Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1884 — LOGAN. [ARTICLE]

LOGAN.

Some History as She is Dug Up Showing When the Illinois Piairie Dog Ceased to be a Rebel. Chicago News: “John A. Logan falls in, quits his dirty work, and even wants a regiment.” So ran a Washington dispatch to the Tribune July 8,1861. This was three months after Fort Sumter had <been fired on, and during all that time the attitude of Mr. Logan had been an encouragement to the enemies of tlie Union, and a matter of frequent inquiry a along his friends. To be silent at such a time was treason. Mr. Logan had been worse than silent. His conduct had been so antagonistic to the Northern spirit that no less radical action than enlistment in the Union Army would have suffi ciently demonstrated his conversion. That this is no campaign deduction picked from the half-forgotten history of those days of trial to injure General Logan is shown by contemporaneous publications His attitud e was the subject of the greatest solicitude among his neighbors, "orrespondence in Northern papers from Southern Illinois was filled with the discussion. His immediate friends and intimates were more than suspected of aiding the confederacy. A dispatch to the Tribune from JJairo, June 4,1861, told how J. D. Pulley had been sent to Springfield in charge of Lieutenant Bertram, and Dr. Blanchard, Logan’s brother-in-law, had been arrested at De Soto as a rebel. Williamson county, in which Logan’s influence was paramount, was claimed to be strongly for secession by the Sarbondale Times of June 15. An editorial in the Shaw neetown Mercury about the same date asked: “Wherj is oiy Congressman, John A. Lo-

gan? Rumor after rumor comes to us concerning the position of our Representative* John A. Logan, about the difficulties that threaten to destroy our Union, and we deem it our duty to ask him to come out and define his position, as the time for neutrality has passed.” The Harrisburg Chronicle re-echoed this request for Logan toishowhis colors, adding: “As he will be called in a few days to take his place in the councils of the Nation, his constituents have a right to know his position.” IZhe first gun of the rebellion was fired April 12, and after two months, when Ithe man who was not for the Union was against it, Mr. Logan’s constituents were still left in distressing doubt as to his loyalty. At last he wrote a letter to the St. Louis Republican denying in a perfunctory way that he was k secessionist. It created the opposite impression to that it was intended to convey, and the Congressman whose District had furnished recruits to Jeff Davis’ army still remained under a cloud. A letter from Washington, published July 8,1861, coupled Logan with the clique which was bent on doing the most possible mischief in the loyal organization of the House But suddenly Logan saw a great light, and the author of the “black laws” of the State —the man who had denounced the Republicans of Northern Illinois as “blighted by the contaminating touch of abolit ion ism;” who had gloried in doing “the dirty work of the i Democracy m arresting and returning fugitive slaves,” and who for three months had preserved silence fell'into line, quit his “dirty work” and asked for a regiment. Illinois has rewarded him. over and over again for the service he did the Union at the head of that regiment, but it cannot ask the Republii can party to honor with-the ■ Presidency‘the man who in 1 the hour of its peril faltored.

Zhat honor must be reserved for men whose loyalty was never even suspected. Mr. Keif er has just been the subject of investigation by a —ongressional “ommittee. He has not gained in reputation by the examination. Zhe Republican papers generally are discreetly silent on the subject; but one, which assumes a sort of water-gruel independence, says: “Zhe Committee virtually agrees in saying that ex-Speakei Keifer has lied, and that he has attempted to fortify his falsehood by the false witness of disreputable persons.” “his is a nice position for th eRe publican leader to occupy. But what matter? He is neither better nor worse than his Republican associates hi Zongress, or he would not have found his way to their head.—New York World. •

Henry Ward Beecher may be “cranky” on some noints, but, he carries a level head on the tariff. He said to a Louisville reporter last Sunday: Zhe one question which is bound to grow as the days pass, is that of taxation and its reduction. “he people are demanding it, and their voice will have to be heeded. Zhen, too, one issue will attractmore attention in the future than it is now, great and debatable as it is. It is the question of free trade. No half way measures will do, there is no debatable line,and the man who attempts to mount the fence will sadly miss his calculations. It must be free trade or protection.— People are not yet prepared to raise money by direct taxation, though it is the true plan. A tariff with moderate protection won’t do, for every bit of protection it contains is the sour particle which will set the whole mess to fermenting and soon completely spoil it.

It is not merely that Gen. Boynton has been vindicated, but that his vindication of necessity brands Mr. Keifer as al convicted liar, defamer and per j urer. He was not dragged into this case, he made it himself. He preferred the charges, and he supported them by a solemn oath. If Gen. Boynton is innocent, as all agree, then his accuser is guilty of manufacturing a frightful charge against a man upon whom he desired vengeance, and of using his whole political influence, as well as swearing his alleged honor, to work a private revenge on an innocent man. If this is true, then Mr. Keifer is not fit for a seat in congress, nor fit for the company of any decent man, wr for anything but a striped and a place in the penitentiary We commend to the attention of congress the fact that, by the finding of his own committee, it has in its own midst a man who ought to be scourged with* contempt and loathing from association with his honorable fellow men. —St. Paul Pioneer Press. At least send him in retirement with his Brother-fraud Hayes.

!£he workmen engaged in the well-protected salt and lumber industries of the Saginaw valley have sent circulars all over the country stating that their condition is “worse than the old bonded slavery of the south,” notwithstanding “their employers are making a* princely profit One would expect such news from | indtistrif s exposed to competition f rom the “pauper labor of Europe,” but surely protected industries should tell a. different story, if the protection theory is true.—Detroit News. Indianapolis News: In 184( it oust more to haul wheat from Marion county to Lawrenceburg, then the nearest market, than it now costs<to ship it to Liverpool.