The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-10-20
ADDRESS TO FIRST VOTERS.
President McKinley's Speech of Four
Years Ago, Made to First Voters at
Cleveland, Ohio, October 8, 1895.

L congratulate all OIL you upon having reached
your majority I congratulate you upon hav-
ing entered into full possession of sovereignty
in the best government of the world. Gap
plause.)
Born in the seventies you have enjoyed the
most marvellous advantages of the nineteenth
century. You have witnessed the greatest
progress of science, mechanics, and material
development of any period in our history. You
have enjoyed the advantages of the free and
higher schools of learning. You have lived in
a period of the greatest opportunity for moral
and intellectual growth, and enjoyed most
favorable conditions for forming right opinions.
You have escaped the extreme bitterness of
party divisions and the passions of fratri-
cidaf war You carry none of the scars of the
past party conflicts.
You witness only as you come to your sover-
eighty 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 dam
gerous policies yet threatened. You approach
the exercise of your sOvel
under the most advantaget 3
free from any past predelicti % -
in calm judgment to considelS q D
issues on which parties are DIG
in this campaign, as in no for % 8 2
advantage of the most exh.T
Perhaps some of you, w 5 p
started out for yourselves, hf'S : 9g
three or four years some valt6 = = = 5 IN
perence, which is quite as &C
tics as in anything else. You
jority at time when the peo
a national contest that will
most important questions which ever confronted
us, and settle them for long years to come. You
are given the ballot at a time when its use for
good or evil to country was never greater. You
assume this responsibility at period frought
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 con-
tinued in peace with honor. Great applause
and cries of GOOD ""GoodrD.
No nation oan hold its standing before man.
kind that will depreciate its own currency, any
more than a nation can stand before the world
that will not defend its flag and honor. ZAP
plause) No nation can hold its position that
will violate plghted faith or repudiate any part
of its Indebtedness underany guse whatsoever.
No nation can command respect at home, or
abroad, if it does not at all times uphold the
supremacy of law 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
now have.
Free silver would depreciate Investments
shake public confidence destroy values; cheat
labor i; impair the savings of the poor, and pro
duce commercial revulsion. the like of which
this country has never known. Our first voters
surely will not want to use their ballots to bring
of mo sir p "NeverrO
Surely every young voter, who has his spurs
yet to win; his career to make his fortune to
build will hesitate before he will give his bal
lot to a party which seeks to create hostility be-
tween classes and sections; between the rich
and the poor; between the mechanic and the
manufactured: between the farmer and the
banker. Great applause9 He will cast his bal
lot to continue the equality of citizenship, and
is the very cornerstone upon which our free in
situations rest. (AppauseO
No young man will want to place weights
upon his own shoulders, or raise barriers to his
own progress, which hitherto have never i'm
pcded the progress of the Industrious, honest,
clean. ambitious young man. Tremendous ap-
plause) Away with caste and classes. Such u
doctrine is un-American and unworthy to be
taught free people. Cloud and continuous
cheering) He who would inculcate that spirit
among our people is not the friend but the
enemy q .ne poor but honest young man, whose
r. re1s fred with worthy ambition for himself.
How , g0 StOad iqcoln, Grant. Garfield and Lo-
ean gan I'D tbe doctrindn their time, they had ac
because thew were I9ich some now teach, that
roundings, they must got ana OF humble sur sur
shut the door of opportunity themselves ana
pulses of their souls, and the INTO me pest I'M
of their minds? Continuous af7S az plis''i The
ballot of the young man, as well as tIste of the
that Of ali voters, should always express mo
voice of truth and conscience. 1t should repre-
sent the calm and unbiased Judgment of the
voter. 1t should embody the highest welfare of
himself, his home, his community and his coun-
try. 1t should never be false to his convictions
or opposed to justice and honor, either in pub
lie or private concerns. 1t should express on
its face his best hopes and highest aspirations
as an individual citizen, and always represent
the greatest good to his fellow countrymen.
May your votes, young gentlemen. be always
given to preserve our unity, our honor our
flag, our currency and our country, and to save
our blessed inheritance always from lawless-
ness, dishonesty and violence. May your votes
always be given for policy that shall give us
the widest development in our unmatched re-
sources; the widest incentive to the invention.
skill and genius of our citizens; the largest re-
ward to American labor, and the highest vel
fare of the people, and promote the best ideals
in American citizenship. i thank you for this
call and bid you good afternoon.