_My Friends_--I desire to thank you for this cordial demonstration. I thank you not so much for myself as for the party to which most of us have given the consent of our minds. I am glad to know that the people are moved to a thoughtful consideration of those questions which are this year presented for their determination. Under a popular government like ours it is of the first importance that every man who votes should have some reason for his vote; that every man who attaches himself to this or that political party should intelligently understand both the creed and the purposes of the party to which he belongs. I think it is universally conceded by Democrats as well as by Republicans that the questions involved in this campaign do have a very direct bearing upon the national prosperity, and upon the prosperity and welfare of the individual citizen. I think it is conceded that the result of this election will affect beneficently or injuriously our great manufacturing interests, and will affect for weal or for woe the workingmen and working-women who fill these busy hives of industry. [Applause.] This much is conceded. I do not intend to-day to argue the question in any detail. I want to call your attention to a few general facts and principles, and the first one--the one I never tire of mentioning; the one I deem so important that I do not shun the charge that I am repeating myself--is this: that the condition of the wage-workers of America is better than that of the wage-workers of any other country in the world. [Applause.] Now, if that be true, it is important that you should each find out why it is so; that each one of you should determine for himself what effect a protective tariff has had and is likely to have upon his wages and his prosperity. Does it need to be demonstrated that if we reduce our tariff to a revenue level, if we abolish from it every consideration of protection, more goods will come in from abroad than come in now? And what is the necessary effect? It is the transfer to foreign shops of work that you need here; it is to diminish American production and increase English production.