Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1887 — A SOUTHERNER’S VIEW. [ARTICLE]

A SOUTHERNER’S VIEW.

John A. Wise, of Virginia, the Former Confederate Soldier. How a Republican Tells of the Future and Its Hopes. **“ i ■ ■ His Tribute to the Republican Party, the Courage of Its Faith and Its Works. [Extracts from Hon. John A. Wise's spoech at tho Michigan banquet, February, 1887.) Why, my fellow-citizens, the time has come, with its wonderful revolution, when the little boys of tho South are taught from tho history, and the mon of tne South are learning that Abraham Lincoln in his day and generation was the greatest sago and statesman of his century. lApplauso.j And I will tell you another thing that is happening every day, North and South. The man who shod his blood for the Union or Confederacy may try to stem the flood without avail. Tho little boys of the North and South who read the history of that war—their blood is thrilling with tbe glorious deeds of Grant and Logan; and tho boy may be the most loyatthat over waß educated, but he cannot help a little pride for Stonewall Jackson too. tl’rolonged applause and cheers. | The tim'o will come, my fellow-citizens, nnd no shriek of old time animosity can keep it back, when the people of the United States will remember nothing of the causeß of that strife, nothing of the differences, because tbe great issues which were involved are fixed forever, and the South to-day, lot mo tell you, could not bo driven out of tbe Union if you were to try. [Prolonged applause.] I Bay to you that no greater revolution lias over been witnessed or over will bo than in the feeling which prevails there,,pot only in the sentiment of union, but in the growing feeling that the ltepublican party is the true hope of the people of tho bouth. [Applause. I Would any gentleman ask me why? I will answer boldly, because the ltepublican party, from the hour of its birth until now. knew what it was for, and was not afraid to tell. Because the Republican principles were such that he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man, though a fool, can understand. Becaqso the Republican party, bom in a great national throe, announced its princples, no matter bow obnoxious they might have been at the time to those who were opposed to it; and when those principles were announced never stopped until they were carried to their legitimate conclusion. Because it for twenty-five years has been the pioneer in thought, in every movement that has culminated in the great prosperity of this land to-day; because it is a party now of which i t can 1 e said it never was afraid of a great idea because it wai new and it never was afraid to take hold of a new idea because it was great. And I say that in the South is tho future growth of tho Republican party. Why ? It sounds like a paradox to announce it here, und yet it is true. The people of the South never were a negative or an obstructive people. Tho Democratic party of this country, unless it is s+opping somebody or denying something, is nothing at all. [Applause and laughter.] Too people of the South have undergono a revolution that you can little understand here. I say to you In all sincerity that tho alkali desert of slavery that lay in the Southern land and know only the hot breuth of sectional passion is to-day beginning to bloom with the fruit of industry and labor. I tell you, my Irionds and fellow-citizens of Michigan, there is the ground for your missionary work. You little realize that South Carolina, once solely given up to political abstractions and deeming work deregotury from her gentility, South Carolina to-day is entering the markots of the world with cotton products, and battling Tor the market of Shanghai, sending out millions of her cotton cloth each month. In Alabama a city has sprung up almost with tho suddenness of magic under the influence of the development of her iron and her coal. George Washington once said, in the darkest days of the revolution, “Give me a little band of iS'y men in the mountains of West Augusta and there I will resist the combined powers of all our enemies.” In these same mountains of West Augusta to-day the mountain side has been tapped, and coal and iron and minerals of all kinds are poured out to the few men who hate gathered in those mountains of West Augusta. The wealth that Old Virginia lost is coming back to her in her newly developed in-

