ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. THE PRESIDENT: For the response to the next regular toast of the evening let us summon one of the most distinguished members of the Republican Club, himself a private citizen, but the first private citizen of our land whose name is known throughout the world. I will ask you to drink with me for the third toast, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: "It still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit," and to respond to that toast I will call upon the most beloved son of the Empire State, the pride of New York, Hon. Chauncey M. Depew. MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB: It is a perennial pleasure to meet with the Republican Club at its annual celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. They revere him for the patriotism, statesmanship and courage which have immortalized him among the saviors of mankind; and they believe in the principles by which he lived and on account of which he died. The club lives under a perpetual charter and goes on forever. Its ranks are constantly recruited from the youth and enthusiasm of the Republican party. It sets the example for the rest of the organizations by never being unduly elated by victory, nor greatly depressed by defeat. (Applause.) It believes that Republican principles stand in relation to the years as they come and go, like truth, which, though "Crushed to earth, will rise again." The past of the Republican party is history; the present of the Republican party is watchfulness and preparation; the future of the Republican party is glory. Our friends, the enemy, are doing their best to make it "Glory! Hallelujah!" The Republican party has controlled the Government of this country for thirty-three years. Sometimes the House of Representatives has been against it; once it lost the Presidency, but at no time, except the present, has it been completely out of power in the Government. A generation of people have lived in the United States; have thrived, have prospered, and have known unusual happiness under a Government of Republican principles, Republican measures, and Republican statesmen. This continuity of confidence from the people is unique in the history of countries where people rule. We look over the record of parties in Great Britain, as the suffrage has become enlarged sufficiently to make a comparison with our own country; we study the history of the triumphs and reverses in parties of the United States, and we find nowhere such an unparalleled and triumphant administration of government. (Applause.) Power always carries with it the elements of its own overthrow. Almost invariably continuing successes bring incompetency or corruption, or both in administration, and promote measures which prove disastrous to the best interests of the States. But it is our pride and glory, as a party, that there has been neither incompetency nor corruption in Republican administration, from Abraham Lincoln to Benjamin Harrison; that every great measure of the Republican party has proved beneficial to the country, from the Proclamation of Emancipation of Lincoln, to the tariff of McKinley, and the reciprocity of Blaine. (Applause.) America is nothing, if not original. We have become great without precedence, and we try experiments without fear. Business disasters, financial revulsions, industrial distress, are the patent and prominent causes of the overthrow of administration. But the coalition victory over Republicanism in 1892 was a revolt against prosperity. The Republicans had given to the country a financial system and National banking law which had restored credit, promoted enterprise, helped business, and created a sound currency. It had consistently pursued a protective tariff policy, which has created the New South on industrial lines, and saved the North from diminishing populations and decreasing opportunities for its citizens. It has transformed Alabama from a pauper State to a prosperous commonwealth. It has taken West Virginia from the mould of medieval conditions, and put it abreast with the life and movement of the beneficent enterprise of to-day. It opened the factory to the New England farmer when the chief and fertile lands of the West had ruined his occupation, and provided a market for the Western farmer when his rich harvests might otherwise have rotted or been burned upon his lands. It has added ten States to the American Union, it has kept New York in her imperial position as the chief, and Pennsylvania as the keystone. It has added 100,000 miles to the railway system of the country to bear the rich freightage of the internal commerce which has come from our superb developments. (Applause.) At the high tide of national prosperity the country has voted for a reversal of the policy which has produced these results. The successful man in the play, whose luck was always good, and who never heard anything about himself but praise and compliment, exhibited a principle of human nature when he said he was surfeited with taffy, and longed for the man who would kick him and call him a fool. The policy which, since the war, has brought the country the phenomenal prosperity which it enjoys to-day,necessarily created the opportunities for masterful men, who have the genius for making money, to make it. It doubled the wages received for the same work by the artisan's predecessor; it increased the purchasing power, and thereby still further added to the amount of his remuneration. The country has voted, however, for a reversal of the system and is entitled to its trial. Inauguration Day has come and the victorious allies march up Pennsylvania ave. There is the battalion who have read that "The lilies of the field toil not, neither do they spin, and yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." They are expecting that at convenient places the Government mill will manufacture Government money, and the way-farer's hat under the spout will supply him. with all his earthly needs. Then comes the corps commanded by Weaver and Mrs. Leaske-who say the National banks, the property of the money bugs, demand security for loans; we want people's banks where money can always be had by the needy and deserving without other security than their good intentions. Then comes the solid array and mighty tread of the Democratic party, shouting, "We want the offices!" The parade over, the brass plate on the White House door changed from Harrison to Cleveland-and the trouble begins. (Laughter and applause.) In looking calmly, philosophically and in a most friendly spirit at the situation, I have the profoundest sympathy for Mr. Cleveland. Behind him is this conglomerate which has carried the country and whose conflicting demands present to him and his Cabinet as their fate and opportunity, Lorenzo Dow's definition of predestination: (Laughter.) "You will and you won't, And be damned if you don't." A mine owner and manufacturer, who voted to bring about this result, said to me: "It is criminal on the part of you Republicans to egg on Mr. Cleveland and his advisers to carry out the principles of their platform. You know that if they were carried out as they were enunciated at Chicago, the results would be disastrous to the business and the prosperity of the country." My answer was: "My dear friend and speculative voter, you are entitled to a trial of your experiment; and the people whom you have persuaded that their conditions would be bettered by the experiment will never be satisfied, and the country never at rest, until it is tried." The Republican party stands in the position of the educated and experienced physician, who, when he finds that his patient has lost confidence and wants to try the quack doctor urges that the trial be made at once, so that after the experiment the resources of science and of demonstrated skill may save the patient, both from the difficulties of his disease-and the nostrums of the quack. (Laughter.) The strength of the Republican party is that it has always kept its pledges. Its platforms were not made to get it on, but to stand on. The utterances of its conventions are the statute law of the land. It pledged itself to save the Republic, and it saved it. It pledged itself to reconstruct the Union, while preserving every principle of the Declaration of Independence and eliminating the curse of slavery, and it reconstructed it. It pledged itself to restore the National credit and to place money upon a basis which would make it as good as the best currency |