Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1886 — A MASTERLY SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

A MASTERLY SPEECH.

United Sta'es Senator Voorhees’ Opening Gun in the andiana Campaign. One of the Most Eioijuent and Forcible Addresses Ever Delivered in the West. Terrible Arraignment of the Republican Party—Why the Government Should Remain Democratic. (From the Indianapolis Sentinel.] Senator D. W. Voorhees opened his campaign in Indiana at Tomlinson Hall on the night ol Sept. 27. His speech was largely in the nature of a reply to the Kenuhliean “key-note” recently sounded by Senator Harrison. The hall was filled with no less than 4,Ml> people, despite the rain, and the receptio.n which the “Tall Sycamore" received was a complete testimonial of his popularity with the masses of Hoosier Democracy. When ho entered the hall the applause was deafening. When ex-Senator McDonald, as Chairman, stepped forward and called the meeting to order, he was given a grand ovation. He said: “We have assembled for the purpose of hearing our distinguished Senator and able Democratic advocato. When wo come togoth rto attend to one thing the best plan is to attend to it at once.” He thereupon introduced Senator Voorhees, who spoko as follows: Mb. President and Fellow Citizens— Among the various manifestations of human depravity tnere arc none, perhaps, more revolting to an upright mind then the practice of arraigning and condemning others for sins and crimes which the accuser himself notoriously and habitually commits. Nearly 1,!)0J years ago the Savior of mankind pointed out and rebuked this detestable vice when he exclaimed in tones which will never die.away: “And why beholdost thou tho mote that is in thy brother s eye, but conaiderest not tho beam that is in thiue own oyo? “Or how wilt th'.u say to thy brother, let me pull out tho mote out of tliino eye, and behold, a beam is in thino own eye? “Thou hypocrite, first cast out tho boam out of thine own eye, uud then shall thou see clearly to cast out tho mole out of thy brother's eye." From tho day of the delivery of tho Sermon on tho Mount until the present time, I doubt if there was ever a more complete and thorough illustration of the conduct tor which the hypocrite was there denounced by tho divine tongue than wus presented by the loaders of the itepublicau party in Indiana at their recent State Convent on. Loaded with the obloquy and shame of maladministration in every department of the Government; full of guilt in connection with overy branch of the public service ; tatooed all over with charges, sp ciiications, and proofs of fraud and corruption made by tho most honored men whoever belonged to that organization, tue Republican party, with an effrontery and mendacity uiioqualed in the history of political literature, now comes forward, and in a railing accusation, full of tho spirit of malice and slander, seeks to fasten upon others the ineffacable stigma of itßowu well-known and most enormous offenses. in the Republican platform of September 2d It is charged that the Democratic party has “succeded to power in the National Go, eminent by virtue of unpardon able crime against free suffrage,” and it is then further declared that “the security of government rests upon an equal, intelligent and honest ballot, and we renew our declaration against crimes of fraud and violence, wherever practiced und under whatever form, whereby the right of every man to cast orio vote, and have that vote counted and returned, is imperiled or abridged.” The assumption here that, Cleveland nn l Hendricks were elected by unpardonablo crimes against free suffrage, and the declaration in favor of an honest ballot and a fair count, are mado by that party which only ten yoars ago disfranchised States, set aside legal returns, organized fraudulent Returning Boards, debauched tho ballotbox, trampled upon constitutional majorities, and by open forgeries, and wholesale perjury and the subornation of perjury, stole the Presidency of the United States. Are we supposed to have forgotten the great fraud, the atrocious crime of 1870, whereby Louisiana and Florida were made to elect a President against whom they hud given largo, distinct, and legally ascertained majorities? The Republican candidate lor Governor of Louisiana was beaten by his Democratic opponent nearly ten thousand, and did not pretend to claim the office. Hayes was in a still smaller minority, and yet perjury and forgery gave him the electoral vote of the State. Ido not believe there is now living a fair minded man, well-informed upon the subject, who will attempt to maintain that Hayes and Wheeler were elected. The majority against them on the popular vote was over a quarter of a million, and tno lawful returns were beyond question before any unbiased tribunal. All the powerful machinery of the Republican party, however, then intrenched in all the high and low places of tho government, with the purse and the sword at its command, was put in motion to subvert the well-known will of tho people, and to Moxicanize the country, for the time being, by a fraudulent revolution. The leaders of the party hero in Indiana, who now calumniate their neighbors, know then, as they do now, that a gigantic fraud was consummated, hut they eagerly urged it on, and without compunction grasped and enjoyed its fruits. Their allegnt.ou that the hucccss of the Democratic party is duo to crimes agaiust free suffrage lias not a vestige of proof, nor a single fact on which to rest, while tue imperishable records of tho country in its public archivos establish all tho details of the conspiracy which, beginning at tho Fifth Avenuo Hotel, New York, at midnight. November (I, 1870, in a conclave of well-known parties, culmiuated on the 4th of March, 1877, in the triumph of a dishonest ballot and a false count. It is a well-known fact, too, and one which will pass into history, that a similar conspiracy against tho right of the majority to govern was not only contemplated, but wits organized in 1884, for the purpose of manufacturing false and forged returns in the State of New York, with which to defeat Cleveland and Hendricks. It was only when the plotters and iraudmongers heard the rising wrath of the American people, like the angry roar of the ooean in a storm, that they quailed and trembled for their own safety, and realized that such a stupendous villainy as that of 1870 could never be perpetrated a second time on American Soil. If some of my hearers should suggest that these matters are past and not present issues, tny answer is that if a man whom I know to be a highwayman should insist on lecturing me upon the evils of stopping stage coaches and robbing travelers, I would feel impelled to remind him of his own infamous career upon the subject under discussion. And so now, whan political Pharisees, with beams of fraud as largo as ship's timbers in their own eyes, presume