Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1887 — TO TUTTLE. [ARTICLE]

TO TUTTLE.

A Kansas* City Veteran Expresses An Opinion. A G. A. R. Man Comes to the Front —History and Common Sense Against Tattle. [K a lamazoo Gazette. J Gen. J. M. Tuttle, Des Moines, la.: Sir —As a comrade in good standing in the G. A. R. I desire to thus publicly dissent from and at the same time condemn the course you have taken with reference to the President of theTJnited States At the same time I shall review your conduct and in a respectable manner criticise its propriety. In the first place I deny your right or authority to speak for all the Democratic members of the G. A. R. in lowa. You speak not tor me. s I shah not enter into the question of how the G. A. R. has been repeatedly used to “boom” aspiring Republican politician* into office; that is known throughout the length had breadth of the land. We know how the “boom” was applied last year in San Francisco, where all of our Democratic generals were entirely ignored anduninvited. But I desire to call your attention to. the heinousness of your offense in offering in your official capacity as grand commander of lowa, gross insults to the chief magistrate of the United States. The gravity of your orime —for crime it is to incite to disorder, is in the threat uttered by you in you interview in last Sunday's Register and re-echoed by exGrand Commander Burdette at Washington, that the President would regret it if he should visit St. Louis during the grand encampment of the G. A. R. What if the commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States should visit St. Louis in September? What if some “crank”—of whom ther -■> are numbers in lowa instigated by your words, shoot the President as Guiteau did the lamented President Garfield? What then would I e your fate? Would not the intemperate language used by you and endorsed by the Republican press of lowa be quoted as damning proof that you had publicly prophesied th’s violence? I regard your utterances in threatening insult and violence to the President ot the United States as disgraceful and unpatriotic.

Did Democratic Grand Army men threaten or iDsult a Republican President when he vetoed the equalization of bounty bill? Did Democratic Grand Army mer. threaten or offer insults to another Republican President and the Republican Senators who opposed the arrearage of pension ac + ? No, sir, they were too loyal to the Government to permit avarice and cupidity to lead them into Let us review, Comrade Tuttle, the grounds of your proposed demonstration against the commander of the armies of these United States, while he is the guest of a sister c.ty in a sister State. You say “he vetoed the dependent pension bill.” True; and he vetoed other bills, as it was his right and duty as chief executive to do. Is a President or a Governor to be mobbed, hooted and insulted every time he offends any portion of the people? What a monstrous proposition ? I, as a veteran soldier, favor a “general pension law” as well as a dependent pension bill, but I believe that tne vetoed bill was properly vetoed because it was imperfectly constructed, as most of our pension legislation Has been and is to-day. Even now a general pension law is being considered and canvassed by our G. A. R. posts, and a substitute bill will no doubt be evolved. ! I Now, Comrade Tuttle, I ask you in all candor what good your proposed insult to the President will do the poor, needy veterans «nd their widows and orphans?

Will it assist the passage of the new bill? Will it strengthen the hands and ranks of the soldier friends ia Congress? Will it change the political complexion of this or the new Congress? And above all will it increase* the influence of the G. A. R. wher® it most need** influence? You have already done much t» weaken the cause of the men yonr pretend to champion. We need friendship and aid, not bitter hostility and the condemnation of th® conservative element of our peoJ pie. lowa is not the United States* nor has the soldier hobb / been ridden in every State as it is being done in lowa. You insulted every Democratic soldier in lowa when you said ; “The feeling against Cleveland is tremendously strong throughout the State. Democrats denounce' him aB strongly as Republicans.”* This I deny and challenge you for the proof. No decent, intelligent x emocrat in lowa would “denounce” the president as you have done. The D -mocrats L. Io va ar® too loyal and patriotic to sentiments that incite to riot and assassination. You will see, if you attend the Grand Army encampment in St. Louis, that Democratic Grand Army men from lowa will be there in force and will discountenance any action which might tend to disgrace the* State of lowa. In another place* in your duly authenticated interview in the Globe Democrat and the Register, you offer this gratuitous insult to your Democratic comrades with whom you tsainedH as a Democrat until the Republicans gave you an offnr for an office - ‘Ever since the Democrats oame into power there has been a drifting: of newly appointed offiee holder* into the ranks of the Grand ArmyFor twenty years these men kept >utof our organization, b cause, as they said, there was too much Republicanism about it. Within the* past few months these men havecome into the ranks in singularly large numbers, and all say they are coming to St. Louis.” Is this true, Comrade Tuttle? Has this soldier-*.ating Democraticadministration really appointed Union soldiers to office ‘ in singularlv large numbers” and are they really “coming to St. Louis?” — What a damaging confession is this! Yet it is true, so far as appointing Democratic Union soldiers to office and that they will be* at St. Louis in September. Among the “office holders” I expect to meet and sreet Gen. W. S~ Rosecrans, the grand cld hero of the “Army of the Cumberland”* and of West Virginia; Gen. FranzSigel, pension agent, Now York;. Gen. D. C. Buell, pension agent,, Louisville, Ky.; Gen. Jno. C. Black* commissioner of pensions; GenVilas, Postmaster General; < oL Zollinger, pen-ion agen 4- , Indianapolis; Mrs. Mulligan, widow of the gallant Col. Mulligan, of Lexington, Mo., fame, who is now pension agent at Chicago; Capt. Lake*, pension agent at Des Moines;Capto Allen, pension agent at San Francisco. [The writer failed to include the naaie of our one-legged private soldier pension agent at Detroit, the popular and efficient Bob McKinstry, who was recommended by Gen. Black, the Com - missioner of Pensions, and appointed by the “Soldier-hating President,” Cleveland. He also omits to mention the fact that every one of the eighteen pension ageits who have been appointed by Gen. Black were soldiers except Mrs. Mulligan, the pension agent, at Chicago, and she is the wid wof a brave soldier.—Ed.] and with them a host of other good Democret’c soldiers, not le>st among whom are Gen. Bragg, of the “Iron Brigade” of Wisconsin*, Gen. “Johnny” Slocum and Gen~ Daniel E. Sickles, of New York;; Gen. Stoneman, of California, and Gen. Walsh and Col Stewart MMaylor, of San Francisco; GenJno. A. McClernand and Gen. PaL—

