Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1885 — VOORHEES IN BROOKLYN, N. Y. [ARTICLE]

VOORHEES IN BROOKLYN, N. Y.

He Pays His Bespets to Sherman, Foraker, et. al. The following is the speech of Senator Voorhees'made last Thursday night in the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mr. Voorhees said: Ladies and Gentlemen—l have not words to express* my sense of this great meeting under the circumstances by which you are surrounded. I come from the far West where I have been familiar with many political gatherings. I know not your ways so well, but a meeting like this held on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains, under circumstances such as surround you to-night, would mean nothing less than a great and overwhelming victory for the Democratic party. (Applause.) I cannot conceive that it means anything less than that to you. (Cheers.) I an injustice to myself and my own heart if, rising before this audience of Democrats to-night, I did not remember one who, by the Providence of God, has left us: one whose presence here to-night would be more gratifying than that of any other one at this time. As I orossed the river this afternoon from Jersey City the appalling words fell upon my ears: “George B. McClellan is dead!” — He died suddenly at his home this morning, and in this great Democratic meeting of this second city of the great State of New York, I feel that his memory should have

some words before anything else is said. He who struggled with the stronghold of the rebellion when it was strongest; he who met the armies of the South when they were in the first flush of strength; he who struggled long and earnestly to turn the tide, and who wrested from the South the key to the r estoration of the Union at Antietam —he has passed away. The heart of this nation will beat heavily at his tomb when he is laid in it. Many are the wet cheeks tonight among the veteran soldiers wh followed General McClellan, and many of these vete ans are in the ranks of the Democratic party who shared his work withjhim. He had at heart the interests of the great Democratic party. He shared its defeats, he sharedf it •? adversities, but he lived, thank God, long enough to see the sun of Austerlitz rise on its fortunes. (Applause. ) It might be said that the presence of gentlemen like myself, who are from other States, in your locrl councils was inopportune But suffice it for our excuse that we are simply following the example of Republicons who have come to your State from other distant fields. [Laughter and applause.[ lam glad to know that you are to be addressed to-night by the distinguished Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, [applause[, and by Governor Abbett, of New Jersey, (‘applause], and by the Govern rof your own State [great cheers], and oy George Convert, of Ohio. So you may be sure that to-night bre*

, vity must be the scgil of wit.—' When the gentleman who has been elected Governor of Ohio was here a few days ago, as I observed by the reports I have seen of his speeches, he made what apparently was considered by him a pertinent inquiry, “What has the Demacratic party done to restore the business of th’country?” That question suggests to m/ mind, “ What has the Republican party done to destroy the business prosperity of the country?” The Democratic party has had partial power in this country for a little more than seven months. We have the President of the United States, and before I sit down I will say something more about him. We have one branch of Congress, which has not been in session, while the Republicans have possession of the Senate and Judiciary. And yet a man who is thought fit to be ele ted Governor of a grea ? ; State comes here and asks what the Democratic party has done under these circumstances, to restore th a business interests of the country, which have been brought to the verge of ruin by a quarter of a century of unbroken ascendancy by the Republican party. [Great cheering. ] Why, my fellow citizens, these Republican sneakers forget the history of the past twenty-four years, during which the Executive of this Nation (belonged to them; when they controlled the Senate of the United States twenty-.two years out of twenty-four; when the Democratic party had control of the House of Representatives onyl I

! eight years, and of the I Senate but two years.— . The Republicans sho’d , be held responsible for : the condition of the bu- ' siness interests of the I country which they controlled. | Applause. ]- Why, ladiesand gentlemen, every law on the statute books is a Republican law, and [the ittle that the Democratic party has been able to do is to make an effort to amend and better some of the bad laws th tt the Republicans made. They claim great credit on various [subjects, but the sugges* j tions of Governor Foraker recall to mind the fact that the Republicans were driven from power a year ago almost upon a universal confess sicn of guilt. The people believe that if the y should fe restored to power they would do what they did before. (Cheers.) Why, gentlemen, to take the question of the tariff. Who has made the tariff laws of the United States ? The Repub ican party claim the propriet n ship entirely of that question, Yet they could not do better at Chicago than to say that the Repub- ' lican narty pledged itself to correct t io inequalities of the tariff and to relieve the oppressions of labor that existed in the tariff. (Laughter.) So, my friends, f the manufacturer has complained that the industries of the country have been ' pralyzed, if the laborer j has complained of the i want of work,and unfair j wages, you will find it i all flowing from a fountain that has been unsealed by the Republi□an party. 1 say tonight, before this magnificent and audience, that th 1 Democratic party, in the last quarter of a century, has not had the power to make a single law —not one. So, if the blast

