President William Howard Taft was in New York City on this date in 1911 where he touted the recently negotiated free trade (called reciprocity back then) agreement with the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s in Canada.
“Canada has now between seven and eight millions of people. They are a hardy, temperate, persistent race, brave, intelligent, and enterprising, sharing or inheriting the good qualities of all their ancestors, and with a national pride in their Dominion that grows with the wonderful success and prosperity that have attended them in the last three decades,” Taft told his audience. “They are good neighbors; we could not have better neighbors. It is more than a hundred years since a hostile shot was fired across the border, and they are like us because our conditions are similar and because our traditions are similar.”
You can read Taft’s entire speech at this link.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.