Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1884 — CARTER H. HARRISON. [ARTICLE]

CARTER H. HARRISON.

Speech of the Democratic Nominee for Governor ot Illinois. Ke Retiews Mr. Blaine’s Public Career and the Record of the Republican Party. fcgeat Reasons Why the Democrats I Should Govern the Country—Full Time for an Accounting. what Mr. Harrison Will Do When I Elected Chief Executive of I Illinois. I The Democracy of De Kalb, 111., recentr held a rousing mass meeting. The orai>r of the occasion was Mayor Harrison, Iho was invited to open the campaign in pat stronghold of Republicanism. The atIndance was very large, and comprised lany Republicans. After the usual introlactory exercises the Mayor spoke as foI-■FELiiOW-CmzENS: We are commencing again Be periodical battle fought between the great lolitical parties of this State. lam one of nose who do not claim that all the honesty is I my own party, and I will not consent that nose opposed to us shall claim that they have II the honesty. [Applause and cries of “Good, |>od!”] I believe that the rank and tile of the Sublican party are just as honest as the rank file of the Democratic party. [Applause.] Id that the masses of the Republican party and llthat the Democratic masses want is good fcverament. [Applause.] Only a few of us can l>ld office; that is, only a few as compared with he great mass of American people—the 54,000,■o that now compose our nation. As I said, ■hat the masses want is good government; a Evernment that will permit a man to work aud It an honest day’s wages; that will enable him I live in comfort; that will enable him to lay ■> something for a rainy day, and that will enBte him to leave what he has amassed to his life and children, If they survive him, or to lose heh-s he may choose to inherit his prop- ■ Now, my friends, I suppose that in this great lowd you are not all Democrats. [Cries of “No. lit all.”J I suppose there is a large sprinkling Ire ot honest, earnest Republicans. [Voices, ■here is.”j It is to such men that I wish to Beak more than I wish to speak to Democrats, Ir Ido not intend to make a hurrah speech, lie Democrats are thoroughly aroused this fall. Mey do not want speakers to tell them to go to Be polls. They are going, to the last man of Bern, to do battle for their noble cause. [ApBause and cries of “You are right.”] I want to talk ■Republicans, and I will say to those RepublicBs here: My friends your party had its birth in a Bble idea. Your party was conceived in a resoBtion that American slavery should be circumBribed to moderate limits, and should not go any Brther In this great country of ours. You were Ben bom of a determination to stop the enBoachments of slavery. When your partv came Bto existence you nailed to your banner that Btermination, that all men were born free and lual and that slavery must cease its inroad on Bnerican soil. Under your rule war sprang up. Mu then determined to keep your party in powI because you were deter mined that, your party Bvlng been in power when the war began, you Bould stay in power until the war was over. Me Democrats made a mistake in 1864, and Md that I the war was a failure. Meir meaning was, that the conduct of the Mr was a failure; but you believed that they Mant that the cause of the war and its entire ■n was a failure, and you kept your party in Bwer because a majority of the' people voted ■th you. You then determined to keep your ■rty in power that you might reconstruct the Mion that had been temporarily sundered. In ■ of these tights you were lighting for a mighty Mnciple, and your platform had in it sentiMnts that the best of Republicans could adMre to and fight for. Now I ask you, my ReMblican friends, to read your platform fulmi■ted the other day in Chicago. Read it Metully, and as honest men tell me if there is Me single great principle enunciated in it; if it ■not, on the other hand, simply a platform Mown out to catch votes. 1 mean this earnestly, Mr Republican friends. I ask you earnestly. In have in your platform but one single idea Mt you had in tlio past, and that is that the Bn relic of barbarism—polygamy, Mormonism Mhould be done away with. Your party has Men in power twenty-four years, and what Mve you done to do away with polygamy and ■rmonism? Absolutely nothing; and, there■e, that plank In your platform Is an arraign■nt of your own party for its shortcomings in ■ past. Under the plank in your platform ■ant to catch the honest laborer your party deMres for an eight-hour law. You have had an ■ht-hour law on the United States Btatute ■>kfor years, and your party has failed to Mry It Into operation for one single half year in ■ir twenty-iour years of power; therefore, ■t plank is an arrangment of your party for M shortcomings for the last twenty-four years, ■mother plank was that there should be no ■re land given to corporations. My friends, ■en your party has given away to great corpo■ions 292,00 i ,000 acres of land, now a vast por■lof it held by non-resident lordlings, princes, ■t corporations, you declare that it shall not ■given away. That plank is an arraignment ■rour party for its misdeeds in the last twen■four years. [Applause.] When you have ■en away every acre that a man would take, ■vlng only such barren lands that sheep would ■rve on, that a crow dares not fly over lest ■ali should take his breath