And State Papers 213 



leaped. It is this combination of qualities that has 

 made our people succeed. Other peoples have been 

 as devoted to liberty, and yet, because of lack of 

 hard-headed common-sense and of ability to show 

 restraint and subordinate individual passions for the 

 general good, have failed so signally in the struggle 

 of life as to become a byword among the nations. 

 Yet other peoples, again, have possessed all possible 

 thrift and business capacity, but have been trampled 

 under foot, or have played a sordid and ignoble part 

 in the world, because their business capacity was 

 unaccompanied by any of the lift toward nobler 

 things which marks a great and generous nation. 

 The stern but just rule of judgment for humanity 

 is that each nation shall be known by its fruits ; and 

 if there are no fruits, if the nation has failed, it mat 

 ters but little whether it has failed through mean 

 ness of soul or through lack of robustness of char 

 acter. We must judge a nation by the net result 

 of its life and activity. And so we must judge the 

 policies of those who at any time control the des 

 tinies of a nation. 



Therefore I ask you to-night to look at the re 

 sults of the policies championed by President Mc- 

 Kinley on both the occasions when he appealed to 

 the people for their suffrages, and to see how well 

 that appeal has been justified by the event. Most 

 certainly I do not claim all the good that has be 

 fallen us during the past six years as due solely to 

 any human policy. No legislation, however wise, no 

 Administration, however efficient, can secure pros- 



