Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/189

 HARRISON

��lives of our people. The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet offices of charity have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in higher es- timation. We have not attained an ideal con- dition. Not all of our people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding. But on the whole, the opportuni- ties offered to the individual to secure the com- forts of life are better than are found else- where, and largely better than they were here one hundred years ago.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look hope- fully to the continuance of our protective sys- tem and to the consequent development of manu- facturing and mining enterprises in the States hitherto wholly given to agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of our people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises, the farmers who have felt the bene- fit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in the shop or field, will not fail to find and to de- fend a community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the great mining and manufac- turing enterprises which have recently been es- tablished in the South may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of 157

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