Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1884 — CARL SCHURZ ANSWERED. [ARTICLE]

CARL SCHURZ ANSWERED.

G. F. Hoar’s Tribute to BlaineEarnest Words fgr IrishAmerican Citizens. How Cleveland Has Been Voting for the Last Twenty-four Years. At a recent Republican rally at Salem, Mass., Senator Hoar spoke as follows: Mr. Blaine has been called a Jingo. I think he is very much sum a Jingo as the last Massachusetts President, John Quincy Adams, was. I think he means to cultivate friendly relations with every other nation, especially with those of the American continent, and he means to have it understood that if an American citizen, whether by birth or by adoption, goes anywhere on the face of the earth, he is to be respected accordingly. He means, L think, to sum up his foreign policy in one sentence—we ask for no injustice and we will stand no nonsense. * * * * * * * Now I should like to ask any Englishman, or Scotchman, or Irishman in the County of Essex if the picture I have drawn of the condition of the workingman that he left behind him, and the condition of the workingman here, is not true to the letter. And I should likedo ask, and' I should like to have you ask your Irish neighbors, what reason they can give, while they came here to get out from under the heel of England, for voting for the pobey which England is eager to have this country adopt.- The Irishman was a British subject in Ireland, but he didn’t have an American vote. The Irishman who votes the Democratic ticket in Essex County is ten times a British subject, and, unfortunately, in that subjecting, he is casting an American vote. Our Democratic brethren offer to our suffrages Grover Cleveland and Gov. Hendricks. And what do you know of either of them? Do you know anything of Grover Cleveland fit to be publicly discussed, except that he has been all his lifetime a blind and obedient follower of a party always in the wrong? He is 50 years old. He voted for President In 1860. I don't know whether he voted for Jeff Davis or for what other- of the Democratic candidates of that year, but he didn’t vote for Abraham Lincoln. In 1864 the question was put to the American people, “Shall our array be called home in disgrace; shall this war stop; shall the South go; shall the flag be folded up and laid away; shall the country perish?" “Aye,” said Grover Cleveland. The question was put to the American people In 1868, "Shall the slave continue a slave; shall the old rebel set his heel on his neck again, or shall the constitutional amendment, which makes of the slave a freeman, and of the freeman a citizen, and of the citizen a voter, be inscribed on the Constitution?” “No,” said Grover Cleveland. The question came in 1876, “Shall the debt be repudiated; shall the currency continue to bs debased; shall the American coin, with which the workmen’s wages, and the soldiers’ pensions, and the savings-banks deposits are to be paid, oe a debased currency?” “Aye,” said Grover Cleveland. And, now, what does he tell you in his letter of acceptance and his speech of acceptance? Here 0 are plenty of living Issues. Shall the great Mormon cancer spread over the breast of this continent? Shall the South continue fraudulent voting and criminal practices? ’ Shall the protective policy on which the workman’s wages and the comfort of his home depend continue? What says Grover Cleveland as to these questions? He says not one word upon all these great, vital issues—not one word. He says simply, “I am chosen to execute the plans, purposes, and policy of the Democratic party”—and if he is elected he will do it. And Hendricks is like unto him, with the , single exception that, while Cleveland has been in obscurity, Hendricks has been a leader and an actor in all the Democratic policies of the past He sat in the Senate throughout the war, em-

barrassing Abraham Line oln by every vote he cast and every speech he made— his votes recorded against the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery; his votes recorded against every proposition to raise troops; and htif ommends himself to the civil service reformers by the declaration that the first thing to be done by a Democratic administration is to turn out 50.000 Republican officeholders and put 50,000 Democrats in their stead. Now, fellow-citizens, I thank God that we have candidates with no such miserable records. We have candidates —both of them—worthy of the enthusiastic support of every man. You know something of the principles, the policy, the purposes of the Republican party. They are written in letters of light on your country's history, as they are in the platform adopted at Chicago, and James G. Blaine has been selected to carry out the principles, and the policy, and the purposes of the Republican party. And he is about to do it. Has there ever been a candidate since the Republican party was organized so well commended to you as Mr. Blaine? Did you know as much about Abraham Lincoln when you voted for him? Did you know as much about Grant, in civil life, I mean, when you first voted for him? Did you know as much about Hayes when you voted for him? I think, the choice of the great Republican party of this country ought to count for something. They have not made a mistake even when they took an obscure man, comparatively, for their candidate. They knew what they were about. And they have not made a mistake when they have taken the one most conspicuous person in civil life in America. • kWhy, they talk about their charges! I suppose you have heard country lawyers argue a case when they hadn't got much evidence on their side—and don’t understand me as speaking contemptuously of country lawyers, because lam one of that kind myself. [Laughter.] But with almost any complicated state of facts, and figures and correspondence a shrewd and crafty man can get up and, by shaking his head, and sneering, and declaring that the thing you thought was innocent was done for a guilty purpose, and with a guilty motive, can make out an apparently plausible story before somebody who does not know anything about the case. And that is the attempt in these charges against Mr. Blaine. There are four of these letters—all that Mr. Schurz quoted in his speech and in his letter—and Ishould like to have them printed and put. into the hands of every Republican voter in Massachusetts. All there is of them is the charge that when Mr. Blaine reminded his correspondent of a perfectly honest and righteous ruling, he did it not innocently and honestly, but for a corrupt purpose, and to imply that if he could make a trade with the man he would do him such a favor again. Now, I think Mr. Blaine is entitled to the charity with which you would judge the humblest and the most obscure man in your own neighborhood. Suppose these letters had been written by a watchman in Lynn or a policeman in Haverhill, and not by a candidate for the great office of President, and all his neighbors came forward and said to yon: This man we have known from his youth up, through and through; he is a perfeilyrtionest man. Suppose the nten who had quarreled with him and fought so far as in them lay the high honor which can only be given in full by the whole people of the United States. What they think of him you can judge by the tremendous majority in that State. What the people of the United States think of him a similar result in November is certain to show. [The applause which greeted this prediction was suddenly hushed by a blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a tremendous roar of thunder.] The people of the State of Maine have just spoken. That is the one [community on this earth which would not tolerate a knave if they knew it, and from whose intelligence a knave could not hide himself if he tried. It stands, I believe, at the head of all the communities on the face of the globe in the capacity to read and write, in the education of its people. It is an unmixed English blood, and I speak of that only to show that they have been used to self-govern-ment and to choose their rulers for two centuries. Over and over again Democrats leaving their party to do it, the people of Maine have declared their love for and their confidence in this man. The United Stales Senate was just half Democratic when Mr. Blaine was proposed to them by Gen. Gaifield for the office of Secretary of State. Now it would be improper for me, under the rules of the Senate, to say whether he was unanimously confirmed, and I say nothing about that apywhere; but I have a right to say, under the rales of the Senate, that a single objection would have compelled that nomination to go over at least twenty-four hours, and that he was confirmed in two minutes after his name went in. Don’t you suppose that these Democratic S natprs knew whether Mr. Blaine was an honest man or a knave? And don’t you suppose they would have been swift to condemn him if they tad entertained the latter opinion?