justify their selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public office; but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield for official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public

office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applications will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, therefore, be the best support of an application for office.

"Heads of departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected therewith, will be expected to enforce the civil service law fully and without evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something more to advance the reform of the civil service. The ideal, or even my own ideal, I shall probably not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall not, however, I am sure, be able to put our civil service upon a nonpartisan basis until we have secured an incumbency that fair minded men of the opposition will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in the civil list is increased removals from office will diminish.

"While a treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil. Our revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands upon our treasury, with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but scarcely less imperative demands which arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with economy, and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in public expenditures is criminal, but there is nothing in the condition of our country or of our people to suggest that anything presently necessary to the public prosperity, security, or honor should be unduly postponed. It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate these extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary expenditures, to so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual surplus will remain. We will fortunately be able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any small and unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below our necessary expenditures with the resulting choice between another change of our revenue laws and an increase of the public debt. It is quite possible, I am sure, to effect the necessary reduction in our revenues without breaking down our protective tariff or seriously injuring any domestic industry.

"The construction of a sufficient number of modern warships and of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with care and

perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat.

"We should encourage the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges of commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of communication, and until these are provided the development of our trade with the States lying south of us is impossible.

"Our pension law should give more adequate and discriminating relief to the Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. Such occasions as this should remind us that we owe everything to their valor and sacrifice.

"It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and Washington Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the case of some of them. The people who have settled those Territories are intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic, and the accession of these new States will add strength to the nation. It is due to the settlers in the Territories who have availed themselves of the invitations of our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their titles should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries confirmed by patent.

"It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being manifested in the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for years calling attention to the pressing necessity of throwing about the ballot-box and about the elector further safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free and pure, but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not so soon discover the need of reform. The national Congress has not as yet taken control of elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the several States, provided penalties for their violation and a method of supervision. Only the inefficiency of the State laws or an unfair partisan administration of them could sug gest a departure from this policy. It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution that such an exigency might arise, and provision was wisely made for it. No power vested in Congress or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused upon occasion.

"The people of all the congressional districts have an equal interest that the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a majority of the

qualified electors residing within it. The results of such elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing in other districts that they shall be pure and free does not savor at all of impertinence. If in any of the States the public security is thought to be threatened by ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy is education. The sympathy and help of our people will not be withheld from any community struggling with special embarrassments or difficulties connected with the suffrage, if the remedies proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted by just and honorable methods. How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot-box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

"Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice. A party success that is achieved by unfair methods or by practices that partake of revolution is hurtful and evanescent, even from a party standpoint. We should hold our differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judg ment with the same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision had been in our favor.

"No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love, or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a diadem, and has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that justice and mercy shall hold the reins of power, and that the upward avenues of hope shall be free to all the people.

"I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush along our path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all. Passion has swept some of our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body of our people are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods, without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body. The peaceful agencies of commerce are more fully revealing the necessary unity of all our communities, and the increasing intercourse of our people is promoting mutual respect. We shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation which our

next census will make of the swift development of the great resources of some of the States. Each State will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the nation's increase. And when the harvest from the fields, the cattle from the hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed, counted, and valued, we will turn from them all to crown with the highest honor the State that has most promoted education, virtue, justice, and patriotism among the people."

XV.

President Harrison's Western Tour, October, 1890-Speeches-Clifton Forge, Va.-Lawrenceburg, Ind.-North Vernon-Seymour-Shoals-Sullivan-Terre Haute-Danville, Ill.-Champaign -Peoria-Galesburg-Reunion First Brigade, Third Division, Twentieth Army CorpsOttumwa, Iowa-St. Joseph, Mo.-Atchison, Kansas-Topeka-Nortonville-Valley FallsLawrence-Kansas City, Mo.-St. Louis-Anderson, Ind.-Muncie, Ind.-Winchester-Union City-De Graff, Ohio - Bellefontaine-Crestline - Mansfield-Wooster-Massillon-CantonAlliance.

RESIDENT HARRISON, accompanied by Secretary Tracy, Senator Chas. H. Grosvenor, Private Secretary Halford, and others, left Washington, Oct. 6, 1890, for a tour of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Indiana, the principal object being to participate in the reunion of the First Brigade, Twentieth Army Corps, at Galesburg, Ill. At Clifton Forge, Va., Oct. 6, President Harrison spoke as follows: "My Friends: I hope you will excuse me from making a speech. I have traveled for the first time over the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and I have noticed with great interest and pleasure the development which is being made along the road of the mineral resources of the State of Virginia. What I have moves me to offer my sincere congratulations on what you have already accomplished, and what is surely in store for you if you but make use of your resources and opportunities."

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At Lawrenceburg, Ind., Oct. 7, President Harrison spoke as follows:

"My Friends: I want to thank you very cordially for this greeting. All the scenes about here are very familiar to me. This town of Lawrenceburg is the first village of my childish recollections, and as I approached it this morning, past the earliest home of my recollections, the home in which my childhood and early manhood were spent, memories crowded in upon me that were very full of