to sit in judgment and denounce imaginary motes in other people’s eyes, I think it well to flare the scroll of their sins in their faces, aud hr ng them into the derision and contempt they desorve. In close connection, however, with its assertions in regard to free suffrage and an honest count, this extrnordinarv platform gives still further and very forcible'illustration of the extent to which a combination of hypocrisy and audacity - can go. In its colossal libel, its mountain of calumny on the Democratic party, we find the following : “Under its control tho civil service has been degraded by the appointment not only of unfit persons but of convicted criminals to posts of responsibility and honor. It has scandalized justic-i and decency by the methods inaugurated by the Postottice and other departments to distribute the offices to party workers, while it sought to placate the growing sentiment against the spoils system bv false pretenses. The Federal appointments in Indiana are a fair sample of what has brought the causo of civil-si rvice reform into needless disfavor and made its success an impossibility under Democratic auspices. ” And then further on in the body of the platform, where its authors gave themselves up ■without stint to self-righteous laudation, the following resolution is discovered: “VVe favor a thorough and honest enforcement of the civil-service law, and the extension of its principles to the State administration wherever it can be made practicable, to the end that the corruption and flagrant abuses that exist in the management of our public institutions may be

done away with, and they be liberated from j partisan control.” Here, upon the one hand, is a bold and bitter arraignment of the Democratic party, and on the other a high profession of duty proclaimed on the part of the Republican party, on the subject of tho civil-servic > of tho country, its abuses, and its reformation. A stranger to the hietjry of this country, in leading the extracts just submitted, would conclude without hesitation that the Republican purtv, during all its long lease of power, had never touched the civil service of the Government except to purify it from all corruption, and elevate it above all degrading influences. Looking at this platlorm. and conceding, for the sake of the case, that its frannrs are honest men, who would suppose that during twenty years of national administration, and at the close of that ling and eventful period, the Republican party had inflicted ujion this country a civil service so corrupt, administrative methods so unclean, and official conduct so foul with pluuder, that not only its own best elements revolted from it live at home, but that the distant nations of tho earth took notice of our shame and scoffed at our political impurities aud official debaucheries. Ten years ago I witnessed the arraignment of a Republican Secretary of War under articles of impeachment for alleged corruption in office. A hurried resignation, hastily tendered and hastily accepted, protected the accused from a trial upon the merits of his case, nor have I any judgment to pass upon him now. In the prosecution of that case, however, at the bar of the Senate of the United States, I heard Mr. George F. Hoar, then a member of the House, and now a Senator from Massachusetts, make the following appalling comments on the civil service of the Government which had then been for fifteen years continually under the control of the Republican party: “My own public life.” said this Republican leader of New England, “has been a very br.ef and insignificant one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term of Senatorial office ; but in that brief period I have seen five Judges of a high court of the United States driven from office l>y threats of impeachment for corrupt .administration. I have heard the taunt, from friendliest lips, that when the United States liresented herself in the East to take part witli the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of life, tho only product of her institutions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption.” How hideous and revolting this picture appears when you look it deliberately and squarely in the face 1 When the nations of the earth submitted the productions of their genius and labor at tho world’s expositions in Europe, and wo joined them, the only superiority conceded to tho American Republic was that lier institutions, as administered bv the Republican party in the height of its power, wore more prolific of corruption than all others in the world besides. Mr. Hoar gave many details of fraud and maladministration in the domestic affairs of the Government as roasons for our had eminence in evil fame abroad. That offspring of Republican cunning and avarice, tho Credit Mobilier, was painted on the canvas of historv as follows : “When the greatest railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting the two great sells which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national triumpnand exultation turned to bitterness and shame by tho unanimous reports of three committees of Congress, two of tho House and one here, that every step of that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud.” A mighty march of fraud, paid for with hundreds of millions stolen from the tax-paying labor of tho country! It embraced in its moving column Republican officials from the highost to tho lowest, and enriched and wrecked them, accordingly as thov confronted tho damaging disclosures when they came. Alluding to that vast conspiracy known as the whisky'ring, organized by Republican collectors, assessors, revenue agents and other Treasury officials, for the purpose of stealing the revenues of the Government, Mr. Hoar went so far as to say: “I havo heard that suspicion haunts the footsteps of trusted ‘companionsof the President.’ ” Millions were stolen, a few of tho criminals were convicted, more escaped, and tho Republican party of Indiana, witn no memory of these things, now cants and snivels about its sublime devotion to civil-service reform ! Nor was Mr. Hoar alone in his fearful arraignment of tho Republican party for widespread aud deep-seated corruption. The ablest and the purest of tho party were of the same opinion. Sumner, Greeley, and many others of great note depicted and deplored the unparalleled pollution of the civil service. What, however, did the Republican pariy,- with all of its powerful majorities in Cup gross, and with the Executive and the Judicially ih its clutches, ever do on tho subject of the civil service of the Government except to still further degrade it? Allow me to submit a few very plain and distinct historical facts: Tho first practical intimation of a purpose to correct any of the abuses of the civil service under a Republican administration was manifested by Gen. Cox, of Ohio, when Secretary of the Interior. A demand was made upon him