Part 12

The fact of a treasury surplus, the amount of which is variously stated, has directed public attention to a consideration of the methods by which the national income may best be reduced to the level of a wise and necessary expenditure. This condition has been seized upon by those who are hostile to protective customs duties as an advantageous base of attack upon our tariff laws. They have magnified and nursed the surplus, which they affect to deprecate, seemingly for the purpose of exaggerating the evil, in order to reconcile the people to the extreme remedy they propose. A proper reduction of the revenues does not necessitate, and should not suggest, the abandonment or impairment of the protective system. The methods suggested by our convention will not need to be exhausted in order to effect the necessary reduction. We are not likely to be called upon, I think, to make a present choice between the surrender of the protective system and the entire repeal of the internal taxes. Such a contingency, in view of the present relation of expenditures to revenues, is remote. The inspection and regulation of the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine is important, and the revenue derived from it is not so great that the repeal of the law need enter into any plan of revenue reduction. The surplus now in the treasury should be used in the purchase of bonds. The law authorizes this use of it, and if it is not needed for current or deficiency appropriations, the people, and not the banks in which it has been deposited, should have the advantage of its use by stopping interest upon the public debt. At least those who needlessly hoard it should not be allowed to use the fear of a monetary stringency, thus produced, to coerce public sentiment upon other questions.

Closely connected with the subject of the tariff is that of the importation of foreign laborers under contracts of service to be performed here. The law now in force prohibiting such contracts received my cordial support in the Senate, and such amendments as may be found necessary effectively to deliver our working men and women from this most inequitable form of competition will have my sincere advocacy. Legislation prohibiting the importation of laborers under contract to serve here will, however, afford very inadequate relief to our working people if the system of protective duties is broken down. If the products of American shops must compete in the American market, without favoring duties, with the products of cheap foreign labor the effect will be different, if at all, only in degree, whether the cheap laborer is across the street or over the sea. Such competition will soon reduce wages here to the level of those abroad, and when that condition is reached we will not need any laws forbidding the importation of laborers under contract--they will have no inducement to come, and the employer no inducement to send for them.

In the earlier years of our history public agencies to promote immigration were common. The pioneer wanted a neighbor with more friendly instincts than the Indian. Labor was scarce and fully employed. But the day of the immigration bureau has gone by. While our doors will continue open to proper immigration, we do not need to issue special invitations to the inhabitants of other countries to come to our shores or to share our citizenship. Indeed, the necessity of some inspection and limitation is obvious. We should resolutely refuse to permit foreign governments to send their paupers and criminals to our ports. We are also clearly under a duty to defend our civilization by excluding alien races whose ultimate assimilation with our people is neither possible nor desirable. The family has been the nucleus of our best immigration, and the home the most potent assimilating force in our civilization.

The objections to Chinese immigration are distinctive and conclusive, and are now so generally accepted as such that the question has passed entirely beyond the stage of argument. The laws relating to this subject would, if I should be charged with their enforcement, be faithfully executed. Such amendments or further legislation as may be necessary and proper to prevent evasions of the laws and to stop further Chinese immigration would also meet my approval. The expression of the convention upon this subject is in entire harmony with my views.

Our civil compact is a government by majorities, and the law loses its sanction and the magistrate our respect when this compact is broken. The evil results of election frauds do not expend themselves upon the voters who are robbed of their rightful influence in public affairs. The individual or community or party that practises or connives at election frauds has suffered irreparable injury, and will sooner or later realize that to exchange the American system of majority rule for minority control is not only unlawful and unpatriotic, but very unsafe for those who promote it. The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly. The right of every qualified elector to cast one free ballot and to have it honestly counted must not be questioned. Every constitutional power should be used to make this right secure and to punish frauds upon the ballot.

Our colored people do not ask special legislation in their interest, but only to be made secure in the common rights of American citizenship. They will, however, naturally mistrust the sincerity of those party leaders who appeal to their race for support only in those localities where the suffrage is free and election results doubtful, and compass their disfranchisement where their votes would be controlling and their choice cannot be coerced.

