Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1884 — EX-SENATOR GRADY. [ARTICLE]

EX-SENATOR GRADY.

His Address Before the Tammany Council—Why He Bolts Cleveland. —i —* —— — [New York telegram.] Ex-Senator Grady, rising to protest against the passage of the resolution aud the adoption of the address, made along speech. He reviewed the whole political career of Cleveland, and quoted freely from the columns of the Times and the Herald in the past in support of the position he (Grady) had now taken. In the course of his speech Grady said: Neither in the nomination of the ticket nor iR the methods by which It was brought about ls there the slightest claim upon the great body of Democratic voters for Its support. The great majority of the delegates to the convention who named Cleveland as their first choice represented Republican constituencies. The number of delegates who openly and earnestly opposed his nomination were recorded, in spite ot all their protests, as,favorable to his candidacy. Every influence that could De employed or engineered by the monopolists who have secured control of the party management was exerted to make him the candidate, and, as you well know, the delegates who left,their homos Idud in their professions of hostility to his candidacy as Inviting certain defeat to the partv gave evidence soon alter their arrival at Chicago of a change of heart, which only the most simple and charitable have ascribed to pure and worthy motives. The expressed design of men who urged his nomination was to conciliate disgruntled Republicans, not to please Democrats. Preserving to myself the supreme right., of a citizen exercising an act of sovereignty, I decline lo prostitute my prerogative to the purposes of party managers. Suffrage has been bestowed on me bv the institutions of my country that it may lie exercised for the country’s welfare. To the prosperity and benefit of this land I dedicate It, and I can not reconcile without desecration anv disposition of It that would result In the support of the, political nondescript, clothed in the outward garb of a Democrat, ignorant of the cardinal principles of the political faith which he assumes to profess, and accepting from Democrats their votes that ho may delight Republicans and Independents by the manner in which he will exercise the powers conferred upon him by a betrayed and deluded party. . But my vote will not be lost to the Democracy. It will be cast for the candidate whose followers will be numbered by hundreds of thousands, whose motives can not be Impugned, for their action can not be inspired by seifish hopes of reward. It will be registered for the principles which the Democratic party professed when it held jiopnlar confidence, and for abandoning which it lost popular support. It will be given for the candidate who has no hope of election and np desire for sordid benefits, for political preferment, but who braves iatigue, abuse, and pecuniary loss that ipue Democrats may find his candidacy a channel through which they may express their sentiments. T turn my back on the Democratic party, captured and betrayed by Know-nothing demagogues hungry for places and spoils, to join the pure Democracy which struggles for principles whioh the party organization has abandoned- I denounce the candidate whose only merit is his obscurity that I may follow a statesman whose life has made glorious the history of his country. 1 decline to bow down before a graven image because I prefer to follow the teachings of the apostle of the true political faith. Preferring shining ability to dull mediocrity, a true reformer to a sham reformer, a statesman to a hangman, an illustrious citizen to a political adventurer, I decline to support Grover Cleveland for the Presidency, and here and now, in the j resence of a leader whom I have always regarded as my political sponsor, in the midst of brethren and comrades with whom I have shared many hard-fought battles in the political field, and before the eyes of all the country, to whom I have this night laid bare my motives and purposes, I declare myself in favor of Benjamin F. Butler, soldier, jurist, statesman, and patriot, and I appeal to time for my vindication.