New-York tribune., 1901-11-02
A PRESIDENT IN RETIREMENT,
BENJANIN HARRISON AND HIS PUBLIC
UTTERANCES SINCE MARCH !, 1898.

VIEWS OF AN EN-PREsIDENT By BENJAMIN IN
Harrison. Being His Addresses and WTl1nss lungs on
His AdTninistration President lent Of Jhe GHeo @
States. Compiled by Mary 4,ord 2IiIi COM
tavo PIP. 532. Indianapolis: Bowen --Ie'-''' N0''
pany.
/ Few ex-Presidents have discharged with more
| distinction than Benjamin Harrison the anoIha-
Ious and exacting role set a retired Chlef MasiS-
! trate by the unwritten etiquette OF American
politics In his last public speech--deiivered
| December 81. 1900 to his friends and neighbors
in Indianapolis-General Harrison commented
half hllrnorously half seriously. the part a
President may play in public life after laying
down the cares and dignities of his great office.
Defining at once the limitations and opportunl-
ties OF such role, he frankly said:
The decapitation Of the ex-President, when
the oath of office has been administered to MS
successor would greatly vivify somewhat tire
some ceremonial And We may some tiIhe soIne
the newspaper problem, what to do with our eN-
Presidents. in that decisive way. Until then
hope an eX-President may be permitted 10 IlEe
somewhere midway between the house Of the
gossip and the crypt Of the mummy he "!H
know perhaps in especial way. how 10 snow
the highest honor 10 the Presidential office and
the most courteous difference 10 the President
J-oon great questions however-especia1ly upon
questions OF constitutional laW-you must give
an eX-President his freedom or the aXe-and 1t
is too late to give me the axe
True 70 this conception of his public charac-
ter General Harrison. in the eight years which
followed his departure from the W Nhlte House,
did not hesitate to re-enter the lists Of active
politics. He felt himself free 70 discuss those
great questions on which parties divided. and
even to combat with constitutional arguments
the territorial policy he 10 see the party
which had elected him accent and execute But
in all his efforts to influence opinion he exhibited
q poise and self-restraint which lifted his par
ticipation in current politics TO an exceptional
plane-that plane of serene and disinterested
patriotism from which since Washington's and
Jefferson's day ex-Presidents have been
accustomed 10 let fall their words Of admoni-
ton or OF counsel.
A complete and accurate record Of General
Harrfson's public utterances from March I.
1893 to March l.. 1901. is offered in the volume
compiled and edited by his widow, Mary Lord
Harrison. Most. if not all the papers and ad-
dresses il contains have already seen the light
in the periodical the daily press Gathered
in this convenient form they give however.
clearer and more imposing view of the political
and public activities in which. q President in
retirement General Harrison found himself at
liberty TO engage. Collectively. they deepen and
hefghten the impression caught from each ad-
dress or paper, as it appeared singly, Of the eX-
Presidents extraordinary felicity orator,
and Of his unusual equipment for political lead
ership The range of the compilation is wide
one With the Stanford University lectures on
the development Of the Federal constitution are
coupled the ex-President's argument before the
Supreme Court on the Illinois Inheritance Tax
cases his campaign speeches in 1S9i and 1870
on the tariff and free silver coinage issues, his
lectures and PAPERS on the status OF the terri
tory annexed 10 the United States through the
Paris treaty and his addresses before the Ecu
nencal Missionary Conference in this city, and
on other varied occasions Of general interest.
Rut ynultifarious as are the topics Of General
IIarrison's discourses no cne utterance included
in this volume fairly be said to fall in
quality below the rest; while 4 unifying thread
to the collection is furnished in the ixity of the
authors political conceptions and in the unfail-
ing richness and evenncsS of his thought and
style.
The stanford lectures. which fill about
third OF the volume, We're cast in a popular
rather than a technical and scholarly mould.
They were intended-as the lecturer told his
hearers-'to show you the beauty. strength and
at!aptation of the constitution Of the United
States and thereby TO make your love of our
institutions deeper and more intelligent That
purpose-which always lay near TO General Har-
rison's heart-they viii continue TO accomplish
for thousands CT other students in their perma-
nent form. The dominant note of the argu-
ments against territorial expansion is the re-
striction of American power and influence within
the borders Of the Western Continent In his
Michigan University address General Harrison
declared: 1t has been said that the flash Of
Dewey's guns in Manila Bay revealed TO the
American people a mission 1 like rather
10 think of them revealing the same Old
mission that We read in the flash of Washing
tons guns at Yorktown" The extension of
American sovereignty over Porto Rico and the
Philippines involved, in his view. the recognition
of the Filipinos and the Porto Rican's right to
citizenship. General Harrison did not live to see
the rigorous construction put by him and others
on certain phrases of the constitution over
turned by the judgment Of the Supreme Court.
Breadth rather than nicely of construction won
In the Porto Rican tariff decisions. But in the
refnements of constitutional Interpretation the
ex-President's arguments may still
models for students and disputants in constitu-
tional law
OF the other occasional papers and speeches