for a full list of the names of thoso who were employed in tho Interior Department from the State of Ohio, together with the amount of salary and tho county from which each one was appointed. The committeo which made this demand stated their purpose to assess these employes of the Government a certain per cent, on their official pay in order to aid the Republican party at the polls 11l his answer of August 10, 1870, to his honor be it stated, he refused to allow his department to be raided, and protected his subordiiiates, lor the time being at least, from tho rapacity of organized corruption. In his letter of that date Gen. Cox said: “After a careful consideration of the matter, with the strongest desire to second every right movement in behalf of the Republican organization, in which we have so great a common interest. I am constrained to decline complying with your roquost, because 1 am convinced that it would not be right to do so, and, therefore, not for tlie advantage of the Republican party, which can only exist by continuing to be the champion of the right.” He tuen proceeded further to say: “That such assessments are directly antagonistic to the civil-service reform which I believe to bo imperative; a necessity that the Republican party, as the proper party of true reform, can not longer delay to make it part of their platform. Tho whole system needs a thorough reform, and it is because I believe it to be tue duty of the Republican party to accomplish this work that I appeal to you and to your committee to do nothing that can for a moment longer put our influence on the side of tho pr.sent uisgraceful condition of things." “Tho disgraceful condition of things,” here testified to by a Republican Cabinet officer, was the work of the Republican party in its supremacy. All its dishonor, shame, and reproach were created by Republican methods of administration. That warty had no rival with which to share tho opprobrium cast upon it by the Secretary of the Interior. But how was the earnest appeal of that gentleman to the committee, to forbear in their schemes of partisan extortion, met liy the great and powerful leaders of tiie party to which ho belonged? Was he upheld, indorsed, and honored in tho stand he had taken? Did those who are now so loud in their false and servile adulation of the’civilservice law of 1883, because it keeps a few Republicans in office, gather around General Cox and rally to his supjjort in 1870, when he appealed to their sense of deconcy against a conspicuous abuse? On the contrary, all the great powers and master spirits of his party turned upon him in clamorous wrath, hooted him with scorn, pelted him with epithets, loaded him with vituperation as a renegade, and literally mobbed him to his political death. He was forced out of tho Cabinet, under the thin disguise of a resignation, before his praiseworthy letter to tho committee was three months old. He perished, as other reformers havo in all ages of tho world, for rebuking the practices of a stiff-necked, evil, and perverse generation which had grown fat and mighty on tho wages of its iniquities. History has shown that those who love their own sins, as a general thing destroy the reformer rather than bo reformed. When tho mob east Stephen out of the city of Jerusalem and stonod him to death, it was simply tho response or' a people infuriated by exposure in their crimes aud yet determined never to abandon their incurable wickedness. “When they heaid those things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed oa him with their t.eth. ” And so, when Chandler, Morton, and tho other stalwart leaders of their kind'‘heard these things” which ftro contained in the letter of their Secretary of the Interior, “they gnashed on him with their teeth,” cast him out of tho city, uud left him for dead, so far as they were concerned. The fact is thut the Republican party, as an organization, had no more demand for such an apostle of reformation as General Cox than the pirates of the Gulf, at the beg nning of this century, had for a chaplain or the leader of a prayer-meeting. But the fraudulent record of tho Republican party on the subject of civil-service reform has another chapter more disgraceful even than that which contains the facts I have just stated.

In an abundance of charity it must be assumed that every member of the Committee on Resolutions at the recent State Convention was totally and absolutely ignorant of the record of his own party on this question, if not indeed on all others. It is said that the Tories of the Revolu ion, after the struggle was over, and their descendants for generations later, had but little, if anything, to say in regard to the War of Inpopenrtence. They had better memories or less i.a dihood—perhaps both—than the recent Republican platform writers in this State, or we should have no talk about civil service, and no such issue thrust in our faces. The agitation caused by the correct position taken by General Cox, and by the treatment he received, was not altogether barren of good results. It became necessary, in order to appease an indiguant public sentiment, and to deceive still further their honest followers, that the Republican leaders should make a pretense of some kind apparently in the direction of reform. The act of March 3, 1871, was therefore passed, “authorizing the President to appoint a commission to prescribe rules and regulations for promoting the efficiency of the civil service." The commission was appointed, its plans of procedure were agreed upon, and in April, 1872, they were approved by General Grant in an executive order especially declaring that no assessments should be made ou office-holders for political purposes. Thus the first law of civilservice reform was enacted by the Republican party fifteen years ago, and I have no doubt of the good faith with which Grant, the President, intended to execute it. There is just as little doubt, however tnat the Republican leaders meant it only as a temporary blind, to last simply until a point of danger was passed in the public mind, when it was then their intention to return, as they did, to their former scandalous methods. They never intended it should be enforced. They did not have the manliness and honesty to repeal it; they starved it to death, aud left its withered skeleton on the statute hooks. After the first two years of tho existence of the commission under this law not another dollar was over appropriated by Congress for its support. Its supplies were cut off by those who created it; its mission was ended; and the business of Republican politics was resumed at tho old stand nftor the fashion of Jay Hulibell George C. Gorham, Stephen Dorsey, George M. Robeson, William W. Dudley, aud others of like minds who worked in harmony with them. At each recurring national and State convention such leaders as these have ever since, with solemn faces, resolvod that they