enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our country, the sufficiency of
our institutions to stand against the rudest shocks of violence, the
wonderful thrift and enterprise of our people, and the demonstrated
superiority of our free government, it behooves us to constantly watch
for every symptom of insidious infirmity that threatens our national
vigor.

The strong man who in the confidence of sturdy health courts the
sternest activities of life and rejoices in the hardihood of constant
labor may still have lurking near his vitals the unheeded disease that
dooms him to sudden collapse.

It can not be doubted that our stupendous achievements as a people and
our country's robust strength have given rise to heedlessness of those
laws governing our national health which we can no more evade than human
life can escape the laws of God and nature.

Manifestly nothing is more vital to our supremacy as a nation and to the
beneficent purposes of our Government than a sound and stable currency.
Its exposure to degradation should at once arouse to activity the most
enlightened statesmanship, and the danger of depreciation in the
purchasing power of the wages paid to toil should furnish the strongest
incentive to prompt and conservative precaution.

In dealing with our present embarrassing situation as related to this
subject we will be wise if we temper our confidence and faith in our
national strength and resources with the frank concession that even
these will not permit us to defy with impunity the inexorable laws
of finance and trade. At the same time, in our efforts to adjust
differences of opinion we should be free from intolerance or passion,