y First Inaugural Address Thursday, March 4, 1897

Fellow-Citizens:

IN obedience to the will of the people, and in their presence, by
the authority vested in me by this oath, I assume the arduous and
responsible duties of President of the United States, relying upon the
support of my countrymen and invoking the guidance of Almighty God. Our
faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our
fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every
national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His
commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps.

The responsibilities of the high trust to which I have been
called--always of grave importance--are augmented by the prevailing
business conditions entailing idleness upon willing labor and loss
to useful enterprises. The country is suffering from industrial
disturbances from which speedy relief must be had. Our financial system
needs some revision; our money is all good now, but its value must not
further be threatened. It should all be put upon an enduring basis,
not subject to easy attack, nor its stability to doubt or dispute. Our
currency should continue under the supervision of the Government. The
several forms of our paper money offer, in my judgment, a constant
embarrassment to the Government and a safe balance in the Treasury.
Therefore I believe it necessary to devise a system which, without
diminishing the circulating medium or offering a premium for its
contraction, will present a remedy for those arrangements which,
temporary in their nature, might well in the years of our prosperity
have been displaced by wiser provisions. With adequate revenue secured,
but not until then, we can enter upon such changes in our fiscal laws
as will, while insuring safety and volume to our money, no longer
impose upon the Government the necessity of maintaining so large a gold
reserve, with its attendant and inevitable temptations to speculation.
Most of our financial laws are the outgrowth of experience and trial,
and should not be amended without investigation and demonstration of the
wisdom of the proposed changes. We must be both "sure we are right" and
"make haste slowly." If, therefore, Congress, in its wisdom, shall deem
it expedient to create a commission to take under early consideration
the revision of our coinage, banking and currency laws, and give them
that exhaustive, careful and dispassionate examination that their
import