were in favor of a thorough and honost enforcement of ylvil-service reform, while tho years between conventions have been spent in extort.ng enormous sums of money from all classes in office, including the heads of departments, clerks, messengers, watchmen, und the women who scrub the floors. When not engaged in this most ignoble aud debasing pursuit, they refreshed themsolves and diversified their lauor by hunting down, with the keen scent of a bloodhound, any unfortunate Democrat, man or woman, who had been accidentally overlooked and loft in officp George C. Gorham, then Secretary of the Senate, and also Secretary of the Republican Campaign Committee, testified before an examining committee that in 1878 thore was collected the sum of lloti,(100, with which to control elections, nearly all of which was wrung from those engaged in the civil service of the Government. Ho named twenty-three States where 853,000 of this money ■was distributed in various Congressional districts. He says Si,ooo were sent to Indiana, to he used as follows : 82,0 (0 in the First District, 81.000 in tho Fourth District, 81,000 in tho Sixth District, 850 ) in the Eighth District, 8)00 in the Tenth District. Mr. Gorham accounted in his testimony for only one-half tho fund. It may he safely assumed that the balance, together with other largo sums from other sources, was applied in ways and places which did not admit of explanation to the public ear. In tho momentous year 18S0, the most careful estimate put tho sum collected from persons in official life, for tho purpose of securing the success of the Republican party, at more than 850), (UO. In 1832 tho same nefarious system of political corruption was pursued under the sanction of tho strongdst representative names iu the Republican party. Ou the Congressional Committee having the subject of political assessments for the Republican party in charge for the year 1882 were William B. Allison, Eugene Hale, and Nelson W. Aldrich on tho part of the Senats; Frank Hiseock, George M. Robeson, William McKinley, William H. Calkins and ten other prominent members of the House. Jay Hubbell was the famous Chairman, and D. B. Henderson was Secretary. These gentlemen addressed a le tar, asking for money for political purposes, to overy officeholder in the United States, and no organized bairn of road-agents ever demanded a traveler’s valuables with a more determined purpose than this committeo evinced in its correspondence with its victims. If the firstcommunicationremained unanswered by the poor U.KIO clerk or the still poorer 8300 Postmaster, the following threatening mossage wus forwarded: “Washington*, D. C., August 15,1582. “Sib—Your failure to respond to the circular of May 15, 1882, sent you by this committee, is noted with surprise. It is hoped that tho only reason for such failure is that the matter escaped your attention owing to the pressure of other cares. “Great political battlos can not bo won in this way. This committee can not hope to win in the pending struggle if those most directly benefited by success are unwilling or neglect to aid in a substantial manner. “We are on the skirmish line of 1884, with a coufiict before us this fall of great moment to the republic, and you must know that a r-pulse now is full of danger to tho next Presidential campaign. “Unless you think that our grand old party ought not to succeed, help it now in its struggle to build up a new South, in which there shall be, as in the North, a free ballot and a fair count, and to maintain such hold in the North as shall insure good government to the country. “It is hoped that by return mail you will send a voluntary contribution equal to 2 per cent, of your annual compensation,as a subst mtial proof of your earueot .desire for tho success of the Republican party this fall, transmitting by draft or postal money order, payable to tne order of Jay A. Hubbell, Acting Treasurer, postoflics box 583, Washington, I). C.” Any one who would regard money thus obtained as “a voluntary contribution” would think and speak of ransom money paid by a captive to save his throat from being cut by brigands as a free and cheerful donation for the public good. It is only four short years since there was published in that great magazine, the North Americanßsviow, for September, 1882, an article from a Republican pen, which I now hold up as a mirror iu which the leaders of the Republican party can see themselves as they appeared only a little while ago. Says this writer: “Could tue curtain of secrecy bo lifted we should see a vast drag-net of extortion thrown out by the committee from Wasliington over the whole laud, from Maine to California, with every humble official aud laborer, from those under the sea at Hell Gate to the weather observer of Pike’s Peak, entangled in its meshes, and busy among them for their prey a series of tax extortioners, ranging down from Hubbell, the great questor, to little Hubbells by the hundred, each paid a commission on his collections in true Turkish fashion. These minions, hook in hand, are haunting the official corridors and tracking the public laborers. They mouse around tiie huroaus for names and salaries, which all High-toned officials contemptuously withhold. Neither sex, nor age, nor condition is spared by these spoils system harpies. They waylay the clerks going to their men is. They hunt the Springfield Arsenal and the Mississippi breakwater laborers to their humble homes. They obtrude their impertinent faces upon tho teachers of Indians and negroes at Hampden School and Carlisle Barracks. They dog navy-yard workmen to their narrow lodgings. Ti e weary scrub women are persecuted in their g irrets ; tho poor office boys are bullied at their evening schools ; the money needed for rent is taken from the aged father and only son ; men enfeebled on the battlefields are harried in the very shadow of the Capitol; life-boat crews, listening on tho stormy shores for the cry of the shipwrecked, and even chaplains and nurses at the bedside of the dying are not exompted from this merciless, mercenary, indecent conscription, which reproduces the infamy i f Oriental tax-farming. We know of the head of a family who hes tates between dofiing Hubbell and taking a meaner tenement; of a boy at evening school blackmailed of 83 while wearing a suit given in charity, and of a son pillaged of 817 when tiie furniture of ’the mother ho supports was in pawn, arid many have consulted us as to the safety of keeping their earnings which they need. In every cam there is fear of removal or other retaliation. Pages could he filled with suchcasos from the reports of citizens. A newspaper before us gives that of a laborer with a

