Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1885 — REPUBLICAN GOSPEL. [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN GOSPEL.

The. Democratic Party Arraigned for Its Manifold Sins of Omission and Commission. A Brilliant and Telling Speech by Hon. W. P. Hepburn, at Des Moines, lowa.

The present position of the Democratic partyin this nation is a proof of the potency of calumny and crime—the fact that they exist today, and are controlHbs agents in this great nation, is a satisfactory proof of how great results may be achieved by base and ignoble means. It is a singular thing. It must appear wonderfully strange to people who ate not affected by the possessions and interests that affect us, who know little of onr politics, who occasionally have heard of the stirring events that have occurred on this continent in the last quarter of a century. It must be wonderfully strange to those of a philosophic mind to see a party ruling the destinies of this nation that nave been for twenty-live years in public disgrace upon the continent. To find a party ruling this nation that when last intrusted with power betrayed their trust, were untrue to the principles of liberty, were untrue as the custodians of the unity of the States and were content that their union might be a dissevered and dishonored ' union. A party organization that during the last twenty years of its power did nothing that was not in the direction of human slavery, had no policy not in harmony with the will of the slaveholder, pretended to principles that might not be so molded at any time as to conduce to the interest of slave propagation and labor. It ought to be a singular spectacle to them to see an organization that thus defeated itself, this organization that has thus been false to its duty and trust, elevated to power over that magnificent organization Whose history in each and every day has been the history of good alone to the people. [Applause.! We all know the force of reiteration. To-day a statement is made. We scout it becitntte of its entire absence of truth. Tomorrow it is repeated again and again. It is voiced by thousands and, though it is repugnant to our moral sense, although we know it lacks every factor of truth, yet at last it enforces a species of recognition, and In the of men may come to have many seemings and garbs of truth. It is through .thisquality of the human mind, thus to be impressed, that this party has been permitted to achieve power. Who does not remember the slanders of the Democratic party? They have been the stock in trade. They have never been troubled with •proof. When they were overwhelmed in the falsity of one charge they have instantly seized upon another, and so have gone on through the decades. The Republican party was the great robber of the Treasury. No proof, absolutely none. The records are searched and it is found that the moneys of the nation have been cared for with a fidelity never known before. Their losses have been but the fraction of a mill, as compared to the dollars lost under the best and most honest of Democratic administrations. They have said, if we could inspect the books of the Treasury we could convict you of every charge. A distinguished Democrat said that the bonds of the nation fraudulently issued, and m the hands of innocent holders, were to be counted by the hundreds of millions of dollars. Time and again he attempted to impress these theories upon the public. He was given an opportunity to search the records and found that all these charges were erroneous. On other charges of defalcation a committee of three Democrats and two Republicans made a most thorough search, aided by experts, and a Democratic clerk, and after the closest scrutiny not a dollar was found to have been misplaced. [Applause,] But the first thing the new administration strove to do was to complete the proof of the charges of corruption. Again every possible effort was made, every facility was given them, and we are unable to find a single false entry in all the records of this great Government. [Applause.] They wanted to count the cash in the Treasury. They have counted it and every dollar was there; every cent was there; save two, and they are now found. [Applause.] They charged that the Republican party, in the interest of corporations, in order to restrict the circulation and increase interest notes, had accumulated $450,000,000 in the Treasury. They demanded that it should be scattered among the people. It was the very bone of commercial life, they said. The stringency of the money market and the pressure of the hard times last year and this were to be traced directly to this fact. T his was a false statement. Republicans stated that there was no such surplus there, every dollar there was requirfed to be there ny the existing law, sloo,i 00,000 of it was there as a redemption fund for the greenbacks. It is that which gives the greenback its par value with gold. Nearly $300,000,000 were .there because they were the deposits ot the people represented by'gold and silver certificates—the money of the depositors to be paid to them when the certificates were returned; $35,000,000 of it was money of the banks kept there by law. There was about $20,900,000 or $25,000,000 we said, and that was for the current expenses of the Government. The first report that was made the Civil Service Secretary of the Treasury, the man who was not an offensive partisan, nor in any sense devoted to Democratic purposes, the first report that man made proved conclusively the falsity of every Democratic charge and the absolute truthfulness of the Republican defense. There was but $>,>.00,000 of surplus in the Treasury, so said the Secfetary twenty-three days after his introduction into office. [Applause.] Mr. Hendricks said the money belonged to the people, and that it would be distributed. Some bucolic cuss from the Indiana backwoods sent for his SB. These stories had their effect. Carlyle said that England was an island containing about 18,000,000 fools. That may not'be applicable to America, but we have some here and we call them mugwumps. It has influenced weak-minded gentlemen, who were millionaires by inheritance, poetical in their tastes and usually parting their hair in the middle; that class of gentlemen reflected over the matter, and there were enough of them to secure the election of the Democratic nominee. We have a right to complain at this kind ot warfare; it is unfair and dishonorable. But these are nothing in my judgment to the charges that are being made in another section of the country. It is the duty of every patriot to condemn the condition there—6,ooo,ooo of slaves were created citizens of this country. This gave 38 additional votes in the electoral college and House of Representatives, all ot which go to the South—given to be representative ot the new element taken into citizenship. Instead of permitting it to be representative, the white population iu many sections secure to themselves this power, and thbse for whom it was granted are robbed of all its benefits. After a scathing review of the Southern methods, as exemplified by the shot-gun, the tissue ballot, the Chishom and Matthews murders, and numberless other outrages of a similar nature, the speaker continued:

But these Democratic gentlemen say we must not talk, upon questions of this kind. They say that these are not legitimate topics of discussion. That we are simply trying to rake over the dying embers of hate that were left by the war; that we are simply trying to open old sores that were beginning to heal under the influences of time; that these questions were settled long ago. Gentlemen, there is an Inspiring sentence in the platform of the Republican party, when it declares that “no question is settled until it is settled right.” 1 care not how long this wrong may have been canonized dr condoned, the question is open. It is open for the discussion of every honest man. It is open to the indignation of every indignant man. until it is settled right. IL have been talking to yon of the crimes of recent date. Print Matthews was slaughtered two years ago. Judge Chishom only a little time before! It is only a few years since the "night riders of Alabama and the “barbarians” of Mississippi were out upon their track of blood, burning the huts of those who were once slaves, lacerating their backs, men and women, and committing other crimes, but to deter them from coming to the polling places as American citizens. Why/ we in lowa passed a law thirty years ago giving to the Governor of the State in certain instances the power of removal of an officer. It is a long time since the law was passed. An exercise of that authority Was indulged not long ago. Both the Republican party and the Democratic party had accepted this law, but rose up in l ist to condemn it. Why? Because the offense, if it be an offense, is of recent date. Just as lam here to condemn, just as lam here to arraign the Democratic party, not lor crimes of twenty years ago, but tor crimes of yesterday, the crime of to-day, the crime to be committed tomorrow. In this State this Democratic party is insisting upon being intrusted with political power. * Ten thousand young men will cas t their first vote on a day early in November. Ton, young men, are asked to ally yourselves w.th the Democratic party. I ask you to stop and think before doing such an act. It is too important a step to be rashly taken. No man from the surface or record to-day can tell where to go as a political factor. It is his duty to have some knowledge of the or- 1 gamzation* that bids him ally himself withit. it is on! ya pretense. If some stranger should ask ypu tp cast your lot with him, yoa would want to know someth ng of his past. It he had bad associations of this kind in the past, you would want to know how he had'treated his associates It be had desired to be intrusts 1 by you with power to act tor yon. you would want to know how he had carried out his previous trusts. 1 ask you to look at the historj

