Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1884 — Page 9

SPEECH OF Hon. Thomas J. Wood,

Delivered at Rensselaer, July 22, 1884, on Accepting: the Democrat Nomination for Congress. A Rendering: of Account toy a Faithful Futolic Servant. Friends and Fellow Citizens: I truly thank you for a re-nomination to Congress. I have worked hard to perform the duties of a Representative, many and laborious as they are, and your approval today gives me new hope for the future. A faithful public servant can always find a friendly hand at home, though jealous and malicious men dog his footsteps in the pathways of duty. During my few months of public service I have felt I was your agent, entrusted with power to represent you in the halls of Congress, and I tell you I have done so to the best of my humble ability. No citizen of my district has failed to hear from me upon any business he wrote me about, and every call made upon me has had respectful attention. If re-elected I promise the people the same unswerving devotion to their interest, and I shall continue to be the same faithful representative. The business of Congress has rapidly increased in the last few years. Great commercial and inter-State questions, involving vast sums of money, are constantly before Congress, and only men of integrity can safely deal with them. While in Congress I saw the necessity of two political parties of nearly equal power. Two political parties are necessary to pure and stable government. This government could not live long without them, and the great business interests of the people with their government could not be safely handled without opposing parties. You know it would not be safe for the country to allow only one party in Congress. Political parties are checks and balances upon each other. Then, if two parties are necessary to deal fairly with great business questions, necessary to honest government, necessary to a pure public service—l ask why is one party continued in power and the other kept out? Party control of the government should alternate every few years. This would keep both parties upon good behavior,and keep both familiar with the working and practice of the government. It is true patriotism for the people to order a change in the party control of public affairs. The Republican party has been in power twenty-four years, and during this long period the young men have grown to command the Democratic party. There is no reason why they should not be trusted with public affairs. They have no bad record to look back upon, and they would give the country a grand administration. I tell you, A CHANGE OP ADMINISTRATION IS NECESSARY. A change of President will not bring reform and break down dishonest practices' A Republican President is powerless for reform unless he makes a change in the office-holding element of the party. This he dare not do. If he did, he would lose the support of the party managers and invite their relentless hostility against all his measures of reform. He could not be successful. The hundred thousand officeholders have managed his canvass, worked for his election and gave their money for his triumph. Will he reward them by turning them out ? No. Nine-tenths of them will remain to cover corrupt transactions and lay plans for new ones. Very often we hear of some theft of the public money. The disbursing officer of the Post-office Department was lately discovered to be guilty of embezzlement of the public money, which ran back to 1881. His stealings amount to over $74,000. His salary was $2,400 per year, yet he went into expensive society, drove fine trotters and entertained liberally. This was known and talked about for years, yet he was allowed logo on in this way, embezzling the people’s money every day of his fast life, without inquiry or objection. This official had no settlement with the Treasury Department since 1881, and his accounts had never been audited or kept up. What do you say of this kind of administration? Do the people want public business conducted in this loose way? Senator Ingalls, a Republican Senator from the State of Kansas, said of this case in the United States Senate, that there must be some radical defect in the keeping of departmental accounts, which permitted a series of peculations to go on for years undiscovered. I call your attention to a dispatch in the New York Star on this scandalous case:

Washington, June 23.