inion and public opinion, and between real
public opinion and the manufactured appearance of public opinion; they
know that when there is a real demand for any kind of legislation it
will make itself known to them through a multitude of individual voices.
Resolutions of commercial bodies frequently indicate nothing except that
the proposer of the resolution has a positive opinion and that no one
else has interest enough in the subject to oppose it. Such resolutions
by themselves, therefore, have comparatively little effect; they are
effective only when the support of individual expressions shows that
they really represent a genuine and general opinion.

It is for you and the business men all over the country whom you
represent to show to the Representatives in Congress that the producing
and commercial interests of the country really desire a practical
measure to enlarge the markets and increase the foreign trade of the
United States, by enabling American shipping to overcome the
disadvantages imposed upon it by foreign governments for the benefit of
their trade, and by our government for the benefit of our home industry.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] There would be some modification of these figures if the cost of
getting the mails to and from the exchange offices were charged against
the account; but this is not separable from the general domestic cost
and would not materially change the result.

SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCE

ADDRESS AT THE NATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE FOREIGN
COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 14, 1907

I thank you for your cordial greeting, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for the very kind terms which you have used regarding myself. I have
come here with pleasure, not to make a prepared address, or to attempt
oratory, but to talk a few minutes about subjects of common interest to
us all.

I wish first to express the satisfaction that I feel in the existence of
this convention. The process of discussion, consideration, mutual
information, and comparison of opinion among the people who are not in
office, is the process that puts under the forms of representative
government the reality of freedom and of a self-governing people. The
discussion which takes place in such meetings as this, and which is
stimulated by such meetings as this, in the club, in all the local
associations and places where men meet throughout the country, is at
once far removed from the secret a