family, earning $750 a year, pursned by a harpy for sls, and also that of a boy of thirteen, earning $1 a day, with another harpy after him for 83.60. To women and girls no mercy is shown.” Those who have heretofore doubted the doctrine of total depravity will doubt no more after looking upon this diabolical picture of Republican civil service; and those who have sometimes hesitated to believe that a certain class of hypocrites, after swallowing camels, strain at gnats, will hesitate no longer when, after looking upon this picture, they turn and look uj oa tne Republican platform of the 2d of September. But it may be said that Republicans in Congress supported the civil-service act of January l'J, 1883, now in force, and for whose thorougn and honest execution the leaders of that party so loudly clamor. They did so in bad faith. If they had succeeded in electing the President of the United States in 1884, only one year later, the new law just enacted would have been treated with the same contempt, abandonment and flagrant violation of its provisions and of its very existence as was visited on the act of March 3, 1871. If, on the other hand, the prophetic handwriting then on the wall, announcing the overthrow of Babylon and the incoming of purer ways, was to be fulfilled, they knew this law of 1883 would protect, more or less, their friends—thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, with those depending on them—then in office, from proper and just removal. There is not now. and never has been, an honest, disinterested, nonpartisan throb in the heart of the Republican party in favor of a competent, non-partisan system of appointments to positions in the civil service. Their outcry to-uay in behalf of the present imperfect and untimely law comes simply from the fact that it is an obstacle and a hindrance to the control of the Government by the people who constitute the Democratic majority. But I am reminded at this point that still another and angry complaint is made against the Democratic party in connection with civil service. It is charged in the Republican State platform, speaking of the Democratic party, that—“lt has scandalised justice and decency by the methods inaugurated by the Bostoffice and other departments to distribute tiie offices to party workers, while it sought to placate the growing sentiment against the spoils system by false pretenses.” l arty workers ineligible to office I Party workers condemned to the rear! How destructive of public morality, how scandalous, how heinous the appointment of party workers must appear to the purified, unsealed vision of the Republican party 1 The sincerity and value, however, of this Republican horror can only be fairly estimated by lookiug at the records for tho last quarter of a century, and more especially since the great fraud of 1076. The distribution of offices to party workers who were engaged in the grand larceny of the Presidency will forever remain one of the darkest, foulest blots on the pages of American history. Like the tell-tale blood stain of murder, no water nor lapse of time can ever efface it from the guilty record. The infamous schedule of offices, with their cash values, to which appointments were made by a Republican President for services rendered by party workers in placing him in a position to which he was never elected, has long be. n a part of public history; it has never been denied, nor even questioned, and it will forever provoke the scorn and condemnation of all selfrespecting, fair-minded people. In tho lawless conspiracy by which tho vote of Louisiana was changed into a falsehood and counted for Hayes, there were thirty-two citizens of that State, headed by J. Madison Wells, of malodorous fame, who, as members, clerks and other functionaries of Returning Boards, together with State officers and electors, conducted tiie local details of the crime, and were after March 4, 1877, promptly appointed to various official positions with salaries amounting in the aggregate to $113,385 per annum. Then came visiting statesmen, as they were styled, who called upon Louisiana at that disgraceful, period, headed by John Sherman, of Ohio, and who were immediately afterward rewarded for party work as follows: John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury; E. W. Stoughton, Minister to Russia; John A. Kasson. Minister to Austria; J. R. Hawley, Commissioner'to Paris Exposition ; John Cobum, Commissioner to Hot Springs; E. F. Noyes, Minister to France ; Lew Wallace, Governor of New Mexico. The annual reward of these so-called statesmen, in tlje form of salarios received, for political services as party workerß, amounted to $74,600, In Florida the same corrupt account of party services was rendered and paid. I have the list here, from the Governor of the State down to the county managers of false returns, together with the names of the Federal officials who swarmed down to the Everglade State, with worse purposes than the Indian Chief Billy Bowlegs ever had against her honor and safety. As I count them now, there were twenty-three of these political brigands most distinctly engagod in fabricating a false count in Florida, Who were each and every one remunerated for their joint villainies against free suffrage by official positions under Hayes worth $38,785 per annum. Ido not hesitate, in the light of historical facts, to state that during the four years of national administration from March, 1877, to March, 1871, there were drawn from the Treasury of tho United States over one million of dollars in salaries of public officials who obtained their places by party work more unscrupulous, more degrading, more dishonest and more criminal than was ever before done in connection with tho affairs of government in tho Western Hemisphere. Aud all the time that this vast and venal prostitution of the most sacred functions of government, and tho most essential power of free institutions, was being consummated, the Republican Pharisees, who now here in Indiana denounce the appointment Of X’arty workers, spread broad their philacter-ies,-prayed loudly on the street corners for Republican sue ess, indorsed everything done by their illegitimate President, smote themselves on their breasts in State conventions, and unanmously resolved that they were better than tho publicans and sinners. But it is still further charged in the platform lam considering that under the control of the Democratic party the civil service has been degraded by the appointment of unfit persons to office, and the Federal appointments in Indiana are cited in proof of this assertion. Such an accusation from such a source surpasses all ordinary comprehension. It is an abominable falsehood on its face. Tho present administration has been in power hut little more than eighteen months. Not a single act of dishonesty or defalcation has thus far been committed by any one appointed to office by Mr. Cleveland. There is not a Democratic Federal official in Indiana, or appointed from Indiana, who has failed in tho intelligent and faithful dischargo of his duties up to the present time. It is simply a malignant, person al slander