The Nation, not less than the States, is dependent for prosperity and security upon the intelligence and morality of the people. This common interest very early suggested national aid in the establishment and endowment of schools and colleges in the new States. There is, I believe, a present exigency that calls for still more liberal and direct appropriations in aid of common-school education in the States.

The territorial form of government is a temporary expedient, not a permanent civil condition. It is adapted to the exigency that suggested it, but becomes inadequate, and even oppressive, when applied to fixed and populous communities. Several Territories are well able to bear the burdens and discharge the duties of free commonwealths in the American Union. To exclude them is to deny the just rights of their people, and may well excite their indignant protest. No question of the political preference of the people of a Territory should close against them the hospitable door which has opened to two-thirds of the existing States. But admissions should be resolutely refused to any Territory a majority of whose people cherish institutions that are repugnant to our civilization or inconsistent with a republican form of government.

The declaration of the convention against "all combinations of capital, organized in trusts or otherwise, to control arbitrarily the condition of trade among our citizens," is in harmony with the views entertained and publicly expressed by me long before the assembling of the convention. Ordinarily, capital shares the losses of idleness with labor; but under the operation of the trust, in some of its forms, the wageworker alone suffers loss, while idle capital receives its dividends from a trust fund. Producers who refuse to join the combination are destroyed, and competition as an element of prices is eliminated. It cannot be doubted that the legislative authority should and will find a method of dealing fairly and effectively with those and other abuses connected with this subject.

It can hardly be necessary for me to say that I am heartily in sympathy with the declaration of the convention upon the subject of pensions to our soldiers and sailors. What they gave and what they suffered I had some opportunity to observe, and, in a small measure, to experience. They gave ungrudgingly; it was not a trade, but an offering. The measure was heaped up, running over. What they achieved only a distant generation can adequately tell. Without attempting to discuss particular propositions, I may add that measures in behalf of the surviving veterans of the war and of the families of their dead comrades should be conceived and executed in a spirit of justice and of the most grateful liberality, and that, in the competition for civil appointments, honorable military service should have appropriate recognition.

The law regulating appointments to the classified civil service received my support in the Senate in the belief that it opened the way to a much-needed reform. I still think so, and, therefore, cordially approve the clear and forcible expression of the convention upon this subject. The law should have the aid of a friendly interpretation and be faithfully and vigorously enforced. All appointments under it should be absolutely free from partisan considerations and influence. Some extensions of the classified list are practicable and desirable, and further legislation extending the reform to other branches of the service to which it is applicable would receive my approval. In appointment to every grade and department, fitness, and not party service, should be the essential and discriminating test, and fidelity and efficiency the only sure tenure of office. Only the interests of the public service should suggest removals from office. I know the practical difficulties attending the attempt to apply the spirit of the civil service rules to all appointments and removals. It will, however, be my sincere purpose, if elected, to advance the reform.

I notice with pleasure that the convention did not omit to express its solicitude for the promotion of virtue and temperance among our people. The Republican party has always been friendly to everything that tended to make the home life of our people free, pure, and prosperous, and will in the future be true to its history in this respect.

Our relations with foreign powers should be characterized by friendliness and respect. The right of our people and of our ships to hospitable treatment should be insisted upon with dignity and firmness. Our Nation is too great, both in material strength and in moral power, to indulge in bluster or to be suspected of timorousness. Vacillation and inconsistency are as incompatible with successful diplomacy as they are with the national dignity. We should especially cultivate and extend our diplomatic and commercial relations with the Central and South American States. Our fisheries should be fostered and protected. The hardships and risks that are the necessary incidents of the business should not be increased by an inhospitable exclusion from the near-lying ports. The resources of a firm, dignified, and consistent diplomacy are undoubtedly equal to the prompt and peaceful solution of the difficulties that now exist. Our neighbors will surely not expect in our ports a commercial hospitality they deny to us in theirs.