—Burnside stole the proceeds of sales of waste paper, carpets, matting, furniture, and other Government property of which he had the control as custodian, clearing $75,000 at least. The returns of his operations are not all in. When the stealings of between $40,000 and $50,000 in cash was discovered there was no suspicion of other stealings. A prominent official says that Burnside was under the same regulations for insuring accountability and honesty as all the others, and that there is no greater certainty under the law and regulations as to others than there was as to him. None of the robberies and frauds now coming to light, except, perhaps, in the case of Morgan of the State Department, whose death made an examination necessary, were discovered through inside vigilance, but purelv through accidental circumstances on the outside. Senator Hale’s proposal looking to an enquiry into frauds in the departments is well enough if it doesn’t mean the smothering of facts. The Meline investigation of the Treasury frauds was suppressed, and the subsequent one by a Senate committee carefully abstained from going into deep water. Exposure, not suppression, is needed. This scandal was followed by numerous corrupt practices in the Navy Department, implicating divers officials. The extent of these embezzlements will not be known to the public until new men examine the books and inventory the property. In the Treasury Department you find a shortage of over $12,000 in the accounts of Mr. Morgan, who died about four months ago. His peculations had been going on a long time, and no business accounting was ever had of his books. These embezzlements create grave suspicion that the whole Department is filled by corrupt men; and one will not overhaul the accounts of the other, or even ask for a balance sheet for years. What did the Secretary of the Treasury himself do in the last ten years? How did he handle the idle millions of money in the Treasury, collected from all the people by over-taxation ? He used it to benefit Wall Street jobbers every time they called for aid. Whenever a panic was threatened in Wall street, through stock gambling, the Secretary telegraphs the street bankers that he will unlock the Treasury vaults to benefit them, and the gambling operators go on with confidence. After the Secretary sends his telegram, the New York press comes out next morning with head lines,

“Confidence in Wall Street is restored. The Secretary of the Treasury telegraphs aid in case of emergency.” Is the public treasury to be open 10 stock gamblers and speculators that a panic in the street may be averted ? Is the public treasury to be open to any bank or to any person to uphold wild speculation and preserve from downfall this immoral and corrupting hell of finance ? I fear the truth in these Government Departments is not known. We do not know how the accounts do stand in the Treasury Department, but if what I have stated is an index, they are bad enough. You will remember that it came out in a discussion in the United Stales Senate a short time ago, that there was a shortage in the Treasury accounts of a large sum—l think over fifty millions of dollars, and it was then justified as an unavoidable shortage! There has been no investigation of the Treasury accounts for twenty-four years, during which many billions of money nave passed through the public Treasury; and we know not the naked truth, but I venture the shortage will reach many more than fifty millions when the books are overhauled. The little frauds and peculations leaking outside may be the evidence of swelling corruption inside. lam led to believe the shortage may be a great sum. The officials of the party responsible for these things will not make them known to the world. You might elect a Republican President and continue to do so, but these frauds and thefts of the public money will not be made known to the people by any of them, for the reason, they would destroy the party. I regret to tell you that, in Washington, the saving of the party from all harm is more important than the saving of your money or the honor and purity of the Government; and this condition always arises from a long continuance of one party power. The Secretary of the Navy is not clear of improper conduct. He received about $300,000 from the sale of the iron and debris of broken up ships, and deposited it in the Treasury, subject to his own check. He deposited it as he would his own money in a bank, and not to the credit of the Government. This was not a creditable transaction by a chief cabinet officer, and when this high cabinet officer did this bold thing, can we say the great numbers of officials under him have done better than he? What conclusions must fair-minded people draw irom all this actual and circumstantial evidence? Would not most men think there is something bad behind it all ?

Now, go over to the Attorney-General’s office, another cabinet officer, and you will find hardly any conduct above suspicion. Indeed, my friends, so grave were the doubts of official honesty that an investigation was conducted during the entire session of Congress, and so far it has revealed that over $200,000 was thrownaway on the Star Route prosecutions in a reckless manner. Exorbitant attorneys’ fees were paid—from $30,000 to $65,000 each —for a few months’ work, and no good result whatever. Everybody knows that the Star Route scoundrels stole many millions of dollars, and escaped just punishment through corruption and bribery —a disgrace to the government. These Star Routes were projected and carried out through the Post-office Department, and this enormous stealing went on for years under the eye of the Administration, and nothing was done to stop it before Dorsey and Brady and other pernicious rascals got away with several millions of the public money. What kind of official integrity is this, that allows many millions of your money to be stolen under the eaves of one of the principal Departments of this Government ? No Department ought to be heard to plead ignorance of such collossal theft. It is a loose, not to say criminal, way of conducting the public business, to allow millions to be stolen in a series of years without detection. It is well known now that a part of this stolen money was used in Indiana to corrupt the voter, under the name of “ Dorsey’s soap,” in 1880. After these men got away with their

