Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1887 — AN OLD SOLDIER SPEAKS. [ARTICLE]

AN OLD SOLDIER SPEAKS.

Cincinnati Enquirer: The promptitude in granting worthy pensions and the generosity with which all applicants are treated under the present Democratic Administration and the Pension Committee of the Democratic House is something phenomenal. Its counterpart never existed under any previous administration, and yet a systematic effort is being carried forward to array every pensioner and every ex-soldier against the Democratic administration and President Cleveland by the men who withheld pensions in the past for purely political reasons.

WHAT it is? The question is asked: “Why is this the case?” In my opinion the time has about come for a frank and uuequivoeal ans eer. There is a small but p werful and active element in the Grand Array of the Republic, backed by the unscrupulous Republican press of the country to convert the Grand Army into a Republican party machine. And they have about succeeded. Next will come the disintegration of the order, as it disintegrated once before when the politicians got hob' of it. The small partisan elem nt who are now working to make the Gr -nd Army a Republican machine were just as bitter against General Hancock in 1880 a* they are against Cleveland t -day. Here in Ohio there was not'.ing too foul and infamous for them to say about Generals Ewing and Rice when the < headed the Democratic ticket Their sole business is to inflame the passions of men against Demaid finally get the Grand Army organization committed to the Republican party. And, as I have said, this element bids fair to soon gain the ascend* ancy and disrupt the organization. It is with regret hat I feel called upon to make this statement, and not only Democratic but Republican members of the Army will regret it, too; but they rre not so blind, so deaf and so utterly incapable of understanding things as not to realize its truth. They hope that the danger w : ll be reelized in time to prevent impending results. The politicians back of the movement care nothing for the Grand Army except as they can use it to further their own selfish ends.

Of course, there is no politics in the Arm / Posts, but it begins to look queer when a certain element of the organization will assemble in the Posts and in th -ir names denounce the President of the United States because he is a democrat, a d resolve to insult him if they are afforded an opportunity. And then it adds to the queerness when all the republic n papers applaud this and call on the Grand Army to keep on and give the Democratic party h—l. Take the St. Louis matter, for instance. If any one supposes that the whole thing has not been worked by the republican leaders he an ass be, ond redemption. What are the facts? General, Noble, in behalf of the Grand Army, invited the President of the United States to attend the National Encampment at St. Louis. The Mayor of the city and twenty-five thousand citizens joined in another invitation for him to come. He made up his mind to accept both the invitations. Had he refused the Grand Army would have felt slighted, and the republican press have denounced him as the enemy of the soldiers. But no sooner did he announce his intention to attend th e encampment than the republican propaganda in the Grand Army caused a ferment, and threatened not only insult, lut open violence, if he attended in accordance with General Nob e’s invitation. The republican press took up the howl, and declared from end to end of the country that for the President of the United States to accept the in-

yitation of the Grand Array was to insult the Grand Army! The republican propaganda element in a number of Posts passed resolutions denouncing the President, and refusing to attend if he was present. This was applauded by every republican sheet. Finally the President, to put an end to what there* tened to create discord in the Grand Army, wrote a manly letter, the striking frankness and truth of which would put to blush any man but a republican leader or a republican propagandist in the G. A. R. And now what? The very republican papers that last week were denouncing the President as meditating an insult to the Grand Army by going to St. Louis are this week denouncing him for insulting it by declining to go! Ans you will no doubt find ti at the Posts wh'ch refused to go to St. Louis, if the Pres dent was there, passing a new set of resolutions denouncing him for not going! Isn’t it about time for the whole public including the great bulk of the Grand Army, to fathom the object of Tuttle, Fairchild, the republican leaders and the republican press? The only result that would follow if the republican propagandists succeed in making a medium out of the Grand Army will be to drive all Democrats and nearly or quite half the republicans out of it. And when outside they will vote their honest convictions. The scheme to get every man who was a soldier to vote the reEublican ticket won’t work. It may • pushed to that point where it will work the otner way.

lndianapolis News, republican: ‘‘lt isn’t a bad move that the president has made again in the matter of his St. Louis visit. He will go there in CA'tober —fair time — which is always an extraordinary time in St. Louis. He will also make his Atlanta trip, and coming across the south, he would be a hardy speculator who would say that in t .e next democratic convention would not be solid and “red hot” for Cleveland’s re-nom-ination. The visit will do good. Cleveland is the first president since Buchanan whom t“.e south really feels that it has an interest in; and in the new meaning which now, s.nce the war, attaches to his office, the man and the office thus meet to give the south a chance to honor th m. For Cleveland himself to go to St. Louis, aft >r having declined to go, in September, is not a bad move. He flanked the G. A. R., ’so to speak, and yet doesn’t give up any advantage which his visit may be to him.

There was an odd incident at one end of the seashore places one day last week. A couple of ladies who do rot live in Boston, and whose unpretentious way of life had perhaps led them to fear that thev might be looked down upon by Boston people, had taken board at a hotel much patronized by Bostonians of an excellent sort. Walking about the corridor of the house on the first evening aft. r their arrival and observing with an interest natural to new comers the people about them, they happened tii observe two ladies standing in the corridor not far away. It struck the younger of the two new-com-ers who is a litile short-sighted, that these two ladies were quite shabby in appearance. She turned to her companion and whispered: “Well, I guess we can hold up our heads with this sort of people.” The elder seized her handkerchief in a vain attempt to smother a * hearty laugh. They had been looking at their own retl *ction in a big mirror.—Boston Transcript. The L., N. A. I&C. earned, the second week in July, $45,300; increase over earnings for the corresponding week, 1886, $11,703, or 34 per cent.