to declare otnerwise. But when we turn to the slanderers’own long record on the same subject, what visions of malfeasance aud dishonesty wa behold; what long lines of Republican officials, stained with corruption and tarnished with fraud, come trooping up before us. The head of the infamous column, passing in reviow, would seem to be the contractors, jobbers, lobbyists, and swindlers, and all that hungry, predatory class of self-seeking, loud-canting scoundrels who always make haste to become rich on the misfortunes and miseries of mankind. I remember to havo heard John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, declare from his seat in the Senate in 1862 that the thieves in offico and out of office,, generated even at that early day by the Republican party, were more dangerous to the honor and to tho existence of the republic than the armies of the rebellion whicn environed the capital. Henry L. Dawes, then a member of the House and now a Senator from Massachusetts, and Elihu B. Washburns, of Illinois, then also a member of tho House and afterward Secretary of State and Minister to France, with others of like position and character in both branches of Congress, all Republicans, concurred with Senator Halo in his startling estimate of the rottenness of the public service. Lot those who question my statement oxamino the debates of Congress and the reports of Congressional committees charged with tho investigation of official frauds. And as the tainted army of Republican office-holders of past years arise again to our view, we are constrained to behohl Senators and members of Congress driven, disgraced and broken-hearted, from their seats by the exposure of Credit Mobilier rascality and by the shameful dishonor attending upon the sale of military and naval cadetships. We see also a career of official plunder in positions of financial trust and duty more extensive, profligate, and flagitious than ever before known in American history. In a very careful and reliable statement, frein which I quote, “the amount of the defalcations of officers of the United States for tho fiscal years ot 1869 to 1883, both inclusive, as shown by the certified transcripts of the accounting officers of the Treasury Department filed in the United States courts, and by the annual reports of the

Solicitors of the Treasury to the Secretary at" the Treasury and to the Attorney General ot the United States,” has been found to be $16,808,460.62. “This makes an average defalcation during the fifteen years preceding June 30, 1683, of §1,124,564.” And it has been further ascertained, and everywhere published and never denied, that the foregoing statement of widespread Republican official fraud does not include the money stolen under the whisky ring frauds, the Star Route frauds, and other delinquencies in the Postoffice Department, Howgate’s signal service frauds, navy frauds, and others of like nature By official investigation and report (see Miscellaneous Document, Part 1, Forty-eighth Congress, first session) it was proved, and almost entirely by Republican witnesses, that many of the appointments made prior to that time by the various Republican administrations were, in the expressive and exact language of the testimony, “defaulters,” “thieves,” “drunkards,” “blackmailers,” “liars,” “convicts,” “ex-convicts,” “fugitives from justice,” “assassins," “bribe-takers,” “extortionists," “persons under indictment for violation of internal laws,” “horse thieves,” “forgers,” and in one instance a mur-* derer of an internal revenue officer. I am not describing these officials in my own words; but in the words of the proof as derived from Republican sources. It was further proven by sworn testimony of the officers of the Department of Justice that many of these disreputable officers of the Government arrested citizens on frivolous charges, for the purpose of extorting money; that in one district alone, where seventy United States officials were employed, a large majority of them passed on the Government false, fraudulent, and fictitious accounts, and committed perjury in doing so; that in some cases the character of the olfic als was so bad that the Judges of the courts refused to permit them to exercise the duties of their offices ; that the Government was robbed of hundreds of thousands of dollars by these men; that many of them were appointed and retained when their crimes were a matter of public and general notoriety; that in some instances men who, according to the official and sworn testimony of examiners of the department, had perjured themselves in passing false and fraudulent accounts on the Government, were promoted tohigher, more lucrative, and more honorableoffices. Is it any wonder, with such Federal officials as these, that every department of the Government became honey-combed with fraudulent practices? There was in fact no branch of the public service free from scandal. It is matter of undisputed history, established by the investigations of Congress, that in the brief space of six years, from 1865 to 1871, Republican administration, both State and national, throughout the South, fastened an increased indebtedness of $172,411,568 ou the already impoverished people of the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. No such era of fraud, no such high carnival of corruption, ever before stained the history of nations. Yet no protest against such stupendous villainy ever escaped the lips of a Republican convention in Indiana, nor, indeed, anywhere else; and I submit that a sermon now by Republican leaders on improper, unfit, and corrupt Federal appointments must be in the same tone with. which Satan rebukes sin, and that it will produce the same contempt, disgust, and scorn. Wolves are said to put on sheep's clothing, and even tho livery of heaven is sometimes'stolen to serve the devil in; but when the devil himself, in all his naked deformity, and without mask or disguise, gets into the pulpit and goes to preaching on the beauties of righteousness, and the exceeding Binfulness of sin, it occurs to me that tho congregation should summarily dispense with his services, and send him hack to • his own dominions. But thero still remain a large number of shameless false pretenses in the Republican platform, which challenge attention and exposure on an occasion like thiß. It is alleged in that remarkable document that “the wisdom and honesty of the Republican party securodsound money to the people." On the contrary the truth is that Republican legislation created a system of finance wherein the Government dishonored its own currency by not receiving itfor Government dues ; enabled the capitalists of the country to use a depreciated currency worth fifty cents on the dollar in the purchase of Government bonds now quoted in the money market at a large premium above par in gold paid the 2,000,001 of soldiers who preserved the Union not more than one-half