Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1886 — The Cleveland Pyramid. [ARTICLE]

The Cleveland Pyramid.

Wersaiiies iiffMiDllcSit. The following pyramid, which Cleveland has built for himself and party, shows how the Union soldiei stands with this administration. His appointments are. - 78 Union Soldiers 2,670 Confederate Soldiers. 1 T • - ■«!»—■' —-- ——- The executive committee of the Soldiers Reunion Association, at a recent meeting in Mcnficello, decided to hold the Reunion of this year at Delphi, beginning on the 10th of September. It is stated that the committee will meet again during the present month, and that the above decision is subject to any change that may be effected at the next meeting.

Harper’s Magazine is doing a' noble and patriotic service by showing the comparative military and naval weakness, through want of preparation, of this country as compared with most of the nations of Europe and of some even in the western hemisphere. The important article on the British Navy, by Sir Edward Reed, which attracted much attention in Ike February Harper’s, and the description of the Krupp establishment in March, will be followed in the June “number by a timely paper on the U. S. Navy, by Rear-admiral Edward Simpson, of: the N avy Department at Washington, with a large number of excellent illustrations. Tfie history of our navy is briefly sketched, aDd the record is one that Uncle Sam need not be ashamed of. But as one reads of its present deplorable condition, every patriot must regret that blind fatuity' of public opinion, that foolish’ confidence born of the fact that because, in our civil war, we were able to make ships and cannon powerful enough to cope with and overcome our antagonists, that the same result would happen in case of a foreign war, and thus allowed us to fall so, far behind the age. Previous to last year our navy consisted only of thirty-two wooden vessels, "two iron sloops of war, and a few old primitive monitors. In 1883 the construction of three steam-cruisers and a dispatch boat with steel plates, was authorized. These vessels are the Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta, which are nearly finished, i ndTlieeTJolphin, now doing service. With, the construction or'these vessels the manufacture of steel plates for ships began in this country. This feeble array' constitutes the present naval force of the Uuited States.- We have not one armor-clad man-of-war (the mo. single-turveted monitors not being considered as having any efficiency), and the ordnance and equipments are ridiculously behind the age. It would be impossible. for us to cope even with some of the smaller powers in our own hemisphere, arid the naval* armaments of Europe make our opinion has, at last, began to change for the better in this matter and is stirring Congress to action,And the article mentions some important improvements which are in operation. It is to be hoped that this able paper will hasten the adjustment of our navy 7 to the Age of Steel. '•

For the benefit of “Mossback” in last week’s issue of ihe Sciiiniel, I wish tb say that as far as I am concerned, the Doctor and his friends have nothing to fear as I regard him as a gentleman, and esteem him as a friend, and anything) thatl can do to increase his majority in November next, Will be done cheerfully.

J. W. POWELL.