stable community. It has more people, more miles of railroad, more
post-offices, more churches, more banks, more wealth, than any
Territory ever possessed when it was admitted to the Union. It
surpasses some of the States in these particulars. Four years ago,
when a President was to be chosen, the Committee on Territories in
the Senate, to meet the objection of our Democratic friends that the
admission of Dakota would add a disturbing element to the Electoral
College, provided in the Dakota bill that its organization should be
postponed until after the election; now four years more have rolled
around, and our people are called again to take part in a presidential
election, and the intelligent and patriotic Dakota people are again to
be deprived of any participation. I ask you why this is so? Is not the
answer obvious? [Cries of "Yes!"] They are disfranchised and deprived
of their appropriate influence in the Electoral College only because
the prevailing sentiment in the Territory is Republican. [Cries
of "That's right!" "That's the reason!"] The cause of Washington
Territory is more recent but no less flagrant. If we appropriately
express sympathy with the cause of Irish home rule, shall we not
also demand home rule for Dakota and Washington, and insist that
their disfranchisement shall not be prolonged? [Applause.] There is a
sense of justice, of fairness, that will assert itself against these
attempts to coin party advantage out of public wrong. The day when men
can be disfranchised or shorn of their political power for opinion's
sake must have an end in our country. [Cheers.] I thank you again for
your call, and if you will observe the arrangement which has been
suggested I will be glad to take each of you by the hand. I know that
some of you are fasting, and therefore we will shorten these exercises
in order that you may obtain needed refreshments. [Cheers.]
INDIANAPOLIS, JULY 28.
Jennings County, Indiana, was represented on the above date by a large
delegation under the auspices of the Harrison and Morton Clubs of Vernon
and North Vernon. The leaders of their delegation were Fred H. Nauer, J.
C. Cope, C. E. Wagner, W. G. Norris, Dr. T. C. Bachelder, T. A. Pearce,
P. C. McGannon, and Prof. Amos Saunders. Hon. Frank E. Little, President
of the North Vernon Club, delivered the address. General Harrison, in
response, said:
_My Friends_--It is a source of regret to me that I can do so
little to compensate those who take the trouble to visit me. I need
hardly say to you that I very highly appreciate this evidence of your
friendliness and also the kind words which you have addressed to me
through your representative. Jennings County has a history of which
it may well be proud. It has contributed to the city of Indianapolis
some of our most distinguished and useful men. Your spokesman has
not exaggerated the fidelity and steadfastness of the people of your
county. Your republicanism has been as straight as the walls of your
cliffs [applause] and as solid as the limestone with which your hills
are buttressed. [Applause.]
You have said to me that you are in favor of a free and equal
ballot the country over. We are so related in our Government that
any disturbance of the suffrage anywhere directly affects us all. Our
Members of Congress pass upon questions that are as wide as the domain
over which our flag floats. Therefore, our interest in the choice of
these representatives is not limited to our own districts. If the
debate upon public questions is to be of value the voter must be free
to register his conclusion. The tribunal which is to pronounce upon
the argument must not be coerced.
You have said to me that you favor the doctrine of protection. The
Republican party stands for the principles of protection. We believe
in the preservation of the American market for our American producers
and workmen. [Applause and cries of "That's it!"] We believe that
the development of home manufactures tends directly to promote the
interest of agriculture by furnishing a home market for the products
of the farm, and thus emancipating our farmers from the transportation
charges which they must pay when their products seek distant markets.
[Applause.]
We are confronted now with a Treasury surplus. Our position is
exceptional. We are not seeking, as many other nations are, new
subjects of taxation, new sources of revenue. Our quest is now how,
wisely, to reduce our national revenue. The attempt has been made to
use this surplus as a lever to overturn the protective system. The
promoters of this scheme, while professing a desire to diminish the
surplus, have acted as if their purpose was to increase it in part by
opposing necessary and legitimate appropriations. I agree that there
is danger that a surplus may promote extravagance, but I do not find
myself in sympathy with that policy that denies the appropriation
necessary for the proper defence of our people, and for the convenient
administration of our public affairs throughout the country, in order
that the threat of a surplus may be used for a sinister purpose. I
believe that in reducing our revenues to the level of our needful
and proper expenditures we can and should continue to favor and
protect our industries. I do not like to entrust this work to those
who declare protective duties to be vicious "legalized robbery." The
Republican party has by its legislation shown its capacity wisely to
reduce our revenues and at the same time to preserve the American
system. [Applause.] It can be trusted to do the work that remains, and
to do it wisely. [Applause.]
INDIANAPOLIS, JULY 31.
