Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1885 — WILLIAM M. EVARTS. [ARTICLE]

WILLIAM M. EVARTS.

The Great Lawyer - Statesman Upon the Lesson of the November Defeat. [New York special] Some time ago the Union League Club appointed a committee to arrange for a formal reception to William M. Evarts commemorative of his election as. United States Senator. It was resolved to make the reception as simple and as social as possible. Invitations were sent to a great many of the prominent members of the Republican party throughout the country, and also to every member of the Legislature of this State. The members of the club and their guests assembled in the club theater about 9 o’clock p. m., filling the little auditorium completely. Soon afterward Mr. Evarts entered, leaning on the atm of Judge Noah Davis, Vice-President of the club. The Senator-elect was escorted to a sqat on the stage. Judge Davis presided, and in calling the assemblage to order he remarked that those who composed it had come to tender congratulations to a man whom the Legislature, “in obedience to the will of the people of the entire State,” had chosen tc represent New York in the United States Senate. A congratulatory address was read by Mr. E. B. Hinsdale. The Senator-elecl was congratulated upon his election, and the whole body of the citizens of the - State were congratulated that they have secured his eminent abilities for that high office. Good party principles, the address said, could produce no practice, results for the people until the party which holds them could secure the offices in the government so as to enforce and exemplify the principles. The address continued as follows: “We think that, notwithstanding the defeat of the Republican party in the late general election, the majority of the people believe in its policy, and that they believe the personal rights of all citizensand the national prosperity of the country would be best conserved in its hands. After reviewing very briefly the great work that the Republican party had performed, the address enumerated the leading issues now before the country, and expressed confidence in Mr. Evarts’ ability to fittingly express in the Senate the sentiments of the people of New York State upon those issues. The applause that greeted the Senatorelect when he arose to respond to the address was tumultuous in its enthusiasm. It lasted two minutes. Mr. Evarts said, among other things: “I have no desire to conceal from you that the actual circumstances which marked the transaction of the election, and that found an echo in your kind applause, rests upon something more important than marks anything personal to myself or anything in the ordinary routine of political promotion. We, t e Republican party, that were framed into the means of saving this country, and that through every danger and against every obstacle, and with every degree of triumph and prosperity have built up an uninitiated territory and an uncorropted constitution to be greater and better than it was ever framed or imagined by the great founders of our Government; we, the Republican party, find ourselves cast out of power and surrendering to a reactionary party the possession of the same nation and ennobled Government It is twenty-eight years since the people of this Government intrusted the Executive power to a Democratic party and a Democratic President. Now again they have intrusted that power to the same patty and a President of that party's selection. We in New York cannot conceal from ourselves that the center of the array of the Republican party in the United States was pierced st this point that was committed to our defense. No'doubt some bitterness of reproach might be, should be, and is fe:t in Connecticut, in New Jersey, and in Indians that, when New York failed, there was not an a lay of sufficient strength to succeed and to save the downfall of the

party’s poss-ssion of ihe Government of the UnitM States. Bat, look at it as yon will, wa can not disguise it at all from oarselves; we can not hide it from the great party of the nation that the defense; the protection, the power that waa intrusted to this State, was not adequate to perform the part, and in the fall of this great defense fell, at least for the moment, the possession of the fortress of the Constitution. Now, I am not wrong in saying, I am ante the history of the election teaches ns all, that the Republican manhood and sober patriotism in this State fairly counted a majority of the people, if we had all agreed among ourselves. If the Republicans in this great State had been able to look alike upon their duty and their service Nov. 4, we should not now lament a transfer of the power of oar party to the reactionary party of the Democrats. Well, it so happened that there was one stronghold in the Government that oar party had not lost, and fortunately will be able to hold a certain check on the Executive power on one hand and the Democratic authority in the popular House of Representatives on the other—l mean the Senate of the United States. That was not lost by the election in November. ** SOME PROPHECIES. Mr. Evarts said that ifhe was to believe the generous congratulations he had received and the press of the country, "We are nearer to a union and enthusiasm for the party, as a party and notching efee, than we have been since 1860, and I believe that as we enter upon the contest in the conduct of the Government and in the suffrage, so we shall pull through it daring the coming years. We are as sure as that election shall come around in this city, and then in the country at large, that we shall reinstate in the posession of that power the Republican party, and then shall have settled forever that odious and dangerous element that has disturbed us for forty years—a Solid South. I believe that we shall have shown in these four years and in our renewed power that just as long as there shall be a practical suppression in the Southern country of the suffrage which the Republican party has conferred upon the enfranchised race, there shall be found enough men at the North to vote one way upon that subject, so as to secure the promotion of this enfranchised people and teach a lesson that votes suppressed at that end will only breed a double growth of votes at the North. I submit to you that jn the last contest for the Senatorship it has been an open, it has been a free, it has been an honest, it has been a goodtempered, it has been a brotherly contest that has preceded; and, gentlemen, this public contest ftom the press, and, in the opinions Ot mankind, in the State, and in the deliberative bodies themselves has taught a lesson that if the public men of the State win trust the people at large directly. that relation between the public men and the party at large, no matter who shall be successful among the competitors, is a better and a greater success for the party and the people than the triumph of the most admired men if it ie got by other means than that of the will of the people." It would be intereeting to know how the •2,000,000 said to have been plundered from the revenue of Kentucky during the i last fifteen years was distributed among the 1 Democratic patriots of the State.—JSr.