s ill.,
poorer money and less volume of circu-
lation than we now have.
"Free silver would depreciate invesW
ments; shake public confidence; destroy
values; cheat labor; impair the savings
of the poor, and produce n commercial
revulsion, the like of which this coun-
try has never known. Our first voters
surely will not want to use their ballots
to bring about such n result. Great
cheering and cries of mo, sir" "Nev-
errO
"Surely every young voter, who has
his spurs yet to win; his career to
make; his fortune to build, will hesi-
tate before he will give his ballot to
party which seeks to create hostility
between classes and sections; between
chanic and the manufacturer; between
the farmer and the banker. Great ap-
plauseD He will cast his ballot to con-
tinue the equality of citizenship. of
privilege of opportunity, of possibility,
which has been the boast of our cit-
Zenship. and is the very corner-stc<A
upon which our free institutions rer.
(Applause)
"NO young man will want to place
weights upon his own shoulders, or
raise barriers to his own progress,
which hitherto have never impeded
the progress of the Industrious, honest,
clean, ambitious young man. (Tre-
mendous applause) Away with caste
and classes. Such doctrine is un-
American and unworthy to be taught
a free people. loud and continuous
cheerins0 He who would inculcate
that spirit among our people is not the
friend, but the enemy of the poor but
honest young man. whose soul is fire.
with a 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 are poor and of humble
surroundings, they must go off by
themselves and shut the door of oppor-
tunity to the best impulses of their
souls, and the noblest aspirations of
their minds? Continuous applause)
The ballot of the young man, as well
as that of the old men, the ballot of
the first voter, as well as that of all
voters, should always express the voice
of truth and conscience. 1t should rep
resent the calm and unbiased Judgment
of the voter. 1t should embody the
highest welfare of himself, his home,
his community and his country. 1t
should never be false to his convictions
or opposed to justice and homer, either
in public or private concerns 1t should
express on its face his best hopes and
highest aspirations as an individual
citizen, and always represent the great.
est good to his fellow countrymen.