The last delegation in July came from Henry County, Indiana, two
thousand strong, headed by C. S. Hernley, W. H. Elliott, Hon. Eugene
Bundy, Judge Mark E. Forkner, A. Abernathy, A. D. Osborn, O. P. M.
Hubbard, David Luellen, O. B. Mooney, and Captain Armstrong, all of New
Castle. Gen. William H. Grose was their orator.
In his response General Harrison at this early day out-lined his views
upon reciprocal trade relations with South American nations--views which
were afterwards successfully, and with great profit to our people, put
into effect through the celebrated reciprocity treaties with Brazil,
Venezuela and other countries.
Repeated outbursts of enthusiasm punctured his address. He said:
_Comrade Grose and my Henry County Friends_--If we have here any
discouraged statesman who takes a despondent view of the future of the
country, I think he would recover his hopefulness if he could look,
once in a while, into the face of an audience like this. [Applause.]
You came from a county that has been a bulwark of republicanism
since the party was organized. You had an early element in your
population that has done much to promote your material interests, and,
much more, to lift up those principles that relate to the purity of
the home and to the freedom of men. The Friends, who have been and
are so large and so influential an element in your population and in
the counties surrounding it, are a people notable for the purity of
their home life and for their broad and loving sympathy with all men.
They were the early enemies of slavery, and they have always naturally
been the strength of the Republican party in the community where they
reside. Your spokesman has expressed your continued interest in the
party to which some of you gave the confidence of your matured powers
and some of you the early devotion of your youth. The Republican party
has accomplished for the country a great work in the brief period of
its life. It preserved the Nation by a wise, courageous and patriotic
administration. What that means for you and your posterity, what it
means for the world, no man can tell. It would have been a climax of
disaster for the world if this Government of the people had perished.
The one unsolved experiment of free government was solved. We have
demonstrated the capacity of the people and a citizen soldiery to
maintain inviolate the unity of the Republic. [Applause.]
There remain now, fortunately, chiefly economic questions to be
thought of and to be settled. We refer to the great war, not in any
spirit of hostility to any section or any class of men, but only
because we believe it to be good for the whole country that loyalty
and fidelity to the flag should be honored. [Great applause.] It was
one of the great triumphs of the war, a particular in which our war
was distinguished from all other wars of history, that we brought the
vanquished into the same full, equal citizenship under the law that we
maintained for ourselves.
In all the addresses which have been made to me there has been some
reference to the great question of the protection of our American
industries. I see it upon the banners which you carry. Our party
stands unequivocally, without evasion or qualification, for the
doctrine that the American market shall be preserved for our American
producers. [Great applause.] We are not attracted by the suggestion
that we should surrender to foreign producers the best market in the
world. Our sixty millions of people are the best buyers in the world,
and they are such because our working classes receive the best wages.
_But we do not mean to be content with our own market. We should seek
to promote closer and more friendly commercial relations with the
Central and South American States._ [Applause.] And what is essential
to that end? Regular mails are the first condition of commerce.
The merchant must know when his order will be received, and when his
consignment will be returned, or there can be no trade between distant
communities. What we need, therefore, is the establishment of American
steamship lines between our ports and the ports of Central and South
America. [Applause.] Then it will no longer be necessary that an
American minister, commissioned to an American State, shall take an
English ship to Liverpool to find another English ship to carry him to
his destination. We are not to be frightened by the use of that ugly
word "subsidy." [Laughter.] We should pay to American steamship lines
a liberal compensation for carrying our mails, instead of turning them
over to British tramp steamships. [Applause.] We do not desire to
dominate these neighboring governments; we do not desire to deal with
them in any spirit of aggression. _We desire those friendly political,
mental, and commercial relations which shall promote their interests
equally with ours._ We should not longer forego those commercial
relations and advantages which our geographical relations suggest and
make so desirable. If you will excuse me from further public speech I
will be glad to take by the hand my Henry County friends. [Cheers.]
Mr. Harrison arrived home--after the Henry County reception in
University Park--in time to welcome his guest, Gen. R. A. Alger of
Michigan, the distinguished gentlemen meeting for the first time. In the
afternoon several hundred of the Henry County visitors, escorted by the
local clubs, marched to the Harrison residence to pay their respects to
General Alger.
In introducing his guest General Harrison said:
_My Fellow-citizens_--I have had the pleasure to-day to receive
in my own home a distinguished citizen of a neighboring State;
distinguished not only for his relation to the civil administration of
affairs in his State, but also as one of those conspicuous soldiers
contributed by Michigan to the armies of the Union when our national
life was in peril. I am sure you will be glad to make broader the
welcome I have given him, and to show him that he has a warm place in
the affections of our Indiana people. Let me present to you General
Alger of Michigan. [Prolonged applause.]