STOLEN MILLIONS, what did they care tor the Attorney-Gen-eral? He made a great blow about it. flourished trumpets before the people, but no hing was done. Not one scoundrel convicted —not one. It is charged upon a show of evidence that the prosecution connived with the defendants. Oh, my friends, this is all rotten business, and the people ought to clean out the house. If my party were in the house I would say “ clean it out.” It is said these scoundrels are hunted down. Can you tell me one that was convicted and punished ? Every time one was caught, they let him go. if one of them is convicted he is soon pardoned out. They are all together, and do not intend to hurt one another. Why, the smell ot official corruption was so strong at Washington that a Republican Senate was compelled to appoint an investigating committee to work all summer to investigate all the Departments of the Government. You may believe there is grave suspicion of bad corruption in the several Departments, or a Republican Seuate would not, out of decency, appoint such a committee. What a spectacle! Every Department of this great Government to he investigated. The news was flashed over the wires to all nations that every Department of this great Republic is to be investigated. Has the party in power given our country this kind of a reputation among the nations of the earth ? What is this to go down into history ? What an example to young men who must soon take control of public affairs? Investigations generally fail. They are avoided in a thousand cunning ways. The remedy is to clean out the great house. Bum the field to kill the chinch-bugs. The Surgeon-General’s office is utterly bad. One Dr. Wales and his subordinates embezzled over $60,000, and no one called him to account. The Secretary said he thought something was wrong with Wales, but he was well recommended and therefore let him alone to steal. The idea that a cabinet officer of the Government, having suspicion of the dishonesty of his appointee, permits him to remain because he was well recommended! Is that a good excuse ? Should I permit a man to steal because he was highly recommended ? This will not do. It looks like connivance with the subordinate by the chief officer of the Naval Department. Now step over to the Department of the Interior. This has charge of the public lands. The public land frauds tower over all others in audacity and magnitude. It has been going on for years. Could these schemes have ever found lodgment in an honest Department? The present Secretary, I believe, is an honest man, hut what can he do with bad subordinates conniving against him? The land office officials all over the West are in league with scoundrels. They have been going on for years. They could not begin in an honest Department, but once begun, the new head finds records of these transactions in the office 1 looks, kept by hundreds of subordinates, many of whom are guilty. A new head of the Departments cannot go through

SUPPLEMENT.

the books. It would be the work of a lifetime. The hundreds and thousands of subordinates in the several Departments are among the guilty ones, who hold over Administration after Administration. There is no remedy here but to turn them out. They will not he turned out unless the people change the Administration. There are pending before the land office over six hundred thousand land claims, covering seventy-five millions of acres of the public domain. No one knows how many of these are fraudulent, but it is estimated on known facts, that about one-half are base frauds upon the Government, One corporation obtained 14,000 acres of fine timber land in California, and it turns out to be a base fraud upon the Government. Does any man believe that any person or corporation could obtain such a body of valuable land by fraud from an honest Department? Does any man believe that such collossal frauds could be carried on, such robbery of the public domain go on for years, without detection, in any honest Department? They could not germinate and grow under any honest and careful Administration. WHAT HAS THE DEMOCRATIC HOUSE DONE for the eountiy? It undertook to make theft and peculation impossible by cutting down to the lowest the appropriations. It reduced them nearly forty millions of dollars. Plethoric appropriations are cause for embezzlement. It begun the work of building a navy by appropriating money to construct and arm steel cruisers to be used to protect our commerce and baffle an enemy’s ships, which no Republican Congress ever tried to do in the last twenty years. It forfeited the following land grants made, every one of them, by Republican Congresses: Acres. Gulf and Ship Island Railroad 632,800 Tuscaloosa and Mobile Railroad 688,000 Coosa and Tennessee Railroad , 140,060 Savannah and Albany Railroad 900,000 New Orleans and State Line Railroad 120,800 Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad 1,057,024 Texas Pacific Railroad 14,309,760 Oregon Central Railroad 1,130,880 California and Oregon Railroad 2,126,526 Atlantic and Pacific Railroad 16,000,000 Sioux City and Saint Paul Railroad.... 85,654 Total 37,211,501 The following bills are on the House Calendar: Acres. New Orleans Baton Rouge and Vicksburg Railroad 903,218 Oregon and California Railroad 3,701,760 Marquette, Houghton and Ontonagon Railroad 627,200 Ontonagon and Brule River Railroad 232,848 Marquette and State Line Railroad.... 540,848 Northern Pacific Railroad 20,000,000 Southern Pacific, of California 7,500,000 You can count the millions saved to the Government by these several forfeitures, every one of which I voted for, and it is a good work for one session of the lower House. The Senate, not representing the reform sentiment of the country, has thus far failed to act upon these forfeiture bills, sent to it by the House, and I fear it will not do so, and the people will be compelled to make a few changes in that body before reform measures will be acted upon. These lands, by action of the House, are to lie held for homestead entry alone. I give you a short history of the way our public lands are going and have gone under Republican Administrations during the last twenty years, as prepared by advice of the Land Committee: ‘ OUR ALIEN LAND-GRABBERS —ONE RESULT OF REPUBLICAN MISRULE AND MISMANAGEMENT. “ Washington, January 5. “Within the whole domain of public affairs, there is no question of greater importance to the American people than that of land monopoly. “Between the Republican party, the railroad corporations, and foreign landgrabbers, the public lands are rapidly falling away. Within a very few years no less than 300,000,000 acres of the finest soil the sun ever shone upon have passed from the people into the hands of men who would hardly hesitate to overturn this Government if it were necessary to serve their ends. The poor man’s inheritance, the public domain, is rapidly becoming a reminiscence. “Nothing in the history of the titled robbers of the feudal ages can compare with the recklessness that has characterized the Republican party in their management of the public lands, which were intended for the people and not for greedy capitalists or monopolists. “ Land monoply in its best form (if that term be permissible) is a dangerous institution, but the danger is increased a hundredfold when the land is held hymen who are aliens by birth, by choice and in principles. “Togo into the details of'this matter would fill column after column of your paper and tire the reader. A clear, concise table giving the names, locations, and amounts of territory controlled by foreigners will show the people the danger which threatens. Here are the names, etc.:

The Holland Land Company, New Mexico 4.500,000 An English syndicate. No. 3, in Texas... 3,900,000 Sir Edward Reid and a syndicate in Florida 2,000,000 English syndicate in Mississippi 1,800,000 Marquis of Tweedale 1,750,000 Phillips, Marshall & Co., London 1,300,000 German syndicate 1,100,000 Anglo-American syndicate, Mr. Rogers, President, London 750,000 Bryan H. Evans, of London, in Mississippi 700,000 Duke of Sutherland 425,000 British Land Company, in Kansas 320,000 William Whalley, M. P., Peterboro, England 310,000 Missouri Land Company, Edinburgh, Scotland 300.000 Robert Tennant, of London !. 230^000 Dundee Land Company, Scotland 247,000 Lord Dunmore 120,000 Benjamin Newgas, Liveniool loo’ooo Lord Houghton, in Florida 60,000 Lord Dunraven, in Colorado 60,000 English Land Company, in Florida 50,000 England Land Company, in Arkansas... 50,000 Albert Peel, M.P., Leicestershire, England 10,000 Sir J. L. Kay, Yorkshire, England 5,000 Alexander Grant, of London, in Kansas. 35,000 English syndicate (represented by dose 8r05..) Wisconsin 110,000 M. Ellerhauser, of Halifax, N. S., in West Virginia 600,000 A Scotch syndicate, in Florida 500,000 A. Boysen, Danish consul, in Milwaukee 50,000 Missouri Land Company, of Edinburgh. Scotland 165,000 Total 20,747,000 “ Writing recently in the Elmira Gazette upon this question, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, a brother of Henry Ward Beecher, said: We have here a high-lifting, frowning portent that should startle every intelligent patriot and cause him to instruct his Congressman inexorably to the effect that the ownership of land by non-residents must come to an end; and further, that the ownership oi lands in great blocks must come to an end. However plausible, liecause profitable, their temporary occupancy may be, we cannot afford to repeat in this country the horrible experiences of Ireland.” “ I am pleased, however, to state that the present Congress has taken a hold ot this question of alien land ownership, and there is every prospect that the evil will not only

be abated, but that some arrangement will be made whereby those immense tracts will revert to the people, to whom they properly belong and from whom they should never, have been permitted to go. Congressman McAdoo, of New Jersey, Holman, of Indiana, and Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, have introduced bills that cover this important matter, and there is scarcely any doubt that they will pass. The people should urge upon their Representatives the necessity of supporting these bills. “The names, &c., of our native land monopolists would fill every page of this issue of the Star. I select only a lew from the several States and Territories, as follows: Acres., Hon. C. F. Brainerd, Minn., a stalwart Republican, in Arizonn 140,000 Hon. George Hearst, San Francisco 48,000 A. P. Moore, Santa Rosa, Cal 138,000 The Murphy estate, Santa Clara 150,000 F. C. Sherwin, in New Mexico 600,000 “ My Dear Dorsey,” star router 500,000 Whitmore & Co., of Wisconsin, in Alabama 35,000 J. W. IllitTe, Colorado 15,000 Grandin Brothers, of Tidioute, Pa., in Dakota 40.000 Oliver Dalrymple, of Saint Paul, Minn.. 500,000 H. Disston, of Philadelphia 2,000,000 Hon. William Laniliee, in lowa 18,000 Walter Brown, of Kansas, in Kansas 43,000 Congressman E. N. Morrill & Co., in Kansas 102,000 .1. B. Watkins. Ixiuisiana 1,225,000 Daniel Murphy, Nevada 200,000 Mr. David Seltzer, of Ohio 25,000 Thompson & Warner. Minnesota 50,000 J. B. Walker. Minneapolis 50,000 Hon. J. S. Pillsbury, Minneapolis 30,000 J. M. Richmond & Co., of Buffalo, in Missouri 150,000 Michael Brand, sr., Missouri 100,000 Adirondack Land Company, New York. 500,000 Hiram H. Sibley, of Rochester 500,000 William Clark 30,000 /The David Raleigh estate, in New Jersey 30,000 Shenango and Alleghany Railroad Company 50,000 R. D. George, South Carolina 25,000 Colonel Meyer, Wisconsin 35,000 Governor Jeremiah Rusk, Wisconsin 18,000 Total 7,427,000 “The above are simply a few specimens. There is not a State or Territory in this broad Union which does not contain scores, even hundreds, of men who hold tracts fully as large as those noted. “Concerning the railroad grants, those collossal monuments to corruption and robbery, it is impassible to speak with patience of the men and party responsible for them. I was informed the other day by a gentleman who served in the Thirtyseventh Congress, that 300,0C0,000 acres of land were granted to railroad corporations within twenty years. “ Since the beginning of the present Congress no leas than thirty bills have been introduced declaring the land granted to railroads forfeited. Mr. Holman’s bill is the most sweeping, and therefore better calculated to do justice to an outraged people. Should it paas, the railroad corporations of America will be compelled to disgorge 100,000,000 acres of the best land in America, which they hold in defiance of law, decency and justice.” I give an extract from the speech of Mr. Love, of New Jersey, in the House in June last: Table shmoing grants of lands to corporations to aid in the construction of railroads. Corporations. Date of act. Acres. Union Pacific Railroad Company July 1, 1862 12,000,000 Central Branch Union Pacific July 1,1862 187,488 Kansas Pacific July 1,1862; 6,000,000 Union Pacific, successor to Denver Pacific Mar. 3,1869 1,000,100 Central Pacific.., July 1, 1862 8,000,000 Central Pacific, sue- ( July 1,1862 cessor to Western! July 2,1864 11m non Pacific i Mar. 3,1865 MW.ww ( May 21, 1860 Burlington and Missouri River Tuly 2, 1864 2,441,000 Sioux City and Pacific..i.Tuly 2,1864 60,000 Northern Pacific July 2, 1864 47,000,000 Oregon Branch of Central Pacific July 25, 1866 3,000,000 Oregon and California.. July 25, 1866 3,500,000 Atlantic and Pacific July 27, 1866 42,000,000 Southern Pacific July 27, 1866; 6,000,000 Southern Pacific f July 25,1868| 0 « on Branch Line... | Alar. 3, 1871! J ’ Oregon Central May 4,1870 1,500,000 To corporations 137,208,688 To States 1 53,490,263 Total I I 190,698,951

“ These grants aggregate 300,000 square miles, or over 190,000,000 acres of land, an area so vast that great empires dwarf in the contrast. Out of this vast domain you could carve 240 States of the extent of Rhode Island, with her 1,250 square miles; 150 States of the size of Delaware, with her 2,000 square miles: seven States like Pennsylvania with her 45,215 square miles; four and one-half times as large as all the New England States (Maine, 33,040 square miles; New Hampshire, 9,305 square miles; Vermont, 9,s6ssquare miles; Massachusetts, 8,315 square miles; Rhode Island, 1,250 square miles; Connecticut, 4,990 square miles), 66,465 ; three times as large as the great States of New York (49,170 square miles,) Pennsylvania (45,215 square miles), and New Jersey (7,815 square miles), 102,200; one and a half times as large as the great German Empire, with 208,624 square miles; nearly three times as large as Great Britain and Ireland, which have 121,571 square miles, and nearly equal in extent to the thirteen original States, which only contain 325,065 square miles.” Will the Republican voters of this country apnrove their party by another vote this fall in the face of this shameful disclosure? Can the poor man, can the humble citizen for whose homestead the public lands are held, approve the party that has permitted such shameful waste of the public domain? My Republican friends, soon you and your children will have no free homes in this country if you will continue your party in power much longer. Will you not approve my effort to restore these lands to the Government? Will not the people approve me and my party in the work to save the public lands for homesteads for the people and their children ? God helping me, I will labor to preserve the public lands for homesteads for the poor of our land. I would hold them for the actual settler. Give the LABORING POOR A FRKE HOMESTEAD, and make them live for their country. Nothing makes a man love his country more than a free homestead on her precious domain. Give the poor a farm and make them grateful to our Government—make them firmer friends to its institutions. I voted with my party to abolish the timber cu'ture laws, so as to prevent one person from acquiring two or three large farms, and thus rapidly alisorbing the public lands, taking them from our children. What hope have your children and mine fora free home under the Republican policy of wasting the public lands? Foreign landlords and barons are taking our best lands from American children. See the blocks of farms owned by English syndicates. Did this ever happen under Democratic policy? It is the best lands they have got. They do not improve or cultivate the soil; they are held for speculation. Foreign capital invested in blocks of as fine lands as Heaven covers, to make expensive homes for the children of America! No

party ought to live an hour in the face of this anti-American waste of our children’s homes. When I look over the map of the great West, and see the wide stretch of beautiful and fertile lands, I felt a swelling pride that the poor boys and girls growing up had a free home there, to live upon and build up for themselves and the country. I turned to the public records and I find nearly all in sight absorbed bv corporations and foreign syndicates. I confess my disappointment. I said this is indefensible; shame does not describe it. I said it means no free homes for the young of our land. In the last twenty years, cattle-raising companies have tenced the public domain wholly without any authority of law, enclosing miles upon miles of open territory. This resulted in nullifying the Homestead laws, as actual settlors were driven away and shot like wild beasts if they happened to be in or near the enclosure, by these laud sharks and robbers. The House passed making the fencing of public land a crime punishable by severe penalties. How any watchful Administration could permit these outrages to go on without protest or interference is incomprehensible. This Democratic House passed the Mexican Soldier Pension Bill, an act of great JUSTICE TO THE OLD VETERANS, whose sacrifices and bravery gave to the United States so much valuablo territory. It passed an act doing away with proof of soundness of the soldier of the late war at date of enlistment, which he was required to prove before he could procure a pension. I advocated this with all my ability. I introduced a bill to give the Union soldier of the late war a homestead out of our public lands, and I labored for it with great zeal, but the High Encampment of the Grand Army passed a resolution and sent it to Congress and to the committee having the bill in charge, not to pass my bill or any bill of the kind. That overcame all my best efforts for the Union soldier. I could not overcome that resolution with all my faithful lalior for the bill. This same High Encampment propose, as I am told, to guide the vote of the soldier for whom they please I believe they are as much men to-day, as true and brave men, as when they fought for the Union on Southern battle fields; nnd if they will be guided by dictation, then I am wrong in my high estimate of them. I think to-day a homestead is due each of them, and to the widows and orphans of those dead, from the public domain. I would give it to them with an open hand and a free heart, as some recognition by this Government for their gallant deeds for homo and country. I would give it to them a thousand times before I would give it to the railroad corporations, and through them to English barons. This act of justice will not be delayed always; it will come. I want the soldiers to recollect their friends, and by that they can get their dues; they certainly never will if they forget them. I mean tried friends, friends who have acted for them, not promising friends, always so full of “gratitude.” This House passed over four hundred bills granting pensions to disabled soldiers, their widows and orphans, who were unable to get pensions at the Pension Department. This House has been JUST TO THE LAHOEINO MEN of the country. It passed the bill providing for labor statistics and a report to Congress of the best means that law will give to protect them and insure to them their own. It went farther than this, and passed a hill suppressing the labor contract system in foreign countries. Monopolists, ever ready to get labor very cheap, sent agents to European countries to hire gangs of men at low wages and import them. This bill kills that system. This good deed was never thought of by any Republican Congress. This House passed a resolution, introduced by Col. Morrison, instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to apply all revenue over $100,000,000 to the payment of United Stai es bonds due and payable; and cut off his power to buy them at a premium, as given him by a prior law. This Democratic House passed nearly a free shipping bill. Its effect was to restore our ship-building, which had declined to nearly nothing in the last twenty-four years. It would have sent American-built ships afloat in every port under the pi otection of the American flag; it would have

RESTORED OUR LOST COMMERCE on the high seas, and delivered our agricultural and manufactured wealth to distant lands, reviving all industries and keeping labor well employed; but this bill was too free for the protective tariff men, and when the bill went to the Senate, they loaded it down with deathly amendments to destroy its benefits to America and American commerce. The countries of Europe buy 356,000,000 bushels of wheat. Of this amount, Russia, India and other countries supply about 187 000,000, leaving 169,000,000 to be supplied by the United States. The foreign demand for com is about 125,000,000 bushels. Foreign countries sell about 56,000,000 bushels, leaving the United States to supply 69,000,000 bushels. Every man must see the vital importance to this country—to the farming interest—of increased shipping facilities for the United States. Give us tree ships for America. Away with the tariff on ship-building materials, and down with bad navigation laws. This Democratic House refused to pass the Senate Bankruptcy Bill. Such laws are generally executed in the interest of officials, and the debtor’s estate is wasted through high charges and expenses, while creditors get nothing ; and it is generally considered a safe escape by all the rascais in the country from payment of honest debts. I voted twice to take up the Ragan Inter-State Commerce Bill, which provided for an equitable adjustment of freight rates upon the railroads. You may search the record ot Congress through, and you cannot find one of my votes on the side of monopoly in any form. You will find every vote I gave on the side of the people. This Democratic House passed a bill compelling all land grant railroad companies to survey their unsurveyed lands and receive their patents therefor, in order that their lands may be liable to taxation in the Western States. Ever since these grants were.made large bodies of excellent land have not been taxed at all, while the poor settler was compelled to pay tax upon his homestead with regularity. By this bill, these land-grant corporations must step up to the office and pay taxes on their lands like other people. It isstrange that the present or past Administrations of the Government never thought of this act of justice before, though the omission continued through many past years. If I said they were in league with these corporations, to shield them, I would not overdraw the truth. I tell you, a change of Administration is one of the best things needed in this country, and the changes ought to be continued until abuses are corrected and the people’s rights heeded. If the Democratic party, when in power, docs not do right or forms a league with monopoly |

turn it out of power, and I will help to do il. This Government belongs to the people, and no party has an inherent right to control or administer it; the people grant t hat. right. Political parties are made better by punishment, and that is what tht Republican party wants now. It would be much better for that party if it were turned out of power for a few years, and then it would come back with good new men to administer the Government, which would be better for the party and better for the country. lam a profound believer in purification by punishment and repentance. One of the greatest questions of this campaign is TARIFF REFORM. Shall the present tariff law be revised and reformed? The Republican party in Congress made the present tariff law and all its wrongs and inequalities. Will that party reform it? Will the party that made the house tear it down? That party made this unjust law in the interest of monopolies and at their command, and will it now oppose them and revise the law? Whatever the party professes in platforms to do, I say it never will do. It has had twenty years to make a revision of this oil ions law, and whenever the subject comes liefore Congress it persistently refuses to do anything against the monopolist, and talks high protection all the while. Go to the record and read their speeches. When back home among the people, they say, “Oh. the law is a liad one and it should be revised,” and they put it in the platform that they want revision. But when the elections are over you find them on the floor of Congress fighting all reform and revision of the tariff', and we put the question to them, “ Are you not pledged in your platforms to revise the tariff? ” “ Oh, yes,” they say, “ but we don’t want to do it that way. ” Our way don’t suit them; and I tell you that Divinity might suggest a way of reform, and they would say that would not suit them. The fact is, they want no tariff reform, no reduction of high taxation. They preach