away, then you ■ you are going to save that for the people, ■ughter and applause.] ■ow, then, your platform says that the land ■nted to corporations that have been for- ■ SHALL BE TAKEN BACK ■m those corporations. The Democratic House ■Representatives passed a bill of forfeiture of ■ non-used railroad lands. It went to the ■tate. In that Senate there were ten or fifteen ■tubers who had sat in the Chicago convention ■l heard your platform and approved of it. ■.en that hill, passed by a Democratic House, ■ to your Republican Senate, they sat down on ■because they dared not disobey their masters, SI great corporations. Now can you trust a ■ty that pledges certain things ini?s platform, ■ then your Senators, a part of the delegates ■that convention, go to the Senate chamber smother the bill? I will tell you nothing ■ facts. Your platform says that the Governs of territories shall be chosen from among ■ inhabitants of the territory which that Gov■or is to govern. Hardly was the ink dry ■ch wrote that platform when your Repub■n President sent to the Senate of the United ■tea the nomination of Mr. Pierce, living in ■cago, and writing for the Republican party ■he Governor of Dakota. And the Republican Hate confirmed that appo ntmont, and Gil H-oe is to-day Governor of Dakota. How can trust a party that makes promises and im■ilately goes back on its promises before the ■ with which they have been writen is dry? ■ow, your platform says that Chester A. Ar■r has made a splendid President; that he has ■e his duty; that he is an honest man; and your convention turns around, kicks Arthur out of Washington, and puts Blaine in nomination. [Laughter and ap■ise.] My friends, look at this picture: ■ster Arthur, an honest man; a man who has ■erally given a fair administration; a man {■) has not been hinted at as using his office ■individual profit. And then look at that pic- ■>: The man you have nominated tattooed (■n head to foot, with corruption of every sort ■ character. [Applause.] Now, then, your is a trot-line. Bow, your trot-line is baited for the Irishman: <■ baited for the temperance men; it is baited ■the laboring man, and then finally they put Blaine, as a bait to catch the corpora■s with. [Laughter and applause.] And that, !■ friends, is the only piece of bait that vour ■tform has that is savory. The corporations ■ swallow Jim Blaine, and swallow him with ■isure. [Applause and laughter.] Now, Ido ■ Intend to throw any mud at Mr. Blaine. I to talk of him as a statesman, or . A PRETENDED STATESMAN, ■as a politician. Mr. Blaine has been in Con- ;■» now for very many years. I defy any man statute books and find one sinact ever passed in the interest of the people •■> Mr. Blaine ever fathered or labored for. ■ one. But wherever there was a bill meant ■elp a corporation. Mr. Blaine, by some sininfatuation, invariably voted for it. Now, IB Blaine last winter prepared a bill which he ;Bight was going to catch all the States in the ■on; he proposed to divide all the revenue ■ing from whisky and tobacco among the ■cs according to population. That is, that ■tois, which has 3,000,000 of population and !■} $28,000,000 revenue, should give of your collected from your pockets, to Maine §■ to other States which do not pay an inter■revenue. This bill of his fell still-born, ■r. Arthur last year, in his message, recomto Congress a reduction of the tariff it was collecting too much revenue. SB Arthur knew that taxes wrung from the

people and put Into the Treasury of the United States to lie idle was robbery of the people; that it was harmful to the people. A commission was aDpointed to reduce that tariff. Now, Mr. Blaine, In his letter of acceptance, says; “Suppose there is too much revenue, why,” he says, “it does not do any harm. A hundred millions of revenue can be used to pay the national debt with.” Now, my friends, think of that magnetic, brilliant man showing so little statesmanship and so little thought that he proposes to take from you every year $100,000,tOo to pay the national debt with! The national debt cannot be paid for years unless you pay a premium upon that debt equal on 4 per cents to 20 odd per cent, premium; that Is, if you were to take $100,000,000, you cannot pay the debt because It is not due. The debt cannot be called in because the law is such that it cannot be forced. The only way that Mr. Blaine conld take that $100,000,000 and pay $100,000,000 of debt would be by buying in the 4 per cents and giving $124,000f)00 for the 110u,000,000. That is, having lobbed you of $100,000,000 of your taxes, he proposes to rob you of $24,000,000 more to give to the bondholder to pay him for surrendering the $100,000,000. Now, Mr. Blaine makes you give 6 pier cent, or 10 per cent, for the money that you pay your taxes with, and then proposes to give that to the bondholder; to pay tae bondholder 24 pier cent, to get in your debt. If you do not understand that thoroughly recollect that the United States Government is a part of yourself, that yon are an incorporator, a depositor, and owner, of the United States. You do not belong to the United States Treasury, but the Treasury of the United States belongs to you. Every million of dollars In that Treasury belongs, part of it, to you—[pointing to a man in the crowd] —part to yon—[indicating another listener] —and so on, and every one who