without danger this black infusion.  Fifth, loyalty to the Republic—­for there is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement.  This hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement.  Give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts—­that knows no South, no North, no East, no West, but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every State of our Union.

A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides.  We, sir, are Americans—­and we stand for human liberty!  The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth.  France, Brazil—­these are our victories.  To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression—­this is our mission!  And we shall not fail.  God has sown in our soil the seed of His millennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until His full and perfect day has come.  Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle, from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, all the way—­aye, even from the hour when from the voiceless and traceless ocean a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor.  As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day—­when the old world will come to marvel and to learn amid our gathered treasures—­let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a Republic, compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—­loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—­the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path and making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time!

WILLIAM McKINLEY

LAST SPEECH

Delivered at the World’s Fair, Buffalo, N.Y., on September 5, 1901, the day before he was assassinated.

I am glad again to be in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger, and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally honored.  To-day I have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to the foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and participation in this Exposition have contributed in so marked a degree to its interest and success.  To the commissioners of the Dominion of Canada and the British Colonies, the French Colonies, the Republics of Mexico and of Central and South America, and the commissioners of Cuba and Porto Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand of fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, science, education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new century.

Expositions are the timekeepers of progress.  They record the world’s advancement.  They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people, and quicken human genius.  They go into the home.  They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people.  They open mighty storehouses of information to the student.  Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step.