Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1887 — MR. REED’S SHORT MEMORY. [ARTICLE]

MR. REED’S SHORT MEMORY.

Senator Vest Calls Attention to Some Matters the Former Forgot to Mention. Regarding the Treasury Surplus # and the National Defenses. An Answer to the Absurd Charges of Democrats Keeping Three States Oat of the Union. [From the New York World.] Senator George G. Vest of Missouri has been spending several weeks in town. He is undergoing treatment for his eyes, which have become strained from overwork. The Senator said that time hung rather heavy on his hands. His physician had forbidden his reading, “and,” he added, “I cannot drink anything but tea, coffee, and water, and that’s pretty hard on a Western man. ” Speaking of the work of the last Congress, Mr. Vest said: “I 6aw in the Tribune several days since an interview with Thomas B. jieed of Maine, which seemed to assume that the people of the United States were utterly ignorant of what had been done by the Forty-ninth Congress, or unable to understand the meaning of public events. Mr. Beed complains that Congress has not reduced the Treasury surplus, provided for the defense of our seaboard or admitted three great States in the Northwest. All this he charges to the incapacity of the Democratic pa' ty. Mr. Heed forgets to mention that an overwhelming majority of the Democrats in Congress favored the reduction of the surplus, and to that end attempted to secure the consideration of tariff reform in the House, but when, to quote bis words, they ‘marched’ up the hill twice under the leadership of Mr. Morrison they found Mr. Beed with his Bepublican followers, re-enforced by the Bandall contingent, impregnably intrenched at the (op and were unable even •to have the tariff: question considered. Mr. Beed and his party were pledged to a reform of the tariff. Did he think that the vote not to consider any measure looking to such reform was a compliance with that pledge? This is a pertinent question, and until Mr. Beed answers it he has no right to complaim about not reducing the surplus. “As to national defense, the inquiring mind is disposed to ask, whence comes this sudden zeal for a navy and fortifications? Mr. Beed and his party had absolute control of the government from 1861 to 1874. At no time since 1861 have the Democrats had possession of the government, the Bepublicaus having never lost control since 1861 of both branches of Congress and the Presidency. Since 1865, when the war closed, and up to Cleveland’s election, the Bepublican party wasted upon the navy, so-called, and fortifications more than $400,000,000, and to-day, according to Admiral Porter, our seaboard is defenseless and we have but one war vessel fit for service. Out of this enormous amount • squandered by Bepublican maladministration $90,000,000 were for building ships and repairing those already built. Of this Mr. Beed says nothing, but finds all at once that we are without a navy or fortifications. The truth is, and the country understands it, that Mr. Beed and his party have sought, ever since Mr. Cleveland’s election, to swell governmental expenditures in every way possible so as to sustain the charge of -extravagance against the Democrats in the next Congress. All sorts of jobs and schemes have been urged and supported bv the Bepublican leaders in Congress to get money out of the Treasury, but always without reducing taxes, and especially Without disturbing the present war tariff, which they solemnly pledged themselves at Chi--cago to readjust and reform. “Mr. Bead’s charge about keeping out of the Union three great States in the Northwest and refusing the right of self-govern-ment, etc., is absurd. The Bepublicans in the Senate insisted that Dakota should be divided by a line running east and west, the northern portion to be organized as a Territory, and the southern part to be admitted as a State. There are two parties in Dakota—the one for this scheme and the other for admitting the whole Territory as a State, without division—and the Democrats in the Senate proposed either that an enabling act should be passed authorizing the people of the Territory to adopt a State constitution, and apply for admission under it, or to submit the question to the people for and against division. Not a Democrat in the Senate opposed the admission of Dakota as a whole; •but we did not believe the Territory should be divided, nor did we propose to recognize the illegal and revolutionary State government set up in Southern Dakota in defiance of the Federal Government and in direct violation of the Constitution. The Bepublicans voted down every proposition submitting the question of division to the people, and then voted down an amendment admitting Montana also as a State. They believed that by dividing Dakota the Bepublican party would secure four Senators and two members of the House, with six votes in the electoral college, but they had no idea of admitting Montana, because it is a Democratic Territoiy. The whole transaction was essentially partisan, and so great was the party zeal which controlled the action of the Bepublican majority in the Senate that they admitted to seats upon the floor two gentlemen claiming to have been elected Senators by the revolutionary State Legislature of Sou hern Dakota, and not ■one word was uttered in the debate by any Bepublican Senator against that unauthorized movement. We are informed by the papers that it is still progressing openly and defiantly. hat would Mr. Beed and his party say if any Democratic community had inaugurated suoh action? We can imagine the torrents of eloquence which would make the halls of Congress resound in denunciation of tins ‘second rebellion.’ It is a great pity that Mr. Beed forgets the facts as shown by the Congressional Record, and it will be a greater pity if th.-y are forgotten by the people. ” The statements advanced by Mr. Beed have been echoed by Edmunds, Sherman, Hale, and other Bepubl can leaders in subsequent interviews. It is evidently their intention of making these questions the basis of their oampaign thunder in the next -election. Senator Vest’s analysis of the

subject will probably destroy their availability as campaign material.