We are here charged with the common duties to perpetuate, if we can, the prosperity and to maintain the honor of this great Republic. [Applause.] We are here to-night in the enjoyment of free government. We are here in the individual possession of better opportunities of development, of a larger prosperity, and of more individual comfort than are possessed by any other people in the world. [Applause.] The great economic question as to what shall be our future legislative policy is stated with a distinctness in this campaign that it has never had before, and I believe the verdict and decision will have an emphasis and finality that it has never had before. [Applause.] If there is any one here present to-night that knows of any land that spreads a more promising sky of hope above the heads of the poor and the laboring man than this, I would be glad if he would name it. The one fact that I do not need to stop to demonstrate by statistics, the one fact that I could call out of this vast audience hundreds of witnesses to support by their personal testimony, is that the scale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in the world. [Applause.] If this were not true, why is it that the workingmen and the working-women of the older lands turn their faces hitherward? If there is a better country, one that offers better wages, fuller hopes than this, why is it that those who are in quest of such better things have not found it out and turned their faces thitherward? Now, if that is true, then why is it true, and how is it to be continued--this condition of our country? It is because, and only because, we have for years, by our protective tariff, discriminated in favor of American manufacturers and American workingmen. [Applause.] Strike down this protective system, bring our workingmen and working-women in equal competition in the products of their toil with those who labor abroad, and nothing is clearer than that these mills and factories must reduce wages here to the level with wages abroad, or they must shut down. You have the choice to make; you, the free citizens of this country, whose ballots sway its destiny, will settle these questions in November. [Applause.] I ask you how? Don't be deceived by the suggestion that this is any contest over a seven per cent. reduction in the tariff schedule. We are allowed now to say, I think, that all those who are entitled to speak for the Democratic party have declared that it is opposed to protection. That being so, the issue is clearly, distinctly, strongly drawn. I beg you all--not in my interest, but in your own; in the interest of your families and the country you love--to ponder this question; to think upon it with that seriousness its importance demands, and when you have thought it out, settle it, settle it in November, so that we shall be free for years to come from