Things As They Are

Let me cali to your minds a catalogue of the opposition and show you how, in cold obstruction, this party has resisted the progress of the people and the advance of the Republic. It opposed the homestead law ; it opposed any limitation being set upou siavery in the Territories ; it opposed the admission of Kansas into the Union as a free State ; but that giant little Commonwealth, one oL whose representatives, Mr. Funston, I see sitting on the left- that giant little Commonwealth, when it was assailed secured its iudependence, its statehood and its admission into the sisterhood of tates, with freedom acknowledged, irough sacrifice and blood. [Cheers md applause.] It opposed the greenack when the greenback was necessary s a great war measure ; and, as a Naional orgauization, itwas for peace duríg our our laat war, at any price, while ountless thousands of its own number, ut of syinpathy with the political oranization, íought and suffered and died íat the Union might be saved. [Apilause.] It stood against a government ond ; it opposed resumption of specie ayinents ; it opposed the inmortal procamation of Lincoln, giving liberty to all ur people. [Applause.] If anybody an tell me wliat it has not opposed for ie good of the country, or which the iepublican party has advocated, I would be glad to have him name it here nd now. [Applause.] It has been oposed to a protective tariff. [Applause.] A maiority of the Democratie party put nto the confedérate constitution a free rade article, which has since been dopted by the national Democratie arty in its national platforms, and is ïeir accepted creed to-day. [Applause.] t has been the party of resistance ; it ïas been the party of opposition ; it has een a sectional party ; it stood in the ay of every good meaaure that lias een proposed by the Republican party, and it stands in opposition to-day to the progrese and unincation and the glory of the Republic. What is it to do in the future? [Laughter.] Let me read you as au evidence of what this Democratie party proposes to do ; let me read you an interview of April 11 - only a few clays ago - given at Richmond, Virginia, by a distiuguished Represéntame trom that state iu Congresa now, a gentleman in Congress for many years and to be a iiKinber of the next House of Representatives, General William II. II. Lee. I found this in the New York Times, so that there can be no doubt of its authenticity. In reply to the question as to who was the choice of the people of bis district for President, be said at once : "Of thenominee, whoever he inaybe, up to the present time, there has been little talk. I think, though, that leaving out all side questions, Mr. Cleveland is probably the favorite. My people are, to a great extent, for the free coinage of silver, or for any measure that will tend to relieve financial striugency. It strikes me that, in a nutshell, the policy of the Democratie party lies in a few points. The first of these is to subordínate everything to the party. Another is, we moet not consider any issues on which the party itself is divided until after the fight of 1892. That will be time enough ; and we will have the advantage of presenting au unbroken front to the opposition. "As to our policy in Congress, it seems to me there can be little doubt. What we should do is simply to assume and maintain a state of masterly inactivity. We should attempt at present no benefieent legislation, as that would only be giving the Republican Senate a chance to divide honors with us. My idea is that the record of the Fifty-first Congress should be allo wed to stand uubroken, to show for itself. We can, of course, prevent pernicious legislation but we should attempt nothing more." This is the announced policy of the Democratie party in the House of Representatives in the Fifty-first Congress ; and it is all the more significant, taken in connectiou with the recent letter of Governor Hill [laughter], of the State of New York, written to the free trade meeting in the city of New York on the lst of April of this year, and it almost amounts to an authority, coming as it does from these two sources. Now, what do they propose? They have got the victory ; they carried the country in 1890, and carried it by an overwhelming majority. They are afraid to interpret that victory and embody it in a public measure. [Applause.] They haven't the courage todo it. "Masterly inacüvity." They can prevent, they thiuk, pernicious legislation; that is, they thiiik they can control their own majority so as to do no very positive liann. l Applause.] ell, that is a very great gain, and I congratúlate the country upon that, for if it is only to prevent pernieious legislation, then the wise legislation of the Fifty-flrst Congress will stand [great applause], for I teil you that the victory of ÏS'.H) was won by fraud and niisrepresentation. [Oheers.] It was the taritl', they said, that did it, and they did not kuow what was in the tariflf bill. [Applause.] ïhey talked about the tariff bill building a Chinese wall around the United States, when the tariff law of 1S90 gave us wider, freer trade than we have ever had under any tariff law from the beginning of the Federal Government. [Applause.] I heard, since I carne to your city, a specimen of the misunderstanding about this tariff bill, which I propose to give you, for it is a fair sample. A retail merchant of this city went to one of the largest wholesale houses of this city and bought up just after the passage of the bill, all the sewing needies that he could get in that store, enough to last him for ten years, and when inquired of, after he had taken the goods home, why he had done it, he said it was because of the tious tariff that was proposed in the new law, when in faet the new law made sewing needies free [laughter and applause], when they had been dudable i'rom the beginning of the governuient. Why did we niake them free? Because we could not manufacture them at home [appplause], and the principie of protection is to put those things on the free list which we cannot produce at home [applause], and put the tariff upon the foreign produce the like of which we do not produce at home, and thus encourage our own industry and protect our labor. [Cheers.] "Ah, but" they say, "you spent too much money." Well, we' did spend a good deal of money. That's true. But we paid our debts [cheers] and we left no deficiency for a subsequent Congress to pay. What did we do ? First, to quote one item, we appropriated $17,000,000 to give back to the States that had giyen the money to the Government in time of war. Who objects to that? No Ohio man does, for it puts $1,250,000 into our State Treasury, which I am told is somewhat depleted at this moment. [Laughter and cheers.] Now the great item of excess of appropriatione in the Fifty-first