The bill now pending in the House is a bill framed upon the report of that Merchant Marine Commission. The question whether it shall become a law depends upon your Representatives in the House. You have the judgment of the Postmaster-General, you have the judgment of the Senate, you have the judgment of the President; if you agree with these judgments and wish the bill which embodies them to become a law, say so to your Representatives. Say it to them individually and directly, for it is your right to advise them and it will be their pleasure to hear from you what legislation the interests of their constituents demand. The great body of Congressmen are always sincerely desirous to meet the just wishes of their constituents and to do what is for the public interest; but in this great country they are continually assailed by innumerable expressions of private opinion and by innumerable demands for the expenditure of public money; they come to discriminate very clearly between private opinion and public opinion, and between real public opinion and the manufactured appearance of public opinion; they know that when there is a real demand for any kind of legislation it will make itself known to them through a multitude of individual voices. Resolutions of commercial bodies frequently indicate nothing except that the proposer of the resolution has a positive opinion and that no one else has interest enough in the subject to oppose it. Such resolutions by themselves, therefore, have comparatively little effect; they are effective only when the support of individual expressions shows that they really represent a genuine and general opinion. It is for you and the business men all over the country whom you represent to show to the Representatives in Congress that the producing and commercial interests of the country really desire a practical measure to enlarge the markets and increase the foreign trade of the United States, by enabling American shipping to overcome the disadvantages imposed upon it by foreign governments for the benefit of their trade, and by our government for the benefit of our home industry. FOOTNOTES: [12] There would be some modification of these figures if the cost of getting the mails to and from the exchange offices were charged against the account; but this is not separable from the general domestic cost and would not materially change the result. SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCE ADDRESS AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 14, 1907 I thank you for your cordial greeting, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the very kind terms which you have used regarding myself. I have come here with pleasure, not to make a prepared address, or to attempt oratory, but to talk a few minutes about subjects of common interest to us all.