Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1891 — MR. CLEVELAND'S SPEECH. [ARTICLE]

MR. CLEVELAND'S SPEECH.

The Indianapolis Mews, a prominent republican journal, refers in the follow* ing complimentary terms to the recen* speech of Mr. Cleveland before the Cleveland Clnb, at Buffalo, N. Y.: There an two oonspiouous qualities in Mr. Cleveland’s publio speech—courage and substance. He says something. His utteranee is not mere words, pretty nothings on a string of rhetorio, but embodied ideas. When he is done he has left something to be pondered, something worthy to inspire action. This something he gives the quality of inspiration to by his coureg*. His letter on the silver coinage i question not long ago was one of the most courageous acts of the time. It was almost audacious in its courage. * * Similarly in his speech to the Cleveland Democracy at Buffalo yesterday Mr. Cleveland, with his oustomary courage and direct drive of utteranee, challenged the appalling extravagance of the time in our public expenditure. He rightly classified the billion dollar Congress as an effeot, the spirit of extravagance as a cause. He showed how far and fast we were drifting from the old idea of economy asd simplicity, and the one greatest evil effeot of it, namely in the perversion of character it was causing. “But to my mind, the saddest and most frightful result of public extravagance is seen in the readiness of the masses of omr people, who are not dishonest but only only heedless, to acoustom themselves to that dereliotion in publio place which it involves. Evidenoe is thus furnished that our countrymen are in danger of losing the scrupulous insistence upon the faithful discharge of duty on the part of their publie servants, the regard for eoonomy and frugality of sturdy Americanism. Mr. Cleveland speaks like a philosopher here as well as a statesman. He correct, ly devines the insidious influenoe of this prodigality in publio affairs. A pension list increased from fifty millions to nearly three times that, and the insatiate cry for more as fieroe as ever; the river and harbor bill doubled—from $11,000,000 to $22,000,000—the treasury surplus sapped dry, and taxes blistered hotter and broader than ever, the beneficiaries of the extravagance being relied upon for support of the influences which work them and plunder the masses for them. Mr. Cleveland’s speech should be read by every oitizen—by the plain man, the average American whose aims are pnre and who is deceived beeause of his own trusting honesty and lack of knowledge. James Bryce in his great book on our institutions the “American Commonwealth, “ discussing the problem of American extravagance and corruption in publio affairs maintains what European opinion thinks is a paradox, namely that the American people are pure; and he explains it by urging that the . do not know what is going on, and when told it think it is the lies of the opposition. Mr. Cleve-, land emphasizes this same thing in his warning. But he gives the warning, and the words of a courageous, honest man, as Jkis countrymen have found him to be, should count for much. The public treasury is drained, elements of our life debauched, and the most appalling system of class taxation known to civilization fastened on the masses. Labor is herded and driven like cattle, and new millio aires spring up every day.