Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1884 — GOV. PORTER. [ARTICLE]

GOV. PORTER.

A Rousing Speech Before a Mass-Meet-ing in Indiana. [Liberty (Ind.) Cor. Chicago Tribune.) Gov. Alberti). Porter addressed, to-night, an immense Republican mass-meeting and delivered a lengthy and able speech, most of which, however, was taken up in discussing questions relative to the State. He presented a scathing arraignment of the professions of the Democratic State Convention, vindicating Republican management of public institutions, and commending some valuable suggestions to the coming Legislature He showed tr.at the Republican party in Indiana deserved credit for taking measures toward securing mechanics by a first lien upon work done for wages thereon performed, and he recalled in the same connection that Grover Cleveland had vetoed a mechanics' lien bill, and was fully sustained in It bylfls party friends The speaker suggested that as the burden of taxation fell upon the farmers and the owners ot small homesteads it wo ild be well tor experienced men chosen by the people to meet in convention and discuss measures of reform. Touching the general issues of the campaign he said: "My objection to the Democratic party in recent years is that it is a party without convictions. It has had no settled belief npon any public questions. It has repeatedly approved and pledged itself not to disturb measures achieved by the Republican party, against which it had waged the fiercest party warfare. It is always asking that its past may be forgotten. Its enemy is memory. The first sentence in its recent platform shqws its soreness about the past: ’The Democratic party of the Union, through its representatives in national convention assembled, recognize that as nations grow older, new issues are born of time and progreas.and old issues jerish.’ Why remind the people anxiously of the old issue having peiished? Banquo perished, but his ghost took a seat at the banquet table, and the ghost was a, hundred times more harrowing than Banquo had ever been himself. That is what is the trouble. It is these memories connected with the old issues that will not ’down,* that haunt and {tester the party. The Repuiican party has no ghosts of memory connected with past issues that put it in dread that the past will be referred to. A vast territory—-mother of many States—preserved from the presence and taint of unrecompensed labor; an enemy overcome by the sword yet more benefited by war than it had ever been’by peace, by being ridded of a destructive system of labor and of having had opened to it, > s by doors flying wide apart, an enlightened system of free and diversified industries; a national credit, through the exercise of an undeviating good faith, unexampled in the history of nations; a currency, since the issuing of which no billholder has ever lost a dollar; an arbitration of a great national dispute, through which, as a nationalredress for wrongdoing, there was wrung from the most warlike nation of Europe 115,000,000 of treasure; a tariff system which, at the beginning of our great civil strife, by setting on foot a vast system of manufacturing industries, spanned the darkest clouds of war with the rainbow of promise. These ’past Issues' have left no ghosts to terrify the Republicans. We never beg that not be remembered." The speech was received with great enthusiasm, particularly the closing tribute to the Republican standard-bearer. “If Mr. Cleveland cannot tell,” satdthe speaker, “where he stands upon this great question, there is one man whose trumpet has never given forth an uncertain sound—its notes being ever clear and resonant. You know very well whom 1 mean. James G. Blaine answers to the description. Beginning life in the humble occupation of a schoolmaster, he has, by the force of his talents, by the strength and vigor of his character, by his personal Intrepidity, by his irresistible social charms, by that combination ot high and sympathetic qualities which belongs to rare and fine natures, made himself one ot the best known and best beloved of all the pnblic men in our history. As Speaker of the Honse ot Representatives of his adopted State and of Congress, distinguished always for the fairness and unerring clearness ot his decisions; as a debater on the floor of each House, whenever he entered the lists his plume shining in front of the combat; as a statesman, long known for the surprising breadth and accuracy of his political knowledge; as a writer, depicting the incidents and scenes of a long pnblic life, in which he has borne a most conspicuous part, rich and perspicuous in style, copious and -accurate in iuforinattou, just and-generous to every one with whom he has ever crossed a sword; his home the abode ot domestic bliss and hospitality—its hospitable doors open alike to friend and foe—the bitterest adversary in his warm and joyous presence forgetting his feud and dissolving into kindness; a citizen of the United States, broad-minded and just toward the whole world, yet his whole being pervaded and burning with the American instinct; so frank and open that he is transparent as the air —this is the man whose banner is in our front, whose plume nods at the head of the column, and under whose leadership we expect to move on to victory.”