The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-18

-Gentiemen of the Conyenuou'
 a q thank you most sincerely for the great honor you have done me In choosing me to preside over your os Alterations, for 1t Is a great honor 1o be the presiding officer of a hepupn- can National Convention. I can con ceive of conventions; l have, inueeu, heard of conventions where the honor of such post as that now occuPied bx me. is dubious and where. if excite ment is present, pleasure IS conslpcu- ous by It's absence. But to De ane vention is ever a high distinction to which no man can be insensiDle. Geh, tiemen of the convention, again Fl shali not delay or detain you with forth the principles of the party ana shaii ask for the support of the. people of the United States. With fuliness and eloquenee your temp temporary ths histnry ins, of the party. has given you account ot what has been done and has set forth what we hope and mean 10 a3. my can. in the orderly and prompt trans action of the business which mas brought us together; together, rnss lass pust t5sn to name here the two men who ,speaHlhg with the simplicity of truth, will be the next President and Vice-President of the United Stotes.
 "In order to win for them, and for our party, an assured as well as a merited viGt1ry pcss sHensIen we mnSa from bower is desired by the country ana deserved by them.
 aNo political party in modern tifnes can show such record Of achtevement during the last fifty years as the ne- publican party. Upon that record we can stand and challenge all corners so the lists. But 1t is well to remember that the test we have to meet IS mucn less severe. This is comparative world We do not go forth to contest the great prize with an ideal party, which we sometimes see beautifully de- picted by persons of self-confessed su- periorfty and chronic discontent. The glittering abstraction which they. pre- sent never existed yet on sea or lana: It gleams upon us in printers ink. but it has neither substance nor organlza- tion nor candidates, for organizations and candidates must be taken from the ranks of men and cannot be the noat- ing phantoms of an uneasy dream
 "T'he American people must cnoose next November between us and the Democratic party r,tn Wish tbs3 aInna Ihe Dn must the comparison be made. We dlner from that party in some important par fieulars nsst and w History S% but m v we treat those possessions very differently. !ney wish to keep tn cir past profound se- cref We seek by all means to publish history. they charge us with calumny. We regard ours, truthful and undis- torted as our greatest, ,bs giory sav R fudee se us solely by our undiscovered future We say Read our record; judge us by these, learn what we are. what we have been and what we mean to De. hecail the cries which have sounded from the half century. On the one side, slavery, secession, repudiation of the public debt, fiat money. free trade, free silver, the overthrow of the courts and Gov ernment ownership
 Republican Principles
 con the Republics side, Free soil. free men, the Onion, the payment of the debt. honest money, protection to American industry. the gold industry, the maintenance of law, of order and of the courts and the Government regu- iation of great corporations.
 'The old sh hibb oleths of the Democrats are today the epitaphs of policies which are dead and damned They serve only warn us of perils ot be stunned. The battles cries of the Republicans have been the watchwor of great causes umphs tasted they are embodied in the laws and mark the stepping stones by greater heights of power and pros perity.
 As we thus call up the past and the echoes of these old conflicts again sound in our ears and touch the chords of memory one great fact stands forth, clear and shining The Republican
 
 has faltered. Our long career of vic tory, so rarely broken, has been due to our meeting boldly each question as 1t arose to our facing every danger, as it crossed our path. with entire cour- age, fearless of consequences and de- termined only to be true to the princi- ples which brought the party into ex- istence and to the spirit which has in. spired 1t from its birth. ra We faced secession rather than as. sent to the extension of slavery. Rath. CT than submit to secession we took UT the dread burden of civil war. But { few years ago we permitted thousandl periling our political power rather than abandon the gold standard anC plunge the country Into disaster ant
 True to Traditions.
 'Tn these latest years, as in the mos remote, we have been true to our tra ditions In the process of develop. country was confronted by situation more perilous than any 1t has evei faced except in the Civil War and w' Republicans were, therefore, obliged tC deal with problems of the most com. plex and difficult character.
 fTo our honor, be it said, we hav' not shrunk from the task. Much hal been done-much, no doubt, still re mains to debut the great underlying principles have been established anc upon them we can build, as necessity arises, carefully and deliberately.
 T have spoken of the seriousness O the situation with which the countrl was confronted. Its gravity can hard 1y be over-e -estimated It grew out O conditions and was the result O forces beyond the control of men. Sci ence and invention, the two great fac tors in this situation, have not only al tered radically, human environment and our relations to nature, but, fl their application, they have revolution ized economic conditions Thes, changed economic conditions have. 1T turn, affected profoundly society anC politics. They have led, among othel things. to combinations of capital ant labor on a scale and with a power never before witnessed. They have opened the way to accumulations oi wealth In masses beyond the dreams o avarice and never before contemplated
 "The social and political problem, thus created are wholly new. It Is FaIlacy to suppose that because tn, clements are old the problem itseli must therefore, differ only in degree from those which have gone before The e1~~- ~'s may be old but the prob lem presented by a change in the pro portion of the clements may be, and in this case is. entirely new.
 Great individual fortunes and rIcf men are. 1t is true, as old as recorded