The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1904-07-15
The Republican Party Has Done Toll
erably Well.


paign which is to terminate in the elec-
ton of Roosevelt and Fairbanks was
made at the great ratification meeting
held under the auspices of the Republi-
can Club of the City of New York in
the large hall of the Cooper Union on
the evening of June 80. Among the
speakers was Hon: John M. Thurston,
| former United States Senator from Ne
braska. The Republican Club did well
to bring from his retirement this fam
Gus orator and stalwart champion OF
sound republicanism. Mr.. Thurston
never fails to say something worth hear
ing and worth remembering, but he has
seldom struck finer vein of useful
thought than when he took for his
principal theme the proposition that
"The Republican Party Has Done
Tolerably WE'LL"
With master strokes he rapidly
sketched the splendid achievements in
recent years of the party of progress and
prosperity. Especially impressive was
his statement of what the republican
party has done toward enhancing the
moral and material welfare of the peo-
pie of the United States. Said Mr..
Thurston:
AS we look over the history Of the
last several years, the fruitful history
of republican administration, it seems
to me that the American people must
say that the republican party has done
tolerably well. We find that our farm
ers and our planters have raised crops
such as they never had before. They
have fed our own people-they have fed
the millions of the outside world. Home
consumption and the ability to buy and
foreign demand have given them the
best prices they ever received. We look
abroad throughout the land and we find
that in these seven years our manufac-
lures have increased to wonderful de-
gree. We find that our people are busy
that they are at work; that there is no
idleness. and general prosperity abides
in the land.
The republican party has done toler-
ably we'll. 1t has put armies of labor
seekers that travelled hopelessly the
highways of the land in the roaring fac
tories, where the wheels are turning,
the anvils ringing, the forge fire blazing
and the spindles singing.
1t has taken our beggars from the
streets and placed them in entirely COM
Portable homes by quiet firesides, where
they sit and look into the faces of their
happy wives and listen to the laughter
and the song of their contented child
rem
The republican party has done toler-
ably we'll. 1t has furnished place of
labor for every willing American man.
1t has put the factory next to the Amer
lean farm, and made the operative in
the factory the best purchaser from the
farmer.
The republican party has done toler-
ably we'll. 1t has turned the great army
of Cleveland beggars into the great
army of Mckinley kings.
We have been doing tolerably well in
continuing and carrying out the great
protective principles of Hamilton and
Clay and Lincoln and Blaine and Nc
Kinley. We have seen to it that the
yellow labor of the Orient and the pau
per labor of Europe shall not come into
competition with American men on
equal terms, either on this side of the sea
or on the other. The democratic party
agrees with us that we should shut out
from entry into our land the cheap
Chinaman and the contract laborer from
Europe, for they say-and in that we
agree with them-that every days job
taken by the cheaper man robs some
good American Of chance to do that
days work. And yet that same party
which agrees with us on that PROPOSE
ton insists that the product of the labor
of that same cheap man in his own
country shall come in here free to take
the place of the manufacture of the
American man and rob him of the same
days work every time days work is
sold here!
We still stand for the protective tariff,
which, has made this land resound with
the happy music of the turning wheels.
Every time 20 out into the great val
leys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and
think of the condition that existed in
these valleys and on these hillsides only
eight years ago, as went through the
same country, it seems to me that can
hear in the music of every wheel as it
turns, in the music of every spindle as
it sings. one great, grand refrain for the
modern leader of the protective theory,
as it cries out to the wide, wide world,
William McKinley-for he was the
man.
We have been doing tolerably well
with the finances of the United States.
We have developed our industries so
fast, we have produced SO rapidly, that