Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United StatesHarrison, Benjamin
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Speeches of Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third President of the United States
Harrison, Benjamin
Harrison, Benjamin, 1833-1901; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- Politics and government
These institutions of ours are in our own keeping now, and not
only our fundamental institutions, but the fame that has been won
by those who have gone before. I may therefore properly say to-day
that a campaign like this demands the thoughtful consideration of
every American voter. We are prosperous. [Cheers.] The story of our
prosperity, of our development in wealth, of our achievements in
finance as a Nation, since and during the war, is almost as notable
and almost as admirable as that of our achievements in arms.
The assembling of our revenue was even more difficult than the
assembling of armies, and yet we were able to maintain those armies in
the field, and have been able since not only to bear up the great load
of debt, but to pay it off, until that which was once thought to be
a burden that would crush our industries has come to be in our hands
but as the ball the boy tosses in play [cheers]; and we are to-day
confronted with the question, not how we shall get money, but how we
shall wisely stop some of those avenues by which wealth is pouring
into our public treasury.
It is an easier problem than that which confronted the great war
Secretary, in whose name you so delight--how to raise revenue to
prosecute the war successfully. It will be wisely solved. And may I
note also the fact that, notwithstanding this complaint of excessive
revenue, there are some who suggest that they are not able adequately
to arouse the popular indignation against excessive taxation because
they cannot disclose to the people when or how they are paying the
taxes? [Applause.] It is taken, they say, so indirectly and so subtly
that these--our plain people--don't know that they are paying them at
all. [Applause.] But I must not cross this line of party discussion.
I have had a pleasant stay in this most delightful neighborhood, and
I cannot let this public opportunity pass without expressing, for
myself and for Mrs. Harrison, our grateful appreciation of the kind
and thoughtful hospitality which has been shown to us by the people of
these islands. [Prolonged applause.]
FORT WAYNE, IND., SEPTEMBER 4, 1888.
General Harrison and party, _en route_ home from Middle Bass Island,
arrived at Toledo on the evening of Sept. 3, and were again the guests
of Wm. Cummings. At night they were tendered a reception by Mr. and Mrs.
John Berdan, at their residence.
On the morning of Sept. 4 the party started homeward. The first stop was
at Fort Wayne, where several thousand Hoosiers welcomed their leader.
Supt. Wall, of the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne Railroad, introduced the
general, who spoke as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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