I cannot extend this letter by a special reference to other subjects upon which the convention gave an expression.

In respect to them, as well as to those I have noticed, I am in entire agreement with the declarations of the convention. The resolutions relating to the coinage, to the rebuilding of the navy, to coast defences, and to public lands, express conclusions to all of which I gave my support in the Senate.

Inviting a calm and thoughtful consideration of these public questions, we submit them to the people. Their intelligent patriotism and the good Providence that made and has kept us a Nation will lead them to wise and safe conclusions.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, BENJAMIN HARRISON.

CLAYTON, IND., SEPTEMBER 13.

_Reunion of the Seventieth Indiana Regiment._

General Harrison, accompanied by Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. McKee, on September 13 attended the fourteenth reunion of the Seventieth Indiana Regimental Association at Clayton village, Hendricks County.

The Seventieth Regiment was recruited from the counties of Hendricks, Johnson and Marion. Of the one hundred and fifty-nine regiments sent to the front by Indiana, but few, if any, achieved a more honorable and distinguished record. It was the first regiment to report for duty under President Lincoln's call of July, '62, and was recruited in less than a month by Second Lieutenant Benjamin Harrison.

After the regiment had been recruited Lieutenant Harrison was elected Captain of Company A, and when the regiment was organized, August 7, 1862, Captain Harrison was commissioned its colonel. It left Indianapolis for the front August 13, 1862, and returned thirty-four months later, with a loss of 189 men. It participated in eleven engagements, including Resaca, Kenesaw, Marietta, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Savannah and Bentonville. The regiment was a part of Sherman's army, and was attached to the First Brigade, Third Division, Twentieth Corps. For several years past General Harrison has been successively chosen President of the Regimental Association.

Several hundred veterans, with their families, accompanied the General from Indianapolis, and were greeted at Clayton by five thousand people. Three hundred veterans of the Seventieth saluted their Colonel as he walked to the front and, assuming command, led the column to a neighboring grove, where the exercises of the day were held. It was the largest reunion in the history of the Association. Among the prominent non-resident members in attendance were Lieutenant-Colonel James Burghs, of Topeka; Capt. Wm. M. Meredith, Chicago (he was captain of Company E, the color company of the regiment); Captain Tansey, now Judge, of Winfield, Kansas; Captain Willis Record, of Nebraska; Lieutenant Hardenbrook and Private Snow, of Kansas, and Cyrus Butterfield, of Minneapolis. The orator of the day was Comrade J. M. Brown.

General Harrison, as President of the Association, presided. The proceedings were opened with prayer by Comrade J. H. Meteer, followed by an address of welcome by Miss Mary L. Mitchell, daughter of Captain W. C. Mitchell, who directed her closing remarks to General Harrison.

With great earnestness the General replied as follows:

_Miss Mitchell_--I feel quite incompetent to discharge the duty that now devolves upon me--that of making suitable response to the touching, cordial and sympathetic words which you have addressed to us. We thank you and the good citizens of Clayton, for whom you have spoken, that you have opened your hearts so fully to us to-day. I am sure we have never assembled under circumstances more attractive than those that now surround us. The mellow sunshine of this autumn-time that falls upon us, the balmy air which moves the leaves of those shadowing trees, the sweet calm and spell of nature that is over everything, makes the day one of those that may be described in the language of the old poet as

"A bridal of the earth and sky."

Your hospitable welcome makes us feel at home, and in behalf of this large representation of our regiment, possibly the largest that has assembled since the close of the war, gathered not only from these adjacent counties, but from distant homes beyond the Mississippi and the Missouri, I give you to-day in return our most hearty thanks for your great kindness.

The autumn-time is a fit time for our gathering, for our spring-time is gone. It was in the spring-time of our lives that we heard our country's call. Full of vigor and youth and patriotism, we responded to it. The exhaustion of march and camp and battle, and the civil strife of the years that have passed since the close of