the amount duo them, while bondholders received in gold double the amount of their original investments. A system by which the contract for the pay of the soldier was broken, the pensioner for many years compelled to Buffer a discount of from 10 to 50 per cent, on his pension certificate and at the same time invited the capital of the countiy to a speculation in which more than a thousand millions of dollars have been realized as clear, naked gain, is a subject for repentance and shame, rather than for laudation and selfpraise. Nor will the impartial historian find either wisdom or honesty in a financial system responsible for the widespread aud indescribable scenes of business ruin which blighted the homes and happiness of this country from 1873 to 1878. The framers of this platform now say, or rather seem to say in vague terms, that silver ought to be a part of our coin circulation. Thirteen years ago the leaders of tho Republican party in a surreptitious and fraudulent manner, demonetized silver; and the law by which it now exists and circulates as money was passed in February, 1878, over a veto inspired, advised aud written by John. Sherman, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury, and signed by Rutherford B. Hayes, an acting Republican President. Nor has there been a Republican administration iu power since the beginning of Grant s first term, March. 4, 1869, that has been friendly to silver. Tho honor and the existence of the greenback has also encountered the same hostility, and the Greenbackers of Indiana have not forgotten the peculiar beuevolonco of Senator Harrison, who, within the past ten years, proposed to erect an idiot asylum for their accommodation. Thefact is that both silver and greenbacks exist as parts of our currency to-day at the command of the American people irrespective, to a great, extent, of political affiliations, and directly in spite of tho determined and persistent hostility of Republican leaders and Republican administrations . On the subject of public lands we are alsotreated to another false and impudont claim to public confidence in the platform assertions of Sept. 2. Could anything be more audacious, in tho face of well-known facts, than this resolution ? “We favor reservation of public lands for’ small holdings by actual settlers, and are opposed to the acquisition of large tracts of the public domain by corporat.ons and non-rosident aliens. American lands should be preserved for American settlers." In order properly to estimate tho value of this loud profession in favor of ‘‘small holdings by actual settlers,’’ it is only necessary to state the simple, well-ascertained and undisputed fact that “from July 1, 1862, to March 3, 1871, less than nine years, public lands were voted away to corporations to the amount of 144,538,134 acres” by Republican Congresses, and that every enactment was signed by a Republican President. Theso enormous grants are equal to two-thirds of the lands included within theboundaries of tho original thirteen States which formed the government. Nearly a hundred millions of theso acres have been liable to forfeiture for years past because of non-compli-ance by the corporations with the conditions of.’ the grants, but until the Forty-eighth Congress, within the last three years, nothing, was doue to reclaim for uctual settlement any of this vast domain. The movement, however, being started in the Democratic House of that Congress, the public sentiment of the laboring,, home-seeking masses became aroused, and laws h ive been enacted declaring forfeited to the Government, and to he thrown open for settlement, 50,182,240 acres. In addition to those enactments, the House, with its Democratic majority, has passed hills of forfeiture, amounting to 38,430,941 acres, in which the Republican Senate has not as yet concurred. The Public Lands Committee of tho House, through its able and distinguished Chairman, Mr. Cobb, of this State, has still further reported bills, which are now on the calendar, declaring additional forfeitures to the amount, of 14,067,214 acres. Thus it will be seen that in the short ipace of about two yoars and a half two Democratic Houses have, by direct votes arid through their committeo on that subject, decl red that 101,980,395 acres of land, equal to five tiinos the State of Indiana, claimed by railroad corporations, shall bo thrown open to the people for farms and homes. It will alsobe seen that while the Senate was compelled, through an awakened public opinion, to agree to a portion of theso forfeitures, yet no such measures ever originated under Republican auspices, nor while tho Republican party retained its ascendency in botli branches of Congress. And such is the party which now declares itself opposed to tho acquisition of large tracts of the public domain by corporations and non-resident aliens, and that “American laud* should be preserved for American settlers 1*

In order to show still farther the gross abuses which had grown up under Republican administrations in the disposal of our public . lands.there was extensively published, less than two years ago, a carefully prepared table, . showing that 20,747,000 acres of land had been taken up and were then held by foreign syndicates, foreign land oomp&nies, and members of the English nobility, in vast estates ranging from 5,000 to 4,500,00 Q acres It was. also estimated that between 5,000,000 and 6,000.000 acres of public lands were illegally fenced and shut up against emigration by large cattle companies,some of them English and others Scotch, besides the rapacious Americans always present. The Commissioners of the Land Office and tl.e Secretaries of the Interior were all Republicans from 1831 to 1885, twenty-four years, and ou their record judgment must be given by the American people, rather than on cheap and false professional faith made now on a dying bed. Turning again to that platform, which has a . sort of horrible fascination on account of its daring mendacity and high-crested hypocrisy, we find the creators, the supporters and beneficiaries of the most gigantic monoplies ever known among men making loud-mouthed promises of what they intend to do in the future for the laboring classes of the United States. Why have they nothing to point to in the past? Why are their long years of supremacy in every department of the Government barren of anything done for the working people? Why do they not prove their faith by their work 3? It is too late in the day for the leaders of the Republican party to deceive the people by promises of the future ; they should be able to convince and satisfy the workingmen and women of the country by citing their record in the past. The Democratic party is more fortunate on this question. It cau point to some things done which speak for themselves. At the close of the long session of the Forty-eighth Congress, now two years ago, the following statement was