furnaces have grown dark at|thetop. of the chimney, if the fires have gone out, if men have vainly sought work and wages, and if uives and children have gone thinly clad and have wept, it is the Republican party that has done the evil work. Let the R publican party say that the Democratic party is to be held responsible for the restoration of business prosperity, disturbed by its accession to power. The man who dares to say that is a political charlatan, who should be driven with scorn from your presence. Why, in the very last platform, in the general confession of last year, and the promise to do better is a plank on the financial management, the manegement of the money question, and even John Sherman (hisses] and that class of men parade their financial wisdom as though they had created financial prosperity, and hold np their hands in horror at the success of the Democratic party for fear it will paralyze this great interest. But, laboring men of t e great city of Brooklyn, who precipitated the great panic upon the people of the Unitea States that lasted from 1873 to 1878, and left this land encumbered with finandial wrecks, bankruptcy and disaster as our coasts are sometimes strewn when a storm has beaten upon it? The Republican party so managed the financial affairs of the country as |o throw 3,C03,000|jf piopleout of employment and prostrate business m all parts of the country, and it was only when public senti-

of South Carolina. (Hisses.) Let them answer for Governor Bullocx, of Georgia. (Hisses.) Let them answer lor all of the great robbers that went down there to plunder, and nave been expurgated from tile society of honest people. Aye, sentence of outlawry was pronounced upon the rogues. Not a man would or should affiliate with ahem. ( Appla se.) Mr. Edmunds came into the New York, and had not one word of condemnation for anything besides the Democratic party. I intend that he shall look at home, at his own confreres, at his own asociates, and see if he can defend them or not. (Applause.) I repeat that the Republican Administration throughout the South paralyized every State that it touch d; broke up its labor system, led the b ack man astray, and incited riot, disorder and bloodshed. Since 1875, since the Democratic party got control of the States that were plund red .vnd oppressed, since the Southern people have controlled their own affairs, and the perambu’ating, itinerant rascals have lost power, the South has prospered more, under the circumstances, than any other portion of the country. When men come into your midst and say that riot, disturbance and lawlessness prevail there, they slander their neighbor, bear false witness against their neghbor. If there were the faintest pretense of truth in the misi<‘presen'ations, the colored men themselves gave the lie to it the <ither day at a mass meeting in Loud<> county Virginia, when they called out, “These things are slanders. We vot' as freely as the whites.” You ru- a commercial people here. This is not merely the city of ew York, or the city of Brooklyn. If is a duster of. mighty cities at the border of the sea.. Your commercial prosperity is dependent upon the fertile, sunny Helds that stretch southward to tne Gulf of Mexico, as well as upon the great fruit valley from which I come. (Applause.) The great mercantile interests, whose "sails whiten every sea, the merchants of your crowded marts are interested deeply m stifling forever the hateful secti< nal cry. ( Applause.) J here are s; me other answers to i be given as to whether there are i lawlessness and disorder in the Senih. Eight million bales of cotton have been prod need within the year—more than ever before. The labor system is* not disordered when such a result is produced.— More than that, even. Before I left Washington I picked up an item of interest that I will venture to produce here. The manufacturers’ Record, published at Baltimore, makes a won erful disclosure. It shows the amount of capital, including the amount of stocks and other investments in the South, in manufacturing industr’es since the Ist of January last—in Ge s ort space of about nine months to be 853.000,000. That money has gone fr in the North to the South. It has gone into every conceivhble kind of manufactur ng industry—iron, coil, cotton. Today it h s n ade the fruitful belt, extending from the Carolinas to Texas, the most promising region of agriculture on the globx' That, gentlemen, is the country that is to be stamped upon and bitterly traduced, ami, as John Sherman (h.ssis > threatens, to be deprive*! .of l ical self-government, of homerule, and precipitated again, not into armed conflict, but into political agitation, that is almost as parlyzing to business industries. No, gent.emen, let i t not come about. Put your loot upon this sectional t ssue - _ the gxeaUßmpire State -of-New-York, that you will i have none of it.. (Applause.) Say that the South is free. Say that, as you desire to regulate yrur own local matters, you will allow the ■ same inestimable privilege to your ; sister States, until they bring themselves w ithin the provision of the : Constitution which authorizes the Federal Government to interfere . with States that have representaj five forms of government. (Applause. ) But a few days ago the man whose voice is as a flute’or the soft South wind said a eulogy on that great General, U. S. Grant, in Boston, I mean Henry Ward Beecher, (hisses and cheers,) and the words he said made such an impression

n mv mind that they still ring in my ears. One sentence especially commends itself, for the wisdom ami thought it contains, to every A merican. These were the words: ‘The death of General has c’m ed the lingering fever of the war, extinguished the last spark of sectional bitterness, and effaced the last vestige of hatred. Cursed be •the hand that shall ca 1 it back.’ We stand to-night to espouse the cause worked out by Grover Cleveland. Some of his friends think that he is going too slow. I sometimes think so when I do not give the subject the thought it deserves. He may be slow in making changes, but we can rest assured that when the changes are made they are good changes, and if our President goes slow he goes absolutely strai’t, and not even his most biHes enemy can find a flaw in his footsteps. I know Grover Cleveland well, and I know that wherever he goes he will go straight. He is handicapped and weighted, but this will make no difference to him. But why do we always stop at Mr. ('leveland’s name when we mention our Administration? If he was all alone he would have to stand all the responsibility of the position. Tell me when our party ever had such a magnificent Cabinet as Mr. Cle eland has selected. Wh n I think of the great men who are his aids, I think that we have reached the age of gi.nts, and that the men of the present day can never be surpassed. Look at Bayard, that able, intellectual man, and, as his name suggests, a chevalier without fear ami without reproach. Let the slanderers and tra‘ ucers say what they may. I have been side by side with him for seven years in the Senate of the United States, and I know him well. Lamar (applause )-- with the fiery genius of his Huguenot blood, tempered by good common sense. Who has spoken more eloquently in favor of peace than he has? He has his seat beside Mr. Cleveland, and when I consider this I feel confident that we are safe. Vilas (applause)-—that great man from the Northwest, even tempered,level headed,sober minded; where can he be excelled for the important position to which our President has selected himWhen we reach Now York there are Daniel Manning am l Mr. Whitney. I think I am in a good Democratic household. It is worth •• of your indorsement. I am glad to hear the resolutions that have been read here, indorsing the administration. The great duty of the hour is to vote the Democratic ticket yourself, and see that your next door neighbors do the same. The value of meetings like this is to inspire us to duty. The party that succeeds is not always the party that has the most votes. It is the party that polls all the votes it has. If the Democratic party, with malice toward none, but feeling that the same old banner is now floating thatas never yet been hauled down, maintains the record it has already gained, it will surely prove victorious on next Tuesday. Let your Governor receive a repetition of the glorious majority that was rolled up when the present head of the Nation ran with him. Have I been partitian? I believe in my party! If I did not I would not be hero. The Demonratic party lias enlarged the boundaries, and provides for the growth of the United States. If the party that opposed the Democrats had had its way the western boundary ot the United States would be he Mississippi River, amt tnat grand territory extending from -the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and northward to British America would not be ou heritag e ihe Louisiana tract stands as a monument to Jefferson and the Democratic party. And I want to say to you that the principles of the Democratic party are as vital in adversity as in prosperity, as vital to-day as they were w .en Jefferson sat in tne White House. Why. no man, my friends, outside of a lunatic asylum or the penitentiary should vote the Republican ticket. (Cheers.) What has the Republican party done for this Government except to ruin it? Ladies and gent’emen, and Mr. Chairman, 1 have to thank you for this attention and to apologize for the fact that I have not come before you better prepared to do justice to this occasion. Mr. Voorhees retired in the midst of thunderous applause.

ineut, roused largely by the Democratic party in Congress, took control of the question that businass prosperity, if not entirely restored, got|an impulse in the right direction in 1878 and 1879. Why, of a 1! t e parties of false pretenses, if time woul d allow me, I could point out that nothing has ever equaled the Republican party in this platform of pledges and jpromises of a year ago, upon which the American people took judgment ( against the Republican party.— I (Applause.) We find them, as it i were, in words of whispering humbleness, and almost with bated breath, and on their kne>>, promising that if the American people would continue their lease of power they would do better in regard to their foreign policy. They would not allow American citizens to rot in British prisons as much as they had done before. The American people did not believe them. Pro,ession is one thing and practice is another. The American ’ eople had seen the Republican party, with all its loud professions of protection for American citizens abroad, allow Daniel McSweeny, and fifty more naturalized citizens, to lie in British jails month after month, and in some instances year atteryear, without indictment, trial or legal accusation, and turned out without apology, sent adrift, ruined, upon the world. (Hisses.) — Th Democratic party took note of these things, and, I repeat, took judgment against the Republican party upon this question as well as others. We, in the West, and you, too, in your crowded hives of industry, are interested in the question of public land. In the platform of promises laid down last year is the pledge to preserve the public domain sa redly for the actual settler, and declaring that every acre of land not earned by the railroads by the terms of the grant, shall be forfeited. Nearly 200 000,000 of acres have been voted away by the Congresses of the United States; every one of them was voted away by the Republican party, and tbe bills giving them away to the great corporations were signed by Republican Presidents of the United States. They declare for forfeiture by acbof Congress. Yet, tho’ they have had control of Congress for more than twenty years, not one act of forfeiture have they made a law. Step by step, they have so debauched the public service, and so violated the confidence of the American people, that they had to come before you in the attitude of humble acknowledgment of their errors and premise to do better. But the most striking example, perhaps, of their effrontery is where they clamor lordly for reform of the civil service. Reform of the civil servic ! I suppose that means better men in office th n n those that have been in office. That would be the kind of reform that I would advocate.— (Applause.) In that respect the Americen peoplejtook them at their word and turned out a good many of them. [Applause.] Andi am prepared to say that a good many more of them will be turned out, soon. [Great applause.] But what was the necessity of reform in the civil service. They had conducted it for the last quarter of a century. They spawned upon this land the Credit Mobiliar as a part of the civil service of the Republican party. J(Applause.) The great Whiskey Rings that robbed the revenues of the land by the million were another part. They were of their begetting, not ours. The Star Route thieves were not of our household, but of theirs. Who sold post traderships for money? What Cabinet officers were impeached for corruption and high crimes? Not Democrats, certainly. But, if there is a necessity for reform of the civil service, how was that hecessity created? None know so well as the John Shermans, the Forakers, the Edmundses, and men of that claes. Let them look to their own household —not to ours. [Applause.] Let them seek to live pur lives. Let them cease their raids upon the public revenues. Then let us turn the rascals out and so reform the public service. [Great applause. J Now, I am committing no heresy as a Democrat in saying these things. I am for honest, pure government, and every method that will

best reach that end. But when a party of cruelty and lawlessness, rapacity and villainy, as I have known it to be in my long service in both branches of Congress, seeks to arraign the Democratic .party, it is the miserable, bloodthirsty wolf of the fable that, standing at the upper part of the stream, looks down, and charges the lamb with muddying the water that it has to drink. [Applause.] It is their own crimes that they recall. I arraign them! They have had the power and have abused it, and they shall not shirk the responsibility. [Applause] his much in response to the man who comes from the State of Ohio to arraign the Democratic party of New York for correcting the faults and errors for which his party is wholly responsible. [Applause.] No v, I am going to plead for a little time on our part. We will not ask for twenty-four years. W e will take about twelve, and that is about what we will have before we are done- [Applause.] If then we have not done something to remedy the evil results of bad legislation, then tu n us out, as we turned them out last fall. [Apolause.] But give us something more than seven months before you judge us. Give us something more than the executive branch f the Government, not yet in session. Give us a fair chance. I am here to plead for the administration that it shall have some chance, and some time in court [Applause.] But here is another Republican shame, and it is amazing that any portion of the people of the great Empire State of New Yo r k should iolerate it. Twenty years have rolled away since the war ended, and '• on had thought that you wo’d hear no more of these hoarse ravens croaking in the air against the South. Ah, gentlemen, I know well the story, and I wonder that any Republican u as the hardihood to speak of the Republican party in connection with the South. Foten years after the war closed there was a carnival of crime, a banquet of plunder and villainy, the like of which is not recorded in history. [Hisses.] I speak advisedly and by the record. In the dark period from 1865 to 1875 there were eleven

Southern States cruelly plundered, until the very wrath of God seemed slow that it was not *mmediately visited on the p rpetrators of so much crime. I have statistics that do not lie, figures that tell tbe truth. They show that in that era of carpet-bagging a rabble of men, whose few belongings did not distend their carpet-bags, imposed upon the hapless States, in addition to the debt that they owed when the war was over, a burden of indebtedness amounting to over $275,000,000. Where are the Governors of the Republican party in the South?— We fall back upon our history; let them fall back on theirs. We will an wer for our Governors. We will answer for the men who have been Governors in the great State of New York. [Applause.] We will answer for Horatio Se unour applause,] Samuel J. Tilden, great applause],Grover Cleveland applause], or David B. Hill. Cheers.) The Rep iblicans want ;o regain control of those Southern States, and govern them i i the old baneful way. They complain that +he South is Democratic; that the Republicans have lost their ascendency in the South. Well may they lose it. The men who misgoverened the Southern States during these ten years of crime of which I have spoken have been scattered like chaff before the wind—some in the penitentiary, some in the jails, Let the Republicans answer for Governor Moses,