Congress over the Fiftieth Congress was for pensions. One hundred and thirteen millions was the sum. Twenty-five millions of that was a deüciency from the preceding Democratie Congress, which was left to us as a legacy from thein. We paid it, too. The exact differenee between the pension bill of the Fiftieth Congress and the Fifty-first Congress was sixty-three millions of dollars. My fellow-citizens, when the war closed we had two great debts upon our hands. One was to the men who had had faith in the Government and loaned money, that we might have credit and prosecute the war. The other was to the soldiers and sailors who had saved the Kepublic, being willing even to give up their lives for the cause of the Union. [Cheers.] We owed our creditors and bondholders in 18(50-07 three thousand millions of dollars. We paid them off save about nine hundred millions of dollars. The two great obligations on the people were the interest due bondholders and the peusions to the soldiers and sailors. Now, let me in a single moment give you what I regard as u, very interesting statement of that subject. In 18(i7 our pensions cost us annually that year f20,930,000. What was oür interes"t to the public creditors? It was $143,781,591.91. How was it in 1891? In 189] our pensions cost us $13.3,000,000: our interest on the public debt had been reduced by payment of principal and reduction of the rate of interest to $27,000,000 ; the total for both pensions and interest was $102,000,000, or $2,700,000 less than in 1807. How is it now after twenty-iive years of Republican administratiou? The interest- by the payment of the principal and the reduction of the rate of interest - the interest has fallen to twenty-seven millions, and the pensions have BOne np to one hundred thirty-five millions. In 18!il the pensions and interest eost two tnillion seyen hundred thousand dollars less than in 1867, and with our inereasing population the burdeu will be more than half less than was the burden of 1867. We paid our debts to the men who loaned our Government money. We kept faith with those creditors. and we propose now to keep faith with those other ereditors whose patriotism was above price. We stamped out repudiat ion of the public debt in 18(5-7. We propose to have no repudiation of this more sacred debt to the soldiers of the ttepublic. [Cheers.] Now about the circulation of the money in this country under this administration as compared with the past. In March 5, 1885, when Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated, the total circulation of money of all kinds was one billion, two hundred and eighty-six millions dollars. Two years later it was one billion, three hundred and fourteen millions, an increase in two years of twenty-seven million, nine hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars. Xow coming to President Ilarrison's administraron, March 1, 1889, the circulation was one billion, four hundred and four millions of dollars. March 1, 1891, two years later it was $1,530,000,000, an increase in two yi ars in the circulating medium of the country ifll'5,874,000. The total per capita when Cleveland went out of office was twenty-two dollars. The total per capita under Mr. Harrison's adniinistration has increased to twentyfive dollars. We have more money per capita than the United Kingdom of (jreat Britain ; more than ttermany, more than Austro-Hunnary, more than Canada, more than Russia, more than Portugal, mure than the Central and South American States. FCheers.1 Ju more circulation is needed to do the business of the country, it shoold Ie freely giyeu, but when that circulation is given, whether it is in gold, SUver or paper, it must be good, GÜOD. [Cheers.] It must be equal each with the other in intrinsic value as well as in legal tender power. That is the policy of honesty and the doctrine of the Kepublican party. I have said that the Democratie party stands in the way of complete unitication. I mean it. It is a sectional party. It makes the war of thirty years ugo a continuing memory, not "from high motives of patriotism, but as a menace to reconciliation and fraternity. It draws the line upon the South - it disqualifies by party practice, party fears and prejudices, the South from a place on the National ticket, and has done so since the close of the war. The South, which furnishes the brain and courage and electoral votes and a majority in the National House of Representad ves to the Democratie party, which elected its president in 1888, and without which it would have little strength in the country, it will not, it daré not, for it has not the courage to, take froia that section one of its leading members and nomínate him either for President or Vice-President. For twenty-six years the head and front of the Democratie party, which is south of the Oliio and Potomac, have been made by Tarnmany and the scattering Northern Demócrata ineligible to the. highest posta of honor in the gift of the party. The trained statesmen of the South must give way to the untrained politician of the North. They not only draw the color line but the sectional line- aud for a quarter of a century have their allies of the South been denied equality with the other sections of the couutry, and the South confesses its inferiority by acquiescence. Already in the contest for the Speakership, the same Northern Democracy are raising the sectional line and waiving the bloody shirt upon the Southern candidates. The South is well enough until the victory is won - they can furnish the votes, but are excluded by the law of their own party from ita highest honors and best gifts. They are responsible for all the sectionalism which exists, to disturb and distnict the country. They must cease to cali the Republican party a sectional one - it has never been sectional ; its first great contest was for a National Union, for one flag, one constitution, oue destiny, and from that hour it has been broad and national in its politics and purposes. "Ah, but," they say, "the Republican party has ended its mission." Well, you did well in Cincinnati this spring, for which I congratúlate you. [Cheers.] We did pretty well, too, all through the United States. I want to say to you, however, the Republicau party is not through, and its mission is not ended, and never will be until our flag, the flag of the stars aud stripes, shall be the symbol of our sovereignty at home and of American right abröad. [Cheers.] The Republican party will not be through until every citizen in this country shall be permitted to vote once and to have that vote honestly and fairly counted. [Cheers.] Never will its missibn be flnished, sons of the Republican party East and West, sons of the Puritana, sons of the South and the West, until the ballot-box, the American ballot-box, ahall be sacred as the ican home.