pays taxes helps to support it. “How?” say you. Everything that a man wears in the United States pays, in the shape of tariff duty, a tax to the General Government. That tax varies from 30 to 40, and in some instances 70 per cent. You buy iron for your barb-wire fence. It costs you some 20 to 30 pier cent. to buy It; that goes either into the Government or into the barb-wire manufacturer’s pocket. I can not discuss this question now, because it requires a degree of elaboration greater than my time or my voice will permit. But Mr. Blaine declares in favor of high protection—not protection, but high protection. His letter of acceptance says that all of our prosperity comes from the protection that the tariff has placed upon every manufactured article in America. He does not allow himself to stand upon the platform, but he goes still farther in his letter of acceptance, and declares for high protection. Now, my friends, what does the Democratic platform promise you? It promises to do what Mr. Arthur, a Republican President, advised to be done—reduce the tariff duties; but it does not say reduce them so as to destroy a single manufacturer. It says reduce them by such gradual means that it will not destroy the manufacturer or vested interest. It says, further than that, that in levying duties we are to consider the different price on labor In America and In foreign countries. That is, in putting a duty upon a single article we must find how much it costs to make that article, and then, finding the cost in this country, we must find how much a man’s labor is worth in America, and how much 1t is worth in England, France, or Germany, and then make that duty such as to protect our laboring man. Mr. Blaine says: “Protect the manufacturer: protect the great corporations.” The Democratic party says: "Protect the laboring man.” [Cheers.] Now, some of you will say: "Oh, but protecting the manufacturer protects the laboring man." My friends, we protect the great ironmill or the cotton-mill, and all at once the cot-ton-mill finds it has got so much stuff on hand or thgliron-miller finds he has got so much Iron on hand that he cannot sell it. He stops work, and then you poor devils that are working for him have to go supperless to bed. [A voice, “That’sa fact.”] That is what you have to do. Therich capitalist engaged in manufacturing can stop his work and thereby stop production, and the stuff that he has got on hand goes Into the market, rises in value, and enables him to make by the increased value enough to cover the interest on his plant while his mill is idle, but the poor fellow working from early morn till late at night to find food and raiment for his children has no capital laid up to live on. He has no fat like a bear that he can eat during the long winter months. He must either work or starve, and the great manufacturer says; "Well, my friend, you must either starve or you must knock down your wages to suit what I want.” Now, you hear of strikes all over the country. People think that those strikes are always gotten up by the laborer. In one-half of the instances they are gotten up by the manufacturers themselves, so as to enable their mill to shut down work, so that they can get rid of their stuff, and the poor laborer has to “root hog or die,” and not having much to root for, a good many of them die. Now, why do yon trust this Republican party which has shown that It has done some dishonest acts? Don’t you think you had better turn over a new leaf and put in a new set of men to examine it? "Oh, but,” some of you will say, "we are afraid of the Democratic party. Onr party is honest.” My friends, I ask you to study human nature, and if you do you will find that any party in the world left too long in power will either become corrupt or will become negligent. [Applause and cries of "That’s true.”] It is not necessary that I should charge the Republican administration with being dishonest, but I say that they have been so long in power that they have become extravagant, negligent, wasteful. Now, my friends, when an officer wastes the money that is taken from your pockets by taxes, he is robbing yon. [Applause.] But I said that this Republican platform tried to catch Irishmen and laborers. My fellowcitizens, what has the Republican party in its twenty-four years ot power done for the laboring man? I ask you what has it done? It has built corporations. Mr. Blaine, in his letter says: “It has added $30,000,000,060 to the national wealth from 1860 to 1880; that It was high protection that did it.” Why, the man showed his folly when he said it. That vast increase has been brought about by the great millions of acres of land thrown into production out West, and GROWN INTO RICHNESS. In 1860 the average value of the State of Hlinois was about $5 an acre. There are 35,000,000 acres of land In Hlinois. Let ns suppose that the average of that 35,000,000 acres is to-day S3O an acre—and I suspect It is not far from it. What does that mean? It means $25 an acre added from 1860 to 1880. That means $875,000,000 here in Hlinois alone! Mr. Blaine savs high protection made that land go up. Why, don’t vou know that what made our land go up was the railroads that have penetrated it. The public improvements that have enabled the farmer to get his grain to market have increased the price of his