of this organization. If you Ao, you will find nothing in fifty yearn fit to commend it to you. The Democracy of to-day point with pride to the fact that every foot of territory we have acquired since the old colonial days up to the purchase of Alaska was acquired by Democratic rulers. I will grant that fact, but the acquisitions of Louisiana and Texas were but concessions on their part to the Slaveocracy, and a proof of the debasing power, that that element always held over the rest of the party. On the other hand the acquisition .of Alaska was a patriotic act performed in the earnest desire to serve the Union. Let the Democrats get what glory they may from such a comparison. As I said before, this Democratic party has always been the obedient slave of the slave power. There has never been a demand made of the Northern Democracy by them that was not yielded to, not one. Why is it that yon are so afraid to trust the Democratic party? It contains many highminded gentlemen with whopf we live and transact business, and worship, and meet in society and know to be onr peers. We know them to be honest, upright men. Why are we unwilling to trust them with the reins of government? Simply because tne Democrats of the North never did control this nation. Simply because they are always controlled by tteso Southern gentry who control them in the manner' I have depicted. If this nation was to be ruled by our Democratic neighbors we could not have the same objections that we now have; We know the same methods will be pursued in the future as in the past. The Democrats of the North have nothing to do with making a platform, nothing to do with the selection of the candidate. They furnish in the South the great preponderance of the political power. 150 to 50 odd; just in proportion as they furnish the votes just in that proportion do they claim the right to dictate the policy for the party. These gentlemen J of the Democi atlc party, if guilty of no other offense, their treasonable conduct during the years of war, their semi-rebellious conduct during the period ot reconstruction, their hostility to wise methods of treating the building up of the currency, fix them in my judgment as unfit for puolic control. They have in this State to-day signalized their belief in the old doctrines that originated more than twenty years ago by nominating a man who was in full sympathy with those who were ready to throw every barrier in the way of the Republican party while it was putting down the slaveholders’ rebellion. This standard bearer was in full sympathy with that iniquitous resolution passed the 29th day of August, 1864, when they did explicitly say that after four years of failure to put down rebellion by the experiment of war they now demanded that there be a cessation of hostilities in order that negotiation might be reSorted to. After four years of failure, I see before me some men who were comrades, who were at the front the time of the pas- a sage of that resolution. 1 know something of the spirit of indignation that ran through the ranks of the army as we scanned the proceedings of that convention, f our years of failurel How deeply the taunt and the insult were felt. We did not think that there had been four years of failure. We looked with pride upon the fact that from the borders of lowa to the Gulf the men ot the Northwest had matched as a triumphant host, leveling every fortress of the enemy upon the banks ot the Mississippi River. It had opened it to the commerce of the world, and that river flowed on unfettered to the sea. We had marched through Kentucky and Tennesse; We had marched on down through Georgia; we had fought the battles between Chattanooga and Atlanta. We had captured Atlanta, and General Sherman was then prepariug his host for its grand march to the sea. iApplause.] On the eastern slope we had fought the battle of Antietam. We had fought the battle of Gettysburg, and had won a victory, and the broken hosts of Lee had been driven in rout across the Potomac River.. Grant had crossed the Rapldan. He had crossed the Rappahannock; he had fought the battles of the Wilderness; he had fought the battle ot Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and North Anna, and the victorious army under his command had, seated itself like a very nightmare around the Confederate capital. Their coast was blockaded from the Chesapeake to. the Rio Grande. No vessel could escape laden with cotton to pay the delinquent interest on their foreign loan, and the Confederacy had tottered to.the ground. Their armies were in rags. Their commissariat was emptv; their munitions of war were expended; their railroads were worn out and in ruins; their currency was worth but a few mills on the dollar. The w hole Southern Confedracy was in a condition of collapse. The whole Confederacy was tottering to its fall, and the great want of the Southern Democrat, who had presided over its destinies, was that they might have a cessation of hostilities. A little time for the opening of the blockade so that steamers might go forward with their cotton, so that they might pay the delinquent interest upon their debt, so that they might rehabilitate their credit, so that they might reclothe their army, so that they might till again their magazines of war and put a well-fed, well-equipped army in the field to confront the victorious ho.ts of the North. That is what the Confederacy in its d>re extremity wanted, and that is what the Northern Democrats said they should have. After four years of failure to put down rebellion by the experiment of war, we now demand a cessation of hostilities. And this man now from Monona County, the Democratic condidate at this time for Governor, was one who indorsed that section.

After an eloquent appeal for the bloody shirt, and a masterly showing of the relative merits of the two sets of candidates, the speaker closed with the following appeal to the young men in behalf of the Republican party: You will find where upon all occasions it has labored to elevate the laboring man—to give him a fairer chance in the competitions with wealth and with the power of wealth. You will find where among its earliest transactions it gave him the homestead; you will find that there are now 850.000 of these homesteads, true American homes, scattered all over the prairies of- the West, the largess of the Republican party; you will find that where new questions were to be grappled with it has grappled with them, that where new problems were to be solved, it has solved them. You will find that its heroism in the war was but the least, or among the least of its achievements and deservings. You will find its wisdom after the war, war, its wisdom in creating a currency, its wisdom in giving us more than four times the circulating medium than we had twenty-five years ago, Its wisdom in the payment of the debt, its wisdom in giving credit, in giving us a position among the nations of the earth. All these will be commendatory in your judgment. All these will entitle it to honor at your hands. All these will entitle It to your most favorable consideration. ■ ■ ' ' -