-jfustries. I tail you that a new South is to-day dawning. I tell you that a new population is going there. I tell you, my fellow citizens, that the people of these sections have tried the Democratic party and lound that it Was not what it promised, and are ready to leave it and seek a real p irty instead of a snare and a delusion. |Applause.] Do you ask me why they return to the Republican party? I will tell you why. If tho Republican party had been the power in which they put their trust, they would have known that it had always been an honest party in what it professed, and when it came into power they would have expected, as certainly as there are one hundred cents in a gold dollar, that the Republican party would CABBY OUT ITS PLATFORM, good, bad or indifferent. If the Republican party, by the aid of the solid South, had won its victory in 1884, don’t you know that when it had told the Solid South that it would givo education through the means of the Blair bill, that it would have given it to the Solid South instead of burying it in a committee? [Applause.l Don't you know, my fellow-citizens, that if the Republican partv had won the victory by tho aid of the solid Sou'll and had promised tho reEeal of the internal revenuo laws, that it would avo carried out the promise as soon as it was in power? Yet tho" Democratic party has taken that law and never been able to make its two wings flap together when tho question was up. (Applause! Don't you know, mv fellow citizens, that if tho Republican party had been elevated to power upon a promise to distribute the surplus in tho Treasury, that in this lapse of time that surplus would havo been distributed instead of having Sam Randall at one end of tho bag and Morrison at the other, pulling the thing in two and spilling it ally iApplause and laughter! Don’t you know that if the Republican party, abandoning its past history, had gained power by an appeal to race prejudice, if it had gone through the South, saying, “We are the white men s party,” that it never would have been guilty of the duplicity of appointing Matthews the first thing that it did. [Applause. |

f ellow citizens, this altered Democracy -has given us the shibboloth of Jeffersonian simplicity. There was a secretive, furtive vein in Thomas Jefferson that "would have mode it quite correct and very much alike in sound to speak of Jeffersonian duplicity. (Applause and laughter.) In the days of George Washington—from whom, thunk God, the liepublican party has taken the' chart of its principles, for the liepublican party might to-day / o into its next campaign with no other platform, no other sign than the picture of George Washington and his farewell address, that would he no more, no less, than the groat Republican party has to-day. (Applause). In the days of George Washington there wag a hatchet. [Daughter.] \Ve have hoard of this Jefforsonian simplicity, and I suppose we never will have such an example of it as the message which the Democratic Executive sent assigning reasons for tho appointment of Mr. Matthews. Smart indeed must have V» on the Jeffersonian who would give to a Republican Sonate such n reason. And quick and hot was the blow that came back from the hatchet of George Washington when the ainswer to those reasons was thrust under his nose. [Applause.; Wo have other maxims from this party which we will try to match. It seems to me that in the early stages of tho present administration wo had the expression “innocuous desuetude," and the answering echo to that sentiment over in Indiana was “noxious Turpiletudo. (Daughter.’] Now, my fellow-citizens, these great disappointments from a party that has promised everything and performed nothing, the memory of the splendid prosperity which attended the rule of the Republican party of this country, all are Having their effect, all are telling their tale. A brightening, deepening senderof patriotism is pervading this land from one to mother, thank God, and love that no man can put down is becoming universal in this land. ■There are great and salient points of difference between the Republican and the Democratic party, points winch cannot be forgotten, points toucliing'the election laws which 1 think best not to discuss. I say to you,’ frankly, although I have fought against those outrages and abuses, that the temper and spirit of the South to-day is more catholic, more reasonable, more disposed by a proper effort to realize that the Republican party of this country is its best friend than ever before, und for God's sake let no bitterness stop the tide which is steadily and Rurcly rising, [(treat cheers;; Whv should not the land which gave birth to Washington rally under the banner which be handed to this great party'/ It will. Ithas. You heard the s o_'an in the last election. We snatched seven of the T-u Congressmen from the hands of bourbonism ’ t ad the next time we will try to make it unanimous. [Applause.; Pursued broad and liberal Joliey toward this people,* and this nation’s x ealth will not have to be poured out to save