land. Just think of it—5875,060,000 profit between $5 an acre and S3O an acre in the State of Illinois alone! That is not all. From 1860 to 1880 7,200 miles of railroad were added in the State of Illinois. Those railroads cost about $25,000 a mile. That means about $1,500,000,000. Therefore, in the State of Illinois alone the Increased price of land and the price of railroads means over $2,000,0u0,000 —one-fifteenth of all of that that Mr. Blaine boasts is the work of the Republican party. My friends, when I was a young man I would have ridden five miles just to look at a man worth a million. I would have ridden that to see what he looked like. When I was a young man I never saw a man worth a million. I thought he would look different from other men. Now there are in the United States ten men who have an aggregation of $500,000,000; that is, there are ten men who are worth that; they average $50,000,000 apiece. • There are 100 men in the United States that are worth twentv or twenty-five millions apiece. That is, these 100 men are worth $2,500,000,000. How did they make It? Did Jay Gould or Vanderbilt, with their vast, countless wealth, ever earn one single honest dollar by honest toil? Not one dollar. How did i h?y get it? Through the laws that the Republican party have been keeping np for the last twenty-four years; laws made to make rich men richer and poor men poorer. [Applause and cries of “That’s so.”] But the Republican platform says they are going to have a vigorous foreign policy. Oh! they are going to catch the Irishman who hates old England. [Laughter and applause.] They say they will have a vigorous foreign policy, and they will put Jim Blaine up and he will twist the British lion’s tail. They will have that lion roaring for four years, and Queen Victoria will be dancing before Uncle Sam and begging him for God’s sake to let her alone, and sfie will give Ireland her freedom. [Laughter and a voice, “She will.”] Jim Blaine, the friend of the Irishman. Ah, Jim was the friend of the Irishman! In 1854,—[a voice, By golly, I remember that year”]—when the Knownothing party was in Siwer in Maine, there was a fusion between the nownothing party and the Maine law peqple and some disgruntled Wh gs, and they elected Mr. Blaine’s friend, Anson P. Morrill, as the Governor of Maine. When they elected him, what was done? The Legislature under Mr. Morrill’s administration passed a resolution that foreigners—l can not give you the words, but I will give you the substance of it—that foreigners SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to have separate military organizations In Maine. Mr. Blaine’s paper, the Kennebec Journal, was the supporter of Anson P. Morrill, and the supporter of that Legislature. At the same time there was a meeting In Bangor, Maine, and the mob burned down a Catholic church. [A voice, “That’s true ”J What did Mr. Blaine’s paper, the Kennebec Journal , say? He was half owner In it and chief editor. He apologized for that mob by saying that the mob had been provoked by some Irish Catholics driving a wagon through it and disturbing it. It was an apology for the mob and a palliation of the burning of a church of God, dedicated to the worship of our Savior, a church with a cross upon it, where they worshiped - according to the Catholic faith, simply because some Catholics had disturbed a public meet ng! That is not all: A little while afterward, the Rev. Mr. Pabst was taken by a

mob ot Knownothings, stripped, tarred, and ridden upon a rail simply because he was a Catholic priest, and Mr. Blaine's paper had no word of denunciation of that terrible crime. [A voice, “I nave got the records In mv house of that transaction."] Yet they say that Mr. Blaine is a friend of the Irishman and of the ioreigner. He will have a vigorous foreign policy, they say. Mr. Harrison here discussed at great length the “McSweeny case,” and, continuing, said: I made a speech in the Mansion-House, in the Lord Mayor s mansion, in Dublin, in 1882, while McSweeqy was yet in prison, I think. I wore a hat like this (a black slouch hat}—not the sort of hat that an Englishman wears, but such as an Irishman or an American wears going to Ireland. I made a speech there in which I said that I had no Irish blood in my veins; that I had English blood, and was one that ought not to sympathize with Ireland; yet I did sympathize with Ireland, and I appealed to the Ministry to do Ireland justice. I told them that my ancestor had led Charles I. to the block; that dread act which taught kings that they had necks, and that the people conld sever those necks from th ir shoulders. When I got through my speech before something like one hundred and fifty of the elite of Dublin, I was taken back by Mayor Dawson, the Lord Mayor, by T. D. Sullivan, the patriot, by a member of Parliament, Mr. Biggar, and by Michael Davitt, And I was told that probably I should be Bhown up to the Castle before I would be allowed to leave. [A voice; "That’s the time yon defied them.”] They said I would probably be arrested. “Ah,” said I, "they will never arrest me, for free speech can be uttered by an American in Ireland as well as In England.” Why, I didn’t know of McSweeny’s case then, but Biggar, and Sullivan, and Davitt knew of it, and they thought that I had said a great deal more than McSweeny had said, and