General Alger responded as follows:
_Gentlemen_--I thank you very much for this cordial greeting. I
thank you very kindly, General Harrison, for the pleasant words you
have said of me personally. I wish to say--as you would know if you
lived in Michigan--that I am not a speechmaker. I composed a few
speeches some weeks ago, and General Harrison has been delivering them
ever since. [Laughter.] After reading his speeches carefully, each
one of them a gem of concentrated thought, I have made up my mind
that the Chicago Convention made no mistake. [Applause.] We have not
held any _post-mortem_ in our State. We are glad that we have such a
gallant candidate, a man in whose composition no flaw can be found,
in whose life no act or word can be adversely criticised. We are as
proud in Michigan of your candidate--who is our candidate also--as we
could possibly be were any other man in the universe named. We are all
Harrison men in Michigan now; and the place he has in our hearts is
just as warm as though he lived within our own borders. [Applause.]
You Hoosiers have no patent upon this. [Applause.] The people of the
United States have a great crisis before them. The question as to the
life and prosperity of our industrial institutions is at stake. We
have, as we have always had, since this country was worth caring for,
the opposition of the English Government.
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 1.
The month of August opened with two thousand visitors from Morgan and
Brown counties, including thirty survivors of General Harrison's former
regiment. The several clubs comprising the Brown County delegation were
led by Norman J. Roberts, Leander Woods, Wm. Griffin, E. D. Turner, and
C. W. Mackenzie of Nashville.
Prominent in the Morgan County detachment were W. W. Kennedy, W. C.
Banta, John Hardwick, M. G. Branch, David Wilson, H. C. Hodges, R. C.
Griffitt, J. G. Bain, John S. Newby, J. G. Kennedy, U. M. Hinson, Merwin
Rowe, Hon. J. H. Jordan, H. R. Butler, W. C. Barnett, John C. Comer,
Geo. Mitchell, and J. I. Hilton of Martinsville. Hon. G. A. Adams spoke
for the visitors.
General Harrison, responding, said:
_Mr. Adams and my Morgan and Brown County Friends_--In previous
campaigns I have not put you to the trouble to come and see me. My
habit has been to go to you, and it has been my pleasure often to
discuss before you the issues that were involved in our campaigns. The
limitations which are upon me now prevent me from following this old
habit, and put you, who desire to see me, to the trouble of coming
here. My associations with the county of Morgan have been very close.
Among its citizens are some of my most devoted personal and political
friends. There are also in your county a large number of my comrades,
to whom I am bound by the very close ties that must always unite those
who marched under the same regimental banner. Your county furnished
two companies for the Seventieth Indiana--brave, true men, commanded
by intelligent and capable officers, and having in the ranks of both
companies men as capable of command as any who wore shoulder-straps
in the regiment. These men, together with their comrades of the
Thirty-third and other regiments that were recruited in your county,
went into the service from very high motives. They heard the call of
their country, saying: "He that loveth father or mother or wife or
child or houses or lands more than me is not worthy of me," and they
were found worthy by this supreme test. Many of you were so careless
of a money recompense for the service you offered and gave that when
you lifted your hands and swore to protect and defend the Constitution
and the flag you didn't even know what your pay was to be. [Cries
of "That's so!"] If there was any carefulness or thought in that
direction it was only that the necessary provision might be made for
those you left at home. No sordid impulse, no low emotion, called you
to the field. [Applause.] In remembering all the painful ways in which
you walked, ways of toil, and suffering, and sickness, and dying, to
emerge into the glorious sunlight of that great day at Washington, we
must not forget that in the homes you left there were also sacrifices
and sufferings. Anxiety dwelt perpetually with those you left behind.
We remember gratefully the sacrifices and sufferings of the fathers
and mothers who sent you to the field, and, much more, of the wives
who bravely gave up to the country the most cherished objects of their
love. And now peace has come; no hand is lifted against the flag; the
Constitution is again supreme and the Nation one. My countrymen, it is
no time now to use an apothecary's scale to weigh the rewards of the
men who saved the country. [Applause.]
If you will pardon me I will not further follow the line of remarks
suggested by the kind words you have addressed to me through your
representative. I notice the limitation which your spokesman has put
upon you, but I beg to assure him and you that I am not so worn that I
have not the strength to greet any of you who may desire to greet me.
[Great applause.]
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 3.
On the third of August, with the mercury registering ninety-nine
degrees, thirty-five hundred visitors arrived from Montgomery and
Clinton counties, Indiana. Their parade, carrying miniature log-cabins
and other emblems, was one of the most enthusiastic demonstrations of
the campaign. Fifty voters of 1840 headed the column led by Major D.
K. Price, aged 92. The Montgomery County delegation was marshalled by
John H. Burford, W. W. Thornton, T. H. B. McCain, John S. Brown, E. P.
McClarkey, John Johnson, J. R. Bonnell, D. W. Roundtree, T. H. Ristine,
H. M. Billingsley, Dumont Kennedy, and Clerk Hulett of Crawfordsville.
Their spokesman was Hon. Peter S. Kennedy.
Among the Clinton County leaders were Albert H. Coble, Edward R. Burns,
A. T. Dennis, Wm. H. Staley, R. P. Shanklin, S. A. Coulton, J. W.
Harrison, J. T. Hockman, Nicholas Rice, Ambrose Colby, Oliver Hedgecock,
and Dr. Gard of Frankfort. Judge J. C. Suit was their orator.
In reply to their addresses General Harrison said:
_My Fellow-citizens_--These daily and increasing delegations coming
to witness their interest in the great issues which are presented for
their consideration and determination, and bearing as they do to me
their kind personal greetings, quite overmatch my ability to fittingly
greet and respond to them.
You are here from every walk in life. Some of you have achieved
success in the mechanical arts, some in professional pursuits, and
more of you come from that first great pursuit of man--the tilling of
the soil--and you come to express the thought that you have common
interests; that these diverse pursuits are bound together harmoniously
in a common governmental policy and administration. Your interests
have had a harmonious and an amazing growth under that protective
system to which your representatives have referred, and you wisely
demand a continuation of that policy for their further advancement
and development. [Applause.] You are in large part members of the
Republican party. You have in the past contributed your personal
influence, as well as your ballots, to the great victories which it
has won. Among the great achievements of our party I think we may
worthily mention the passage of that beneficent act of legislation
known as the "homestead law." It was impossible to the old parties.
It was possible only to a party composed of the sturdy yeomanry of
the free States. [Applause.] It has populated our Territories and
newer States with the elect of our citizenship. It opened a way
to an ownership of the soil to a vast number of our citizens, and
there is no surer bond in the direction of good citizenship than
that our people should have property in the soil upon which they
live. It is one of the best elements of our strength as a State
that our farm-lands are so largely possessed in small tracts, and
are tilled by the men who own them. It is one of the best evidences
of the prosperity of our cities that so large a proportion of the
men who work are covered by their own roof trees. If we would
perpetuate this condition, we must maintain the American scale of
wages. [Applause.] The policy of the subdivision of the soil is one
that tends to strengthen our national life. God grant that it may be
long before we have in this country a tenantry that is hopelessly
such from one generation to another. [Applause.] That condition of
things which makes Ireland a land of tenants, and which holds in
vast estates the lands of England, must never find footing here.
[Applause.] Small farms invite the church and the school-house into
the neighborhood. Therefore, it was in the beginning the Republican
party declared for free homes of a quarter-section each. That policy
should be perpetuated as long as our public domain lasts, and all our
legislation should tend in the direction which I have indicated. I
cannot discuss all the important questions to which you have called my
attention. I have before alluded to some of them. My Montgomery and
Clinton county friends, I thank you for the cordial and hopeful words
you have addressed to me. My highest ambition is to be found worthy of
your respect and confidence. [Applause.]
To these veterans of 1840 who kindly transfer to this the interest
they felt in that campaign, to these first voters who come to join us
with the high impulses of youth, I desire to extend my sincere thanks.
[Applause.]
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 4.
The most remarkable night demonstration of the campaign occurred August
4, the occasion being the visit of the Harrison and Morton Railroad
Club of Terre Haute, a thousand strong. They were met by twelve hundred
members of the Indianapolis Railroad Club, and, escorted by several
thousand citizens, marched to the Harrison residence.
At the head of the column rolled the model of a monster locomotive,
emitting fire and smoke and bearing the significant number 544, Hundreds
of stores and residences along the line of march were illuminated.
At the head of the visiting club marched its officers: President, D.
T. Downs; Secretary, Chas. E. Carter; Treasurer, Benj. McKeen; and
Vice-Presidents, R. B. Woolsey, J. L. Pringle, J. N. Evanhart, E. G.
South, L. M. Murphy, H. M. Kearns, George Leckert, and W. H. Miller.
President Downs delivered an address and presented an engrossed copy of
the club roster. General Harrison spoke from a stand in front of his
residence, and said: