GIVES BLAINE CREDIT. “In furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement, which finds this practical and substantial expression, and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the Pan-American congress that assembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico. “The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to “Make it live beyond its too short living With praises and thanksgiving. “Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought through this exposition? “Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and nobler effort for their own and the world’s good, and that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship, which will deepen and endure. “Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.” [Illustration: SECRETARY OF STATE, JOHN HAY.] [Illustration: THE U. S. CAPITOL BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.] CHAPTER X. WILLIAM McKINLEY’S BOYHOOD. William McKinley was born in Ohio, his ancestors having emigrated to the United States from County Antrim, Ireland. In that ancestry, also, was mingled some of the sterling blood of the Scottish race, and it seems the child who was destined to become twenty-fifth President of the United States combined in his nature the choicest qualities of both races, enriched and broadened by generations of American life. His great-grandfather, David McKinley, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and was born in Pennsylvania the year before peace with England was declared. After the independence of the United States had been achieved, this David McKinley was brought by his soldier father from York to Westmoreland County, Pa., and the lad himself, as he grew to manhood, chose the new State of Ohio as a place of residence, and established there the fortunes and the hopes of the McKinley family.