Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1884 — THE YOUNG VOTER. [ARTICLE]

THE YOUNG VOTER.

Advice to the Young Men Who Will Vote as to Where to Cast Their First Ballots. [Lieut. Gov. Hanna, at Gosport, Ind.l “Young man, you should consider well before casting your first ballot. If yon start to voting right, it will be offgreat advantage to you in after life. If you vote with a party that is proud of its past history—a party that can take great satisfaction in recounting its record in the war for the Union—a party that is pleased with its candidates, a party that is active, progressive, and determined to be for Americans and America; if you will join such'a party as that, your future life will not be a political burden to you. “Young man, if yon should join the Democratic party, you will find many dissatisfied and disappointed old men—many discontented and restless young men. Young man, do you know that the youngest Democrat in this country thatever voted tor a Democratic President is 42 years of age ? “It has been twenty-eight years since the Democratic party elected its President, arid unless that narty mends its ways, it will be twenty-eight years more before it even has a chance to elect a President. “Intelligent, enterprising young men, don't go - into the Democratic party. There is no room for you there. The company is not the kind for you to keep. Look at the Democratic party—the solid South is there, the free-trader is there, the Mormon is there. TEA Bourbon is still there, who never learns anything nor forgets anything. The copperhead Democrat is there. The rebel guerrilla is there. The men who murdered draft officers are there. The men who burned colored orphan asylums are there. The shotgun and rifle clubs are there. The tissue ballot is there, old Bill English is there, Hendricks is there, Cleveland is there, Tilden is there, Jeff Davis is there. Young man, don’t go into the Democratic party. Don't vou see it is no place for you? Don’t be a Democrat just because your father was a Democrat. I heard an Irishman in my town say that there was no need of a young man being a Democrat just because his father was a Democrat—no more use of it than there was for a young man to be a bachelor just because his father was a bachelor. My young Democratic friend, let me tell you a secret. I was a Democrat once myself, in my younger days, and au orthodox at that; that is, my father voted for Polk and Pierce, but when I heard of the Republican party, when I heard of Fremont arid free homes for free men. 1 fell in line under the Republican flag, and have been following it ever since, and I am glad of it. “Young man, turn your face to the State of Maine and cast your political future with the Republican party, and you will always be proud of that act—a party that since it has come into power has known no‘defeat; that in the struggle lor supremacy in ’the last quarter of a century has been the survival ot the fittest A party whose motto is equality before the law and at the ballot box. A party that gives homes to the homeless; that crushed secession ; that obliterated human slavery: that mule it impossible tor a slave to exist beneath our flag in tha domains of our republic; a party that believes in protecting American labor and American industries; a party under whose wise administration our country has grown rich and prosperous, has increased more than threefold in wealth in the last thirty years, and to-day our republic is the greatest and grandest nation beneath the stars. Young man, if you will join the Republican party, you will be urged on to greater and nobler deeds, you will be stimulated by t.he example and memories of the actions of the great fathers in the Republican party—the apostles and martyrs of freedom—you will be surrounded by men who keep pace with the spirit and progress of the age—who believe in the sacrednesss of the home —men who would crush the vile heads of slander—by men, who do now and have kept step to tire music of the Union—men who believe in America and Americans. ” You will be cheered on to greater duty by having in charge the soldiers of the Union, blessed with the prayers and tears of tueir widows and orphans. You will have upon your shoulders the hopes and fears of 4,000,000 of men made free by your party. “ Young man, look at the great names the Republican party has given to America and the world—John lirown and Thaddeus Stevens, Sumner and Stanton. Morton and Wade. Then the long list. of Presidents—Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and next November, Jaines G. Blaine, of Maine."