details, or even properly limit the illustrations I have used. But
this is an appropriate and timely inquiry: With what motive, what
ultimate design, what disposition toward the principle of protection
is it that our present tariff schedule is attacked? It may be that
reductions should be made; it may be that some duties should be
increased; but we want to know whether those who propose the revision
believe in taking thought of our American workingmen in fixing the
rates, or will leave them to the chance effects of a purely revenue
tariff. [Applause.]
Now, having spoken once already to-day, you will accept this
inadequate acknowledgment of this magnificent demonstration.
I thank you, my Illinois friends, not only on my own behalf, but on
behalf of the Republicans of Indiana, for the great interest you have
manifested. [Applause.]
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 15.
Rush, Decatur, and Delaware counties, Indiana, contributed fully five
thousand visitors on the 15th of August. Rush County sent twenty
Republican clubs, mainly township organizations, led by one hundred
veterans of 1836 and '40. The prominent Republicans of the delegation
were Hon. John K. Gowdy, John M. Stevens, A. L. Riggs, W. J. Henley,
John F. Moses, T. M. Green, J. C. Kiplinger, J. W. Study, and G. W.
Looney, of Rushville; R. R. Spencer and J. A. Shannon, of Richland.
Judge W. A. Cullen was their spokesman.
General Harrison, responding, said:
_Judge Cullen and my Rush County Friends_--I am glad to see you
here--glad to be assured by him who has spoken in your behalf that
your coming here in some measure is intended as an evidence of your
personal respect for me. The respect of one's fellow-citizens, who
have opportunities to know him, is of priceless value.
I cannot in these daily addresses enter much into public questions.
You are Indianians, some of you by birth; some of you, like me, by
choice. You are Republicans; you have opposed always the doctrine of
State's rights; you have believed and gloried in the great citizenship
that embraces all the people of all the States. You believe that
this Government is not a confederation to be dissolved at the will
of any member of it, but a Nation having the inherent right, by
arms, if need be, to perpetuate its beneficent existence. [Great
applause.] Many of you who are here to-day have aided in vindicating
that principle upon the battle-field [cries of "Plenty of us!"], and
yet these views are not inconsistent with a just State pride. We are
proud to be Indianians, proud of the story of her progress in material
development, proud of her educational and benevolent institutions,
proud of her Christian homes, proud of her part in the Civil War.
If there has been any just cause of reproach against our State we
will all desire that it may be removed. We may fairly appeal to all
Indianians, without distinction of party, to co-operate in promoting
such public measures as are calculated to lift up the dignity and
honor and estimation of Indiana among the States of the Union. [Great
applause.]
I will call your attention to one such subject that seems to me to
be worthy of your thought. It is the reform of our election laws.
[Applause and cries of "That's it!"] A constitutional amendment, to
which a great majority of our people gave their sanction, has removed
the impediments which stood in the way of progressive legislation in
the protection of an honest ballot in Indiana. Formerly we could not
require a definite period of residence in the voting precinct. Now we
may and have. The same amendment authorized our Legislature to enact
a just and strict registry law, which will enable the inspectors
properly to verify the claims of those who offer a ballot. Every
safeguard of law should be thrown around the ballot-box until fraud
in voting and frauds in counting shall receive the sure penalties of
law as well as the reprobation of all good men. [Great applause.] The
Republican party has always stood for election reforms. No measure
tending to secure the ballot-box against fraud has ever been opposed
by its representatives. I am not here to make imputations; I submit
this general suggestion: Find me the party that sets the gate of
election frauds open, or holds it open, and I will show you the party
that expects to drive cattle that way. [Applause.] Let us as citizens,
irrespective of party, unite to exalt the name of Indiana by making
her election laws models of justice and severity, and her elections
free from the taint of suspicion. [Great applause.] And now, as I must
presently speak to other delegations, I am sure my Rush County friends
will allow me to close these remarks. [Applause and cheers.]
The visitors from Decatur and Delaware counties were received together.
The Decatur delegation numbered fifteen hundred, led by B. F. Bennett,
John F. Goddard, V. P. Harris, J. J. Hazelrigg, Geo. Anderson, Edward
Speer, A. G. Fisher, F. M. Sherwood, and A. S. Creath, of Greensburg.
Their spokesman was the Hon. Will Cumback. Delaware County sent twelve
organizations, conspicuous among which were the Tippecanoe Club, the
Veterans Regiment, and Lincoln Colored Club. Among the leaders of the
delegation were ex-Senator M. C. Smith, A. F. Collins, Hon. James N.
Templer, Major J. F. Wildman, Rev. T. S. Guthrie, J. D. Hoyt, Geo. F.
McCulloch, W. W. Orr, Joseph G. Lefler, Lee Coffeen, C. F. W. Neely,
Ed. R. Templer, W. H. Murray, W. H. Stokes, John S. Aldredge, J. R.
Shoemaker, Jacob Stiffler, Web S. Richey, T. H. Johnson and others, of
Muncie. Rev. N. L. Bray spoke on behalf of the Lincoln Club, but R. S.
Gregory delivered the address for the delegation as a whole.
In reply to these several addresses General Harrison said:
_My Friends_--The man who does not believe that the issues of this
campaign have taken a very deep hold upon the minds and upon the
hearts of the American people would do well to come and stand with
me and look into the faces of the masses who gather here. I know
nothing of the human face if I do not read again in your faces and
eyes the lesson I have read here from day to day, and it is this: That
the thinking, intelligent, God-fearing and self-respecting citizens
of this country believe there are issues at stake that demand their
earnest effort. [Applause.] A campaign that is one simply of party
management, a campaign by committees and public speakers, may fail;
but a campaign to which the men and women of the country give their
unselfish and earnest efforts can never fail. [Great applause.]
It is no personal interest in the candidate that stirs these
emotions in your hearts; it is the belief that questions are involved
affecting your prosperity and the prosperity of your neighbors;
affecting the dignity of the nation; affecting the generation to which
you will presently leave the government which our fathers built and
you have saved. [Applause.]
One subject is never omitted by those who speak for these visiting
delegations, viz.: the protective tariff. The purpose not to permit
American wages to be brought below the level of comfortable living,
and competence, and hope, by competition with the pauper labor of
Europe, has taken a very strong hold upon our people. [Applause.] And
of kin to this suggestion and purpose is this other: that we will not
permit this country to be made the dumping-ground of foreign pauperism
and crime. [Great applause.] There are some who profess to be eager to
exclude paupers and Chinese laborers, and at the same time advocate
a policy that brings the American workman into competition with the
product of cheap foreign labor. [Applause and cries of "That's it!"]
The disastrous effects upon our workingmen and working-women of
competition with cheap, underpaid labor are not obviated by keeping
the cheap worker over the sea if the product of his cheap labor is
allowed free competition in our market. We should protect our people
against competition with the products of underpaid labor abroad as
well as against the coming to our shores of paupers, laborers under
contract, and the Chinese labor. [Enthusiastic applause.] These two
thoughts are twin thoughts; the same logic supports both; and the
Republican party holds them as the dual conclusion of one great
argument.
Now, gentlemen, to the first voters, who come with the high impulse
of recruits into this strife; to these old men, seasoned veterans of
many a contest, and to these colored friends, whose fidelity has been
conspicuous, I give my thanks and hearty greetings. [Applause.] There
has been a desire expressed that the reception of these delegations
should be individualized; that Delaware should be received by itself,
and Decatur separately; but that is not possible. You are one in
thought and purpose; and if I am not able to individualize your
reception by counties, I will, so far as I can, now make it absolutely
individual by greeting each one of you.
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 17.
Delegations from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, aggregating between nine
and ten thousand visitors, paid their respects to the Republican nominee
on the seventeenth of August.
The Ohio delegation came from Bellefontaine, Logan County, led by Judge
William Lawrence. They carried a beautiful old silk banner that had been
presented to a Logan County club at the hands of Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison
in 1840.
Ford County, Illinois, sent a large delegation, headed by Judge A.
Sample and Col. C. Bogardus, of Paxton. The Young Men's Club--Wm.
Ramsey, President, and the Paxton League--T. T. Thompson, President,
were conspicuous in this delegation.
The Kankakee County (Illinois) delegation, headed by the Republican club
of the City of Kankakee in campaign uniforms, was led by Judge T. S.
Sawyer, D. H. Paddock, F. S. Hatch, W. F. Kenoga, H. L. Richardson, J.
F. Leonard, R. D. Sherman, Geo. R. Letourneau, and Judge J. N. Orr.
Morgan County, Illinois, contributed the largest delegation of the day,
over two thousand, with three drum corps, one, the Jacksonville Juvenile
Drum Corps, led by Thomas Barbour, aged 81. Prominent in the Morgan
delegation were C. G. Rutledge, President Young Men's Republican Club,
B. F. Hilligass, D. M. Simmons, Dr. P. G. Gillett, Sam'l W. Nichols,
Judge M. T. Layman, J. G. Loomis, A. P. and J. M. Smith, veterans of
'40, and Henry Yates, son of Illinois' war Governor--all of Jacksonville.
The Indiana visitors came from three counties--Bartholomew, Johnson, and
Vermilion.
The Bartholomew contingent was composed largely of veterans of the late
war, who were led by a company of their daughters in uniform. Among
their representative members were John C. Orr, W. W. Lambert, John H.
Taylor, John F. Ott, J. W. Morgan, John Sharp, T. B. Prother, Andrew
Perkinson, and H. Rost, of Columbus.
The Johnson County delegation numbered two thousand, led by W. T.
Pritchard, D. W. Barnett, Jessie Overstreet, J. H. Vannuys, I. M.
Thompson, Jacob Hazlett, and John Brown, of Franklin.
Vermilion County sent fifteen hundred enthusiastic visitors, commanded
by A. J. Ralph, Marshal of the delegation. Other leaders were Hon. R. B.
Sears, W. L. Porter, Rob't A. Parrett, S. B. Davis, R. H. Nixon, Geo. H.
Fisher, and Andrew Curtis, of Newport.
The speakers on behalf of these several delegations were: Hon. William
Lawrence, of Ohio; Hon. Frank L. Cook, Paxton, Ill.; Judge C. R. Starr,
Kankakee County, Ill.; Prof. Wm. D. Saunders, Jacksonville, Ill.; Major
W. T. Strickland, Bartholomew County, Ind.; Col. Sam'l P. Oyler,
Johnson County, Ind.; Hon. H. H. Connelly, Vermilion County, Ind. To
these addresses General Harrison responded as follows:
_My Friends_--The magnitude of this gathering, I fear, quite
out-reaches the capacity of my voice. It is so great and so cordial,
it has been accompanied by so many kind expressions, that my heart is
deeply touched--too deeply to permit of extended or connected speech.
I return most cordially the greetings of these friends from Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois [cheers], a trio of great States lying in this
great valley, endowed by nature with a productive capacity that rivals
the famous valley of the Nile, populated by a people unsurpassed in
intelligence, manly independence and courage. [Applause and cheers.]
The association of these States to-day brings to my mind the fact
that in the brigade with which I served Indiana, Ohio and Illinois
were represented [applause]--three regiments from Illinois, the One
Hundred and Second, the One Hundred and Fifth and the One Hundred and
Twenty-ninth; one from Ohio, the Seventy-ninth, and one from Indiana,
the Seventieth Infantry. I have seen the men of these States stand
together in the evening parade. I have seen them also charge together
in battle, and die together for the flag they loved [great applause],
and when the battle was over I have seen the dead gathered from the
field they had enriched with their blood and laid side by side in
a common grave. Again you evidence by your coming that these great
States have in peace common interests and common sympathies. The
Republican party has always been hospitable to the truth. [Applause
and laughter.] It has never shunned debate. It has boldly, and in
the courage of the principles it has advocated, opened the lists and
challenged all comers. It has never found it necessary or consistent
with its great principles to suppress free discussion of any question.
There is not a Republican community where any man may not advocate
without fear his political beliefs. [Cries of "That's so!"] There is
not a Republican voting precinct where any man, whatever may have been
his relations to the flag during the war, may not freely exercise his
right to vote. [Cheers.] There is not one such precinct where the
right of a Confederate soldier freely to cast the ballot of his choice
would not be defended by the Union veterans of the war. [Applause
and cries of "That's true!"] Our party is tolerant of political
differences. It has always yielded to others all that it demanded for
itself. It has been intolerant of but one thing: disloyalty to the
flag and to the Union of States. [Great applause.] It has had the
good fortune to set in the Constitution and in the permanent laws of
our country many of the great principles for which it has contended.
It has not only persuaded a majority of our thinking people, but it
has had the unusual fortune to compel those who opposed it to give a
belated assent to every great principle it has supported.
Now, gentlemen, I am sure you will excuse further speech. What I say
here must necessarily be very general. It would not be in good taste
for me to make too close or too personal an application of Republican
principles. [Laughter and applause and cries of "You're a dandy!"]
I do not know what to say further. I have up to this time greeted
personally all those who came. My courage is a little shaken as I
look upon this vast multitude, but for a time, at least--so long as
I can, and to those who especially desire it, I will give a personal
greeting. [Great and prolonged applause.]
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST 18.
The commercial travelling men, and their friends, from the cities of
Peoria, Bloomington, Terre Haute, and Lafayette, about a thousand in
number, paid their respects to General Harrison on the afternoon of the
18th of August. The Bloomington delegation was led by J. H. Sprague and
Dan Van Elsler, the Peoria Club by J. G. Jones. Each delegation was
escorted by a splendid band.
They were met and escorted to the Harrison residence by a committee from
the Indianapolis Commercial Travellers' Association, comprising G. C.
Webster, C. H. McPherson, John V. Parker, W. H. Schmidt, D. W. Coffin,
Harry Gates, R. K. Syfers, W. F. Winchester, Wm. Sisson, T. P. Swain,
C. L. Schmidt, Ed. Finney, O. W. Moorman, Charles Lefler, M. P. Green,
J. L. Barnhardt, Berg. Applegate, G. R. Rhoads, Hon. J. H. Rowell, of
Bloomington; and Hon. J. S. Starr of Peoria spoke on behalf of the
visitors. General Harrison said:
_Gentlemen of the Commercial Travellers' Association of Peoria,
Bloomington, Lafayette, and Terre Haute_--I thank you for this most
cordial and beautiful demonstration. The respect of such a body of men
is a valuable acquisition. But I am particularly glad that a class so
large and so influential, and one that touches so many communities,
is loyally and earnestly devoted to the principles of the Republican
party. I have travelled somewhat in the wake of the commercial men,
and have observed that they have the habit of getting the best of
everything wherever they go. [Applause and laughter. A voice: "That's
the reason we are here!"] I am therefore quite ready to credit the
statement of the gentleman who has just spoken in your behalf when he
tells me that the commercial travellers are all Republicans. [Applause
and cries of "He was right!"] I should expect they would get the best
politics that were to be found. [Laughter and applause.]
Your calling is an active one--you are always on the move. You are
quick to discover the wants of local trade. You are persuasive in
speech and address; you are honest for the love of integrity, and do
not forget that you must again face your customer after the goods are
delivered. [Laughter and applause.] The men who employed you have
chosen you, picked you out, and they subject you to the weekly test
of success. You have been proved and not found wanting. The wide
intercourse you have with your fellow-men and the wide view you get of
our country must tend to make you liberal and patriotic.
The provincialism that once existed in this country has largely
disappeared, and the commercial travellers have been an important
agency in bringing this about. This going to and fro has given you a
fuller comprehension, not only of the extent of this country, but of
the greatness and unity of its people. [Cheers.] I have thought that
the prophet Daniel must have had a vision of the commercial travellers
when he said that in the last days many should run to and fro and
knowledge should be increased. [Laughter and applause.]
You will not expect me to enter upon the discussion of any of the
topics which have been suggested by those who have spoken for you.
Most of them I have already alluded to in public speech since my
nomination, and upon some of them I have spoken more fully before.
Let me suggest but this one thought: Do not allow any one to persuade
you that this great contest as to our tariff policy is one between
schedules. It is not a question of a seven per cent. reduction.
[Applause.] It is a question between wide-apart principles. [Cries of
"That's right!"]
The principle of protection, the intelligent recognition in the
framing of our tariff laws of the duty to protect our American
industries and maintain the American scale of wages by adequate
discriminating duties [cries of "That's right!" "That's it!"] on the
one hand, and on the other a denial of the constitutional right to
make our customs duties protective, or the assertion of the doctrine
that free competition with foreign products is the ideal condition to
which all our legislation should tend. [Applause.]
Let me now, in behalf not only of myself, but of my family, thank
you for your visit and ask you to enter our home. [Applause.]
TOLEDO, OHIO, AUGUST 21.
General Harrison left Indianapolis on the morning of August 21, '88, for
a two weeks' outing and vacation at Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie, where
he was the guest--upon invitation of ex-Gov. Charles Foster, of Ohio--of
the Middle Bass Fishing Club, Mather Shoemaker, Sr., President.
He was accompanied by Mrs. Harrison, Judge Wm. A. Woods and wife, Miss
Woods, Samuel Miller, and representatives of the Associated Press and
Cincinnati _Commercial-Gazette_.
His departure was not generally known, consequently there was no
demonstration along the line until Defiance, Ohio, was reached, where
several hundred people had gathered. Hon. C. A. Flickinger delivered a
brief address of welcome.
General Harrison, speaking from the train, said:
_Gentlemen_--I am very much obliged to you for this reception. You
will excuse me, I am sure, for not attempting to make any speech.
This evidence of your friendly feeling is gratifying to me. We were
intending to travel to-day in quietness, and I am confident you will
conform to our wishes in that respect by allowing me to say simply,
"How do you do" and "Good-by."
Toledo was reached early in the evening, and several thousand citizens
and militia welcomed the distinguished travellers. A committee of
reception, comprising James M. Brown, Chairman, Mayor Hamilton, Hon.
E. D. Potter, J. C. Bonner, John Berdan, C. A. King, Calvin Barker,
Fred Eaton, Col. S. C. Reynolds, Judge R. F. Doyle, Judge Joseph
Cummings, Hon. John F. Kumler, Hon. Richard Waite, Wm. Baker, and Judge
Austin, escorted General Harrison and his party to the residence of Wm.
Cummings, whose guests they were. At night an open-air mass-meeting was
held in Memorial Hall Square, where ten thousand men assembled. Gov.
Foster spoke at length, and was followed by General Harrison, who was
introduced by Hon. J. M. Brown, President of the Executive Committee
United Republican Clubs, and spoke as follows: