Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1886 — SENSIBLE TALK. [ARTICLE]

SENSIBLE TALK.

Extract from a Speech of Hon. David Turpie, at Indianapolis, Irid. The country hat; considered itself under great obligations to corporate interests. They have spanned the oceans and crossed and recrossed the continent, and they have received a vaster return than many imagine. I don’t refer now to the subsidies of land or money, but the franchises they have been granted without stint, for if there is any power which has not been granted to corporations it has been simply because it has not been asked for. There has been no restriction —6uch has been the course of public feeling, and such has been Republican policy for the past twenty-five years. Now, fellow-citizens, I think it is time to retrace our steps and go in another direction; and when we have given the same kind of study and care and attention to the rights and interests of labor, and of those interests which affect flesh and blood as they are related to these corporations, and always must be—when we have done that—those parties will be placed more upon an equality. In Indiana we have hail some Democratic administration; we have a mechanic’s lien, and made ■weekly or monthly payments of employes compulsory, and made claims for labor preferred debts. We must dig down deep into the lives of wage-workers and see to it that both by State and national legislation the right to live, at least, in this country of freedom shall be guaranteed beyond all risk of injury. I hope for the peaceable adjustment of the troubles between organized capital and labor, because I hope well of my country and of my countrymen. The Christianity and public conscience of the age will demand that, capital shall concede something. I believe, fellow-citizens, that both sides are capable of self-government, and self-government means self-sacrifice. Public opinion formulated in the law must be the measure of that self-renunciation, and the parties must yield in the interest of peace and order. We have a savor in Democratic doctrine, usage, and tradition—a savor in this example of a Democratic President —a savor of health, security, and repose, which time and patience will at last establish and secure. Not only were the rights of labor particularly brought to the front by the President in his message to Congress. Look at the action of the Executive upon the question of the public domain. Trespassers have been driven from it, and 50,000,000 acres of lands forfeited by grants heretofore made to corporations which have failed to comply with the condition of the grants have been recovered to the Government. The last land grant has been made to corporations. Tbe last land grab has been accomplished, and the public lands are hereafter to be reserved for actual settlers. This is one of the great measures in the history of the progress of that reformation which I think is to be carried through all departments of the Government.

I think much of the criticism made upon the President with respect to removals and appointments is not justly founded. You must remember we have an act upon the statute-book, passing during the Republican administration, called the civil-service reform act, whose leading feature would entitle it to the name of “perpetual tenure of office act.” By its provisions persons who apply for positions under the Government must pass an examination as to scholastic competency. There is no objection to that. But the great feature in the act is that after having so passed and secured a position they are not to be removed except for cause. The whole civil service is to be put upon the plan of officers in the army and navy. To that part of the enactment we have an undivided opposition. It is casting the country too much into the mold of a monarchy to appoint 14,000 for life; we might as well appoint the rest for life, and so finish. It is a practical disfranchisement of the remainder of the people. I believe the right to vote includes and embraces in it the right to be voted for, and every citizen has the same right, other things being equal, to aspire to anv position in the political civil service. While these are mine, and I feel confident they are your sentiments, we can not blame the Chief Magistrate for enforcing existing laws, for he has sworn to execute the law. The remedy is to repeal the law which is obnoxious to public sentiment. And besides this obstacle in the way of a thorough change of Federal appointments, the Executive is not only tied by a statute, but also tied by Senatorial consent and discretion. One large class of officers are not removable under an existing law, and all others are not effectually removable without the consent of a political body hostile to the President of the United States. Instead of being a matter of criticism it might be a matter of surprise that so much has been done as has already been accomplished. It is a common saying that we are now living under a Democratic administration. I regret, deeply regret, to say that statement is not true* It is a misconception, it is an error, and the sooner (he public mind is disabused of that error the better. Under existing circumstances we can not have Democratic administration. It is true in November, 1884, we elected a distinguished citizen, a gentleman fully imbued with Democratic principles and truly loyal to Democratic tenets and tradition, who was then Governor of the State of New York, to the Presidency of the United States; and it is true at the same time we elected to the second office Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, one whose whole life had been given to the advocacy of Demo ■ cratic rights and interests; and it is true at the same time we elected to the House in the second branch of the Government a large majority of gentlemen of the same political faith and sentiment. But a President and Vice President and a House of Representatives do not make an administration. They could not alone administer the Government a single day. They could pass no law, inaugurate no policy, nor appropriate a dollar from the Treasury by their action alone. There is still a large and important branch of the National Government which was against us in 1884, and is against us yet—the Senate of the United States. How far this adverse element has prevented or may prevent this administration froip being Democratic no man can say. Under the Constitution of the United States its office is to advise and assist the President in the discharge of cettain executive duties. But there is nothing necessarily of an obstructive character in its sessions, whether public or private. The trouble is not in the Senate as such, but in

the political character of the men who compose it. What, then, remains as part of our duty in Indiana? I am not one of those who think the great political reaction that commenced in this country in 1884 by our success is to take one step backward. I believe it will move forward. I believe Democratic success will come. It may be hindered, it may be retarded, but it will arrive at last.’ We must put such construction upon public judgment as shall touch and reach the Senate of the United States before we can have a Democratic administration and before we can carry the principles of Democratic reform into the different departments of the Government, where they have been so long denied and needed. In Indiana we have a part to do in that work. And we must send from Indiana to the Senate of the United States a man who will help to do that. And let us send to the National House of Representatives gentlemen who will aid and help President Cleveland. This is our duty, and this will be our pleasure. You will all be with me in that. Let us form the column, dress the line, draw the sword, throw away the scabbard and battle once again for Democratic truth and justice.