Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1886 — AN AUSPICIOUS OPENING. [ARTICLE]

AN AUSPICIOUS OPENING.

Or the Republican Campaign In Ja* per Chunty. The Owen meeting last Saturday afternoon was a grand and most encouraging success. It was held in the Opera House, and that large andi tori uffi, the largest in the county, was packed far beyond it seating capacity, in main floor and gallery, ’and many persons stood in the aisles and many others, probably not less than one hundred, were turned away for want of. room. A large proportion of the audience, probably more than half, were people from the surrounding country, many of them having come many miles to be present. A conspicuous feature of the audience was the remarbably large number of elderly men among them. They were so numerous, in fact, that Mr. Owen remarked upon the fact during the course of his speech. The prominent democratic and greenback brethren were also present in large numbers, and were courteously escorted to the front seats. The Cornet Band, ushered in th.e meeting by several fine pieces of music, and the glee club was present and gave a number of songs. Capt. Chilcote, county chairman, introduced the speaker. Mr. Owen spoke for an hour and a half, and retained the undivided attention of his audience to the end. He reviewed the history of the last Congress, showed the incapacity and untrustwqrthiness of its democratic majority, and its unwillingness to ; keep any of the party’s previous pledges to the people; scored Cleveland on account of his brutal and unpatriotic pensions votoes, and above all made a luminous exposition of the fallacies of the free trade doctrine, and of the great and manifold advantages of the protection principle to the people of this country. It was a speech well calculated to renew the faith and zeal of all republicans and to shake the convictions of all fair minded opponents of that great party of human rights and human happiness.