Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1890 — TWO SPECIMEN SPEECHES. [ARTICLE]

TWO SPECIMEN SPEECHES.

They Clearly Reflect the Judgment and the Motives of the Parties for Whom They are Spoken. Already, in various parts of the country, the Democrats are maliciously at work endeavoring to make capital for themselves oiit of this Disability Act. They are proceeding in different sections by widely different methods. In some places they are attacking the law as wasteful and extravagant, and are denouncing the veterans as so many mendicants and wolves. In other places they are attempting quietly to reach the ears of these very veterans, these grand ‘ old Kefbfce whom they call “beggars,” and are whispering slanders against the Republican party, alleging that the new law is not generous enough by half, and that they, they, forsooth, were in favor of a service pension, and would have enacted one had they been in power! Any Union soldier to whom this lying statement is made should confront its maker with the Democratic record, and with the following remarks taken from the speech of Mr. Stone, Democrat, of Missouri, delivered in the present Congress on April 5, 1890, in opposition to the new law: • ‘How far the Government should go in this direction; how far it should extend these voluntary gifts beyond the obligations of its contract, is a question of public policy to be determined by the disposition and the will of the people. For one, I think, we have gone far enough. That there are minor inequalities and iniquities in the existing laws which should he adjusted, I nave no doubt; that there are administrative defects in the existing system which should be removed, I am certain; but I am equally without doubt and equally certain that we should call a sharp and peremptory halt on the galloping gait at which we have been

riding this pension horse in reeenl years. I think the time has come whei the visionaly theories of impraotieal sentimentalists, when the artful dogmatism of demagogues, and the pathetic appeals of political trimmers, when the insatiable greed of selfish monopoly, and the aggressive arrogance of the Treasury looter should cease to dominate the Congress of the United States, or longer to suppress the independent and self-respecting members of this body. %] “I give it as my deliberate judgment, I state it as a fact, that no people on earth, since governments were instituted among men, have* been so despoiled and plundered in the name of patriotism and under the guise of pension laws as have been the people of the United States.” Contrast this brutal and malignant tirade, which was applauded to the echo by the Democratic members, with the warm-hearted eloquence of Mr. Dolliver, of lowa, who spoke in reply: -“I could not repress a feeling of indignation as I listened to these odious charges and heard the necessities of the veterans sneered at by Democratic members on the floor of this Congress. And I say to the gentleman from Missouri, and to you, gentlemen, that the need which stands in’ pathetic eloquence behind the pressing urgency of the demands of the old soldiers of the United States is no badge of dishonor. “It is rather a mournful witness, like the homeless lot of the Workingman of Nazareth, that they who were rich in the exultant wealth of youth and strength for our sake 3 have become poo|. [Applause.] And so when' I hear men talking of the extravagance of pension appropriations and read in newspapers the idle babble that the old soldiers of the country are seeking to loot the treasury, T reply, that every dollar of the national wealth' in the treasury and out of it, is ens cumbered first of all by the inviolable lien of our duty to the men and women who thought not of their blood and their tears in the hour of the national trial.” [Great applause.] If the Republicans turn out and vote in November, the victory will be theirs.