probably I would be given the hospitalities of the dungeon. [Laughter and applause.] I remember, also, when I told Mr. Lowell, in London, that 1 was going to Ireland, and I wished to the Lord 1 could make a speech in London or in Ireland on the wrongs of Ireland, Mr. Lowell said to me: “Mr. Harrison, my advice to you is, don’t do it.” I did not know that Mr. Lowell had written that letter to Mr. McSweeny, that an American citizen could .not make a speech in a public meeting. I felt that the stars and stripes were around me, that the flag of my country floated over me, that the Secretary of State of my country and my President would protect me in every land; but I didn’t know that the Government in Washington had a Secretary of State that liked to twist the lion’s tall by letting Irishmen lie in jail. [Laughter.] I did not know that Mr. Blaine, who could bulldoze or try to bulldoze Mexico, conld take an insult from the British Government as he had. Now I know it, and If I ever go to Ireland again, and Mr. Blaine is President, I will look around three or four times to see if there Is any constable by when I go to talk. [Laughter.] MARK THE DIFFERENCE between Mr. Blaine’s course and a Democratic Secretary of State. In 1853, one Mr. Kozta, a Hungarian who had come to America and hadn’t even been naturalized—he had simply declared his intentions—was on an American ship at Smyrna; he was arrested by the Austrian Consul. An American sloop-ot-war, the St. Louis, commanded by Lieut. Ingram, was not far off. Did Limit. Ingram write to the American Consul to find out whether Mr. Kozta was innocent? No, sir, he shotted his guns, he sailed that sloop into Smyrna’s harbor, he pointed those guns, and he took out his match and he said: “If Mr. Kozta is not released in so many hours, I will blow that fort into atoms;”—[applause]—and Mr. Kozta was given up to Lient. Ingram. The Austrian demanded of the American Government the surrender of Kozta, and the American Government refused. The Austrian Governmene then appealed to other European nations to demand of the American Government the surrender of Kozta and the degradation of Ingram. Mr. Marcy, the American Secretary of State, said the American flag protected every man, whether he were native-born, naturalized, or had declared his intentions, and he neither gave him up nor apologized, nor did he degrade Lieut. Ingram. If you get a Democratic President in, you will hear of no more “suspects” lying in prison until the Consul determines their innocence. Now, whom do we offer you? We offer youfor President Mr. Cleveland. There is no use of speaking of him. He has proved himself a model Mayor and a model Governor. The workingmen and some of the Irishmen say he has vetoed some bills that he ought not. I think, when the Irishmen and the workingmen read those vetoes, they will see he was right, and they will find that no charge of corruption ever adhered to Mr. Cleveland. He has been honest. We declare for reform, and he will give us reform. lam going to be elected Governor—[a voice, “I hope so!”]—and I tell you when I am elected, and am sworn in, you halloo out “Diogones has his lantern, and he is going to find out something rotten?” [Laughter and applause.] They call me the best Mayor Chicago ever had. lam going to be Diogenes hereafter, looking out with my lamp for Republican corruption, [A voice: "I hope you will!”! Aye, my friend, I will. Why? Because the thousands of people in this State do not intend to vote for a party that believes that it should make a man a Christian by statute, or send him to heaven by law. [Laughter and applause..! Whenever the Republican party gets into power, it wants to get inside of our houses and tell us how much we should eat, and whether we should DRINK ANYTHING OR NOT. Up in Maine, when they got the power, they passed the Maine law—prohibition—and a fellow goes sneaking in the back door to take a drink like he was going to steal his neighbor’s umbrella. Over here in lowa they got an overwhelming majority, and there they passed prohibition; bnt we believe that a man’s home is his castle. The Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, and Irishmen will join with ns Americans, and they will say, “We will put the Democratic party in, that does not believe in sumptuary laws.” We intend not to have Mr. Blaine, who wrote in favor of prohibition in Maine. Why, the other day a clergyman in Chicago said the Republilicans were the best Prohibitionists, and there was no use in voting the Prohibition ticket; that the Republican party was enough prohibition; that they would help prohibition as soon as they got the power. Now, my German friends, that is what a preacher says, and a preacher never states anything that is not true. You vote for the Republican party, and in a few years you will have to be slipping over into some other State to get your schnit of lager. If the Germans desert the Democrats this year, it will serve them right if they are never allowed to drink a single glass of lager hereafter. My friends, 1 am going to be elected Governor. lam going to do my best for you. I will try to bring about reform in the State administration as I have endeavored to do it in Chicago. I will run the State government a 3 a business corporation, honestly, doing no stealing myself, and allowing nobody else to steal.