men are not sure of, and to which the leading journals of her capital would generally at the present reply in the negative. "In any case, we shall have plenty of trade with her, and I hope a growing trade. There is every reason for it. Each country produces at the best what the other wants. France must buy our raw materials and certain of our manufactures. We must buy the finest and most artistic things in the world, whatever they cost, and it is France that makes them. Who supposes that you could stop American women from buying French gowns, fine silks, ribbons and articles de Paris; or American men from buying French pictures and bronzes and tapestries, Bordeaux and champagnes, even if a dozen McKinleys stood in the way? We'll grumble about the price, of course; why shouldn't we; but we'll buy all the same. 66 And all the time till France loses her secret-the secret of doing the finest things just a little better than anybody else in the world can do them. We know the commercial value of it now; some day, perhaps, we may learn the secret for ourselves, but it will not be till we have learned another lessonto wit, that the diffusion of art is not merely a luxury but a commercial necessity, that free art is as vital as free air, and that the country which burdens or which even doesn't protect and encourage and diffuse art is hopelessly doomed to remain second-class all its years. "We all believe that within this generation New York is to be the financial and possibly the commercial center of the world. With all my heart, I hope so. But we must never make the stupid mistake of underrating our rivals; and it is perhaps needful also to guard against the natural tendency of a young and prosperous community to overrate themselves. Whatever our natural endowments, or whatever the genius of our people, we are always in danger whenever we shut our eyes to the experience of the world. "Our friends, the French, are at this moment enormously prosperous-probably the most prosperous nation in Europe; and with their prosperity the most widely diffused. And yet, when I contrast the French condition with ours, when I recall our own popular grievances-as to railroads, for example-and remember that there is not in all France a train to be compared to those on which you daily travel to Washington or to Chicago-that no money can there purchase equal luxury, and that what you can purchase costs you double as much per mile -or when I recall another of our grievances as to the cost of living, and referring to my cash-book am reminded that Paris, to a foreign Minister, at any rate, and I think to Americans generally, is as dear as New York, if not dearer, I wonder if occasionally our national complaints may not spring less from the acuteness of our sufferings than from the acuteness of our politics. "We shall be on exhibition next year in Chicago, and here too. It may not be a mistake to assume that among the other things the merchants of New York will wish to show their foreign guests will be a dollar which, following the thought of the President, is as good as any other dollar the country has issued, clean streets, a navy no longer ridiculous, and a judiciary for which we have no occasion to apologize. "The French are coming, not exactly in squadrons, perhaps, but in larger numbers than they have ever traveled before. They are coming to a land in which they believe their welcome is ready, and I am sure you will make it so. They will teach this generation of Americans how in her sphere France still leads the world. She will come to the nation she helped to create as our old ally; better still, she will come as the great sister Republic. She will come, as I ventured to predict in Paris, even before the action of the Chambers on the appropriation, as France ought to come to America-on the front line, and with all her banners flying. She will show what higher development the country has reached under the Republic, and in the stirring language of her own Ministers, she will carry to this new Western center, in which the progress of civilization now asserts itself, the shining proofs of the activity and the genius of her children. "Our hearts will go out to her, I am sure, as to none else. We hold in high honor that upright and most successful statesman and that model citizen, the President of the Republic, M. Carnot. We know how faithfully and how ably the country is served under him by Ribot and De Freycinet, by Jules Roche, by Tirard and Spuller, by Royer and Floquet, and their colleagues in the Ministry and in the Chambers; and the earnest desire of our people, without distinction of parties and without dissent-I have said it as your Minister in France, and I wish to say it as the guest of the Chamber of Commerce in New York-the desire of our whole people is that under their wise guidance and that of their successors, the Republic which has now become the strongest as it is the oldest government France has had for a century, may endure throughout the generations of men, and that it may mean always, as it means now, order and prosperity for the French, and peace for Europe." VII. Last Republican State Convention-Elected Permanent Chairman-Speech-Republican Success Inevitable-A glorious Record-Benefits of Republican Administration-The Vote in 1876Democratic Management-Organization Essential for Victory-Principles Epitomized-No Apologies, no Explanations. HE Republican State Convention convened at Albany, N. Y., April 28, 1892, elected Reid permanent chairman. He delivered the following speech on taking the chair: "Gentlemen of the Convention: With all my heart I thank you. Having resigned office abroad, I hold it a priv ilege to resume at once the duties of citizenship at home. To come back to my old place in the Republican ranks has been for many months the desire uppermost in my mind; but to have one's return thus distinguished by your favor is an honor any man might envy. "Thirty-six years ago, a boy fresh from college and not yet able to vote, I made my first political speech, for Fremont and Dayton. From that day to this I have never seen a time when the duty of Republican success seemed clearer or its possibility more evident than now. "New York Republicans turn naturally from yesterday's celebration to today's duty. Inspired by the memories yesterday evoked, they will take order that the Republic, saved by the hero whose birth we have just commemorated, in conjunction with Lincoln and Sherman and Sheridan, with Seward and Chase and Stanton, shall suffer no harm now at the hands of the antagonist they have so often confronted. They have just seen what that antagonist's triumph means in this State, and they have no desire and no purpose to let such a triumph extend to the nation. "We are often reminded by our friends who generally agree with us in principle more nearly than with any other party, but who as generally vote against us in practice, in order to chasten us for our good, that a past record is no title to present confidence. Perhaps not; certainly not, if the record is all there is. But if the record of the Republican party through the whole thirty-six years of its glorious history is not a sufficient reason for trust in it now, it is at least no controlling reason for distrust. Can any one say as much for the other party? Let us not be unkind enough to go back too far. Let me merely ask if its record last winter, either in Albany or in Washington, is a satisfactory guarantee for the future. Are the farmers of New York, even the Democratic farmers, anxious that another Legislature like this should have another chance at their tax levy? Are even the Democratic business men of New York anxious that this Congress should have its way unopposed, about either free silver or the tariff? Is there one of them who did not secretly give thanks, last winter, that they had been beaten four years ago, and that there now sits on watch in the White House the safe, honest, sturdy, great big man under his grandfather's hat?' Is there one who would not rejoice if this State of New York were fortunate enough to have some one like him now in our Governor's residence in Albany? "Our opponents do well to make the most of their last triumph, and to do it at such railroad speed as the State Capitol has just been witnessing. They may plan the capture of the next Legislature, as they organized the theft of this one. They may renew and multiply their devices for binding hand and foot the majority of the lawful voters of this State; but it is still the majority, and it cannot be permanently bound. The spring elections have given but the first whisper of the coming storm. Nobody who knows our political history doubts that, on critical occasions and with a fair count, New York is now, as it has been from the beginning, essentially a Republican State. At the very outset it gave Fremont a plurality of 80,000 votes over James Buchanan. In the nine Presidential elections held since the organization of the Republican party, New York has never been carried by the Democrats excepting when their party had composed its internal dissensions and was absolutely united behind an exceptionally strong and popular New York candidate; just three times in thirty-six years. "Nor can it be said that the tendency shown by recent voters is more in their favor. The biggest majority New York ever gave against a Republican candidate for the Presidency was not the latest, but that of 32,000 in 1876, for Samuel J. Tilden. The next in size was that of 10,000 for Horatio Seymour, in 1868. The smallest was the last, in 1884, when the candidate who had been swept into the Governor's chair the year before, on the wave of a majority of nearly 200,000, secured the electoral vote of the Empire State by a plurality of 1,047 votes. Four years later we beat that same man before the people of New York by 14,373 votes. They say he wants to try it again, if so, the fixed and immutable laws of that old rule of arithmetical progression which we learned in our school days show what he may look for the next time. Or perhaps he would rather do it by the rule of three. The problem would be stated somehow thus: If a first success by 200,000 gives in one year a second success by 1,047, then a first defeat by 14,373 ought to give, in four years, a second defeat by how much? And if our friends the enemy have a liking for this sort of calculation, there is another problem that might interest them still more. If these things have been done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If this is what the State of New York did to Grover Cleveland, whom she respects, what would she do to David B. Hill? "As further materials for speculation upon the result this autumn, we might take the returns from the spring election; and might profitably consider the political desperation of our opponents, which has led to a deliberate effort for a partisan inspection of the election, to a partisan census, to the most debasing surrender to the liquor interest the legislation of New York has shown, to a new apportionment which beggars the dictionary-since 'gerrymander' does not describe it-and to a degradation of that old pride of the State, its Court of Appeals, so shameless and so wanton as to provoke the united condemnation of the preponderantly Democratic Bar Association of New York. This secured, "Well, gentlemen, the stars in their courses have fought for us. Our opponents have made our campaign. The man who could find it in his heart to ask the Democrats to give us more help than they have given would be the most unreasonable of mortals. We ask now but one thing, a right the denial of which means revolution; we demand a fair, non-partisan count. we can carry New York if we choose; and, with New York, the nation. I do not say we cannot do it without New York; that no prudent politician would make that sort of a calculation, or dream for an instant of taking that sort of a risk. Well, shall we carry New York? we can carry but I do say "Only one thing is needed to do it; simple, natural, and, as I believe at this time, very easy. We must get together.' As has so often been said, there are |