New York 1“ every national election. [Cheers,[ Pursue A broad and catholic spirit. Stick to the pledges that are inode by tne Republican party, and In the next election West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennesu-.i, aud Indiana will fall into line. |Loud cheers. | I care not who It ia, AH that we ask is that a Republican tried and true be put In charge of the standard. I cere not whether It be Blaine, of Maine Itremendoua cheers) or seme other Republican. Either is good onough for the Republicans of Virginia. Fellow-citizens, I read the other day an account of the marriage of George Washington, and it reminded me »f the present. Tbe writer described a lovely, beantlful wedding, at which the ohormiug bride was led from the chancel to a stately chariot drawn by thoroughbreds, and she and the lovely bevy of ladies were placed In the chariot, while Goorgo Washington and the gallant company of gentlemen rode opposite, escorting them to the home. The, spirit of George Washington to-day Is riding by the chariot ot tho nat on, and In it ho sees the faces ot the States, as no saw tbe hrido and the bride s maids a hundred years ago. And now, turning from tho sublime to tho ridiculous, therunning goar of that chariot reminded me of the I >ast of this country. In the front, with the :ing-pin. the national union, springing from the axle, with tho pole that gives direction to it, being in the front, is the great Republican party. Behind it, bearing the burdens ot tbe States, and making a great ado In passing over rats that the forowheels have already passed, is the Democratic party, always content to go rumbling and noisy in a track already made, and never making a traok of its own unless the thing is going backwards. [Laughter and applause.] A word m ore and I have done. George Washington, the father of every principle we cherish, was a household word with me. My father’s mother’s fathor, at 19 years of ago, left his bride of but six weeks and followed the fortunes of George Washington. He fought with a red bandana handkorchief tied to a ramrod at Brandywine. Ho staid with him and never returned to his home until my grandmother was eighteen months old. His namo appears oftener as officer of tho day during that bleak and dreary winter at Valley Forge than any other officer upon the Revolutionary roster. He went away a Lieutenant and came back a Colonel, and when the Froneh war was threatened, was chosen commander of the Virginia militia by George Washington himself. To the day of bis death, in overy company, he had but one toast, and that was “God bless George Washington.”,. |Applause,George Washington, in the household where i was reared, was type and synonym of all that was noble in my mind. I was taught that he was greater than Alexander, because no tear of tbirst for conquest ever coursed down his cheek. I

was taught that he was greater than Csesar, because fie curbed his ambition. I was taught that he was greater than Marlborough. because no sordid act ever soiled his great life. I was taught that he was greater than Napoleon, because he was content to fight for his country and nevor against another. I was told that he was greater than all because he combined statesman, soldier, and citizen aB no mra before him did or since he died has done. [Applause.l Speak of that flag I Why should I not love it—the flag that George Washington handed down to us? There never was a day, so help me God. that I ever felt that it belonged to anybody else but me. [Tremendous cheers.J That day has gone and passed forever. The vision of another empire on this soil has passed away as a baseless dream. The man that brings it up had better busy himself with the present and the future, because he is proposing a thing that is dead, that no one can revive. It will be remembered. Yes, it will. Among the many monuments roared to the memory of George Washington is one splendid shaft at the national capital. It springs in simple symmetry until it melts in the blue ether above, taller than »r of its fellows. It tell the simple, grand story of the life of George Washington, and- bears upon its face an allegory mere complete than is contained in all the hieroglyphics upon Cleopatra’s Needle in New York. What is it? From the ground upward to a certain point it bears a discolored surface. The stones are varied. Thence onward it springs unblemished to its completion. For a century to come that monument will bear that mark—aye, until it crumbles back to 1 ' earth, perhaps it will toll the story. What was it? Was it begun on the universal concession that George Washington and his principles should survive? No. It was begun with woman’s love. One stone at a time, rising slowly that monument to Washington rose, rose, rose, until at last when the great struggle came which was to decide whether those principles should be made perpetual, it stopped. There it stood while the great struggle .went onv Then it paused. Arounu its top were clouds and darkness. About’ It was a mist that hung concealing its incompleteness. It stood like an interro_at;on mark, as if to say: Shall the principles of George Washington provail in the land which Re made free? At last, with a new impulse, it began again. Homogeneous, bright, unspotted, thence it sprang onward and upward until it was built, and the completed '.monument there to-day bears on its face the legend telling when it paused, how it toiled and then bow it sprang until it was done. The future generations shall ask who completed the monument to George Washington; who made the story of his life complete? Who placed it there, the evidence that those principles for which he struggled shall be tbe guiding faith of the people of this land? Be the Republican party dead or alive, bait banished forever from power or yet to come back stronger than ever, until the monument shall crumble, until it shall fall back to tho earth from which it springs, it stands as a perpetual memorial that the principles of George Washington were perpetuated by the Republican party of this country- LApplause.]