one thing to the people and practice another in the Congress of the United States. I am down on this hypocrisy. If I preach one thing to you and practice another in Congress, you would be right in calling me a scoundrel. Have not they resolved in their platforms for fifteen years past, that they favored tariff revision? Why did they neglect to carry out the platform soon as they were elected and safe in their seats again? It is practice, and not professions, that lam considering. You cannot find a Republican platform that favors our present tariff law. If it is a good thing, the party ought to be proud of it, and hold it up before the people as a model of benefits to the country. They never mention this handiwork with approval, but go before the people about election time and tell them, “We, too, arc for revision.” But they never revise; they will not justify this law before the people. In their platforms they say they want tariff' reform and revision. That is an admission made by the authors of the law, that the law is wrong and unjust to the people. If the law is wrong, then why don’t they revise or help do it in Congress? If it has been wrong and unjust to the people all those years, why do they allow such an unjust law to continue on the statute book? In every platform the Republican managers write, they say they want a certain sort of tariff, or are in favor of a revision. They know the present law is not the tariff they declare for. They know the law iB wrong and unjust, and they say they want revision. Why? Because it is wrong and upjust. After election, why do they not correct the wrong? Why don’t they revise? They wait until the next election then make another resolve that the law is unjust and ought to be revised, or declare for somesort of a tariff that the law does not include. According to Republican p 1 at forms we have had a wrong and unjust tariff law on the statute books for twenty-four years, and yet they do nothing to remedy this great wrong, but stand by and see monopolists pile up millions, wrung from the wages of labor and the unwilling producer. Why do they play this way wiih the people? Is there no end to the people’s innocence and crcdulty ? Will the people ever see through sham and hypocrisy ? Will they ever find out that the Republican party in Congress will not revise or remodel their own deliberate work ? Don’t believe that they will, for they will not. The President declared in his message to Congress as lollows: “ A total abolition of excise taxes would almost inevitably prove a serious if not an insurmountable obstacle to a thorough revision of the tariff, and to anv considerable reduction in import duties. The present tariff system is in many respects unjust. It makes unequal distributions both of its burdens and its benefits. * * If the tax on domestic spirits is to be retained, it is plain therefore, that large reductions from the customs revenue are entirely feasible. * * But the present system should lie so revised as to equalize the publieburden amongall classes and occupations, and bring it into closer harmony with the present needs of industry. Without entering into minute detail, which, under present circumstances, is quite unnecessary, I recommend an enlargement of the free list so as to include within it the numerous articles which yield inconsiderable revenue, a simplification of the complex and inconsistent schedule of duties upon certain manufactures, particularly those of cotton, iron, and steel, and a substantial reduction of the duties upon those articles, and upon sugar, molasses, silk, wool, and woolen goods. If a general revision of the tariff shall lie found to be impracticable at this session, I express the hope that at least some of vhe more conspicuous inequalities of the present law may be corrected before your final adjournment.” This was the voice of President Arthur to the second session ot the last Congress. What was done? A tariff commission was appointed and it traveled all over the country and made its report, in which an average reduction of twenty-five per cent, was recommended. Did Congress accept that report ? No, it went to work and actually increased the tariff on woolen and cotton, and iron and steel goods, and on many other articles. The very things the people buy and use most —the things most necessary to their living, comfort and welfare—they increased the duty instead ot lowering i‘, and made a general reduction ot less than two per cent., instead of twenty-five per cent, as recommended by the tariff commission. We do not want free trade. We cannot have that under our system of raising revenue, and it would not be desirable now under any system. But we do want reduction of duties and a reform of this bad law. It was drawn in the interest of monopoly and has been maintained in that interest, and more and more, as the act was amended. The high duties are shameful and the inequalities indefensible. This Government is compelled to raise about $175,000,000 from duties on imports for its support and to pay its matured obligations. Is not this sum enough protection to homo industries? In the nameoi justice, is not $175,000,000 of money protection enough ?