mer, of Illinois. And why should they not be welcomed in a grand encampment of the G. A. li. It is because none of them were appointed to office fy Kepublican administrations (except Gen. Sickles.) I will not ask you, Comrade Tuttle, why you were a Democrat until a few years ago. A man has the right to change kis politics as well as the right to change his coat. But I will tell you why we Democratic soldiers remain true to our principles. '* It is because w.» believe in a union of States, a ui ion of the whole people, ana disbelieve in “sectionalism.” It is because Democratic brains and Democratic geueials saved the Union. It is because the Democratic party has been the real, true friend of the soldier. In support of the last assertion I desire to call your attention to the following facts of official record: A Kepublican President vetoed the equalization of bouuties bill and signed the back pay steal as well as bills which robbed .is soldiers of the public lands given to railroad corporations. In 1874 when both houses of Congress were Kepublican the first arrearages of pension bill was defeated It was reported adversely by Senator Pra + t, of Indiana, (a Kepublican) for “economic reasons,” and on motion ot the senator, Piatt, (a Republican) this “arrearage bill,’’appropriating $9,000,000 only, was indefinitely postponed. This was in the Fortv-third Congress, both houses Republican.

It was a Democratic Congress which passed the arrearage of pension act. In 1877 CongressmanGeneral A. Y. liice, a one-legged (Democratic) soldier,championed the bill granting arrearages to soldiers. his motion the general rules of the House weie suspended and a Democratic congress passed the first rrearages of pen ion bill on March 3d, 1877. (See the record for proof.) It was a Republican. Senate which defeated this bill. When it reached the Senate it wus laid on the table on the motion of Senator John J. Ingalls, o/ Kansas, and among those who spoke arc! voted against the bill so. containing the arrearages was Senator John Sherman, a Republican favorite for the presidency. (See Cougression 1 lieco d.) [n the Forty-fifth Congress (Democratic) General Sparks, of iliim.is, now t ommissioner of the General Lan Office (a Democrn') introduced and .got passed an arrearage of pension bill a .propriating not $9,000,000, a sum which had frightened the Republican Senate in the Forty-fourth Congress, but $25,000,000 and a Democratic Congress passed this bill. Perhaps you are not aw we, Comrade Tuttle, th-1 — Every dollar paid out for arrearages of pensions has been voted by Democratic Congresses. That the president you so bitterly denounce has signed more private x>e sion bills in the two years of nis incumbency than any otuer president during his entire presidential term.

That the (Republican) Forty - seventh congress passe d o' r er 190 of these private pension bills, while the (Demoi ratio) Fortyeighth congress patsed 524 of these private pension biils. Which party (I ask you, Comrade Tutt’e,) has shown itself to be the real soldiers’ friend? Is it the party that talks to obtain votes, or the party which votes money to men wno habitually denounce and abuse it for so doing? A meeting was he d, I understand, in Des Moines, in General Tuttle’s house (a few nights ago, the Leader says) to devise ways and means to prevent Democratic G. A. R. men going to St. Louis. What folly is this? What absurdity? Who can control the Democratic soldiers of Iowa? Surely not the man who has so grossly insulted them an*.i misrepresent'd their real sentiments. We shall “bo there,” Comrade Tutfc'e, and we shall not go there to instil;. the President or to outrage the g iierous hospitality of a State which gave 108,778 of its brave sons to preserve this glorious Union In conclusion let me hope that you will openly and publicly manifest your regret for the grave error you

have committed. That yon will realize the fact that more pensions are now being paid to the soldiers and their widows and orphans than ever before; that last year a Democratic Congress and our present beloved President passed and signed bibs increasing the widows’ and doubling the minor orphans’ pensions, and that if ever a general pension law or a dependent pension bill is passed it must be by Demecratic votes, as in the past, and be signed by the President voi now urge us to insult in St. Louis. With due consideration, I am sir, vour friend and comrade in the G. A. R., Charles Whitehead. George H. Thomas, Post G. A. R. No. 2, San Francisco, Cal. (On official duty in Des Moines, la.)