truthfully made of what that Democratic House had done iu recognition of the demands of the laboring classes: “I. It created a Committee on Labor for the first time in the history of Congress. “ 1 . It created a bureau of Labor Statistics, demanded by every labor organization iu the country. *3. It abolished all hospital dues from seamen and sailors, compelling the support of all marine hospitals from tonnage tax. "4. It put its seal of disapprobation on the use of convict labor by striking from the appropriation bills every item for the use of convict labor on public buildings. “5. It passed a bill prohibiting importation of labor under contract to compete with American workmen, which bill the Republic Senate did not concur iu. “6. The Democratic Committee on Labor reported to the House joint resolutions for submission to the various States, prohibiting the hiring out or contracting for the labor of convicts ;also prohibiting the employment of United States prisoners iu the trades ; also conferring on Conuress the power to regulate the hours of labor in textile and othor industries.” The party which has made this record can be t listed by the working class, s to do more in the same direction when its opportunities are increased. I come next to the consideration of a subject -of great importance, and on which the public mind is always exceedingly sensitive to the slightest wrong or injustice. Any man, or party of men, guilty of unfairness,'illiberality or bad faith toward the soldiers of the war for the Union, should, and would, be speedily aud utterly overwhelmed by the execrations of the whole American peopie. The following false and virulent arraignment of the Democratic party in the Republican platform can not, therefore, be overlooked. It reads as follows : “The attempt of the Democratic House of Representatives to make odious pension legislation by adding a special tax bill to every pension measure (thus declaring that pensions should not be paid out of the general Treasury), the spirit and language of numerous vetoes of meritorious pensions, and the failure of the Democratic House of Representatives to even reconsider them before adjournment of Congress, reveal the continued enmity of the Democratic party to the Union soldier aud his cause.” There was a movement in the House of Representatives during tno latter part of the last session of Congress to receive aud re-enact an income tax, with the avowed purpose, on the part of certain loading Democrats, of making the rich, from their heavy incomes, assist in paying pensions to soldiers, their widows and orphans ; and this was the special tax which the Republicans now charge was designed by Democratic House in order to make pension legislation odious. I do not believe the soldiers of Indiana will so regard it. Ido not believe they will take it as evidence of enmity to them or their cause that the Democratic party should desire the Vanderbilts, the Goulds and their associate millionaires to aid from their enormous income in the payment of pensions. I am willing to accept the soldier vote on this proposition. But in the same arraignment, the fact that the President vetoed certain pension bills is urged as an evidence of the “continued enmity of the Democratic party to the Union soldier and his cause.” I shall not discuss the merits of these vetoes, but this I will suy, that "to the consideration of every pension bill placed before him Mr. Cleveland brought a clear and able head and an honest, conscientious heart. But one desire actuated him, and that was to do his duty. Nor shall it be forgotten, ■while he is denounced for his vetoes, that ho approved and signed more bills granting pensions in the brief period of eighteen months nan General Grant did in the entire eight ..ears he spent in the White House, And whence came this extraordinary flood of special pefision legislation? When we reflect that it poured its great, steady volume through a House of Representatives with an overwhelming Democratic majority, and largely composed •of ; ox-Confederate soldiers; and when we reflect further that this same Democratic House has Voted $75,00 ,000 a year for tho payment of pensions in the aggregate, wo are lost in amazement at the brazen calumny that the Democratic party is at enmity with the soldier of the Union aud his cause. But if we look at the cause and the treatment of the pensioner in the Executive Department of the Government, where his great and sacred interests are intrusted and administered, under the laws, we will again behold what a reckless, flagitious, and absolutely untenable falsehood may be put intoa political platform by mon of respectable standing in the communities where they live. I have here an editorial article taken from the National Tribune, a paper of more than 100,000 weekly circulation, published, owned, edited, and managed by soldiers, and exclusively in the interest of soldiers. The article appeared in the issue of July 15, ISBO. and is headed “A Splendid Showing.” It reads as follows : “The report of the work done in the Pension Office for tho fiscal year ending June 30, justifies all that has been said in these columns of tho increased efficiency and liberality of the administration of General John C. Black. During the year the office issued 79,654 pension certificates, a total increase of 9,208 over the work of any previous year. “The greater liberality of General Black’s administration is shown by the increase of more than 500 allowances per month, and tho greater efficiency is proved by this grand increase of work being accomplished by a force of clerks numbering fully 100 less than the average under his predecessors. " r lo make the splendid results of Gen. Black’s management more apparent we give the figures for the fiscal years ending June 3, 1883, 1881, 1885, and 1886, respectively: “Numbers of certificates issued during years ending June 30, 1883, 1884, 188;), and 1880. Miscellaneous certificates not included • _ j B (2 1883 1885 1816 Original 38,161 34,190 35,771 43,852 Iner ase 9,070 1 5,130 25,384 28,5 9 Reissue 2,284 2,802 4,292 4,830 Restoration 1,107 1,264 1,838 2,314 Duplication 842 1,291 941 842 Aoerued 1’515 2,052 2,096 2.237 Total 52,079 56,729 70,386 79,654 With such a records as this, assaults ou General Black have fallen harmless at his feet. As a civilian he has added to his already briUiant fame as a soldier, and higher honors yet await him, Nor shall' it be overlooked that at the head of the vast Department of the Interior, wherein such grand results havo been wrought for the Union sbldier, the great Missisßippian, Secretary Larnar. presides with commanding intellect and a lofty patriotism which, oblivious of past conflicts, embraces in its affection and •sense of justice every section and all the people of thd United States. The encumber is very bad in lowa this year. The drug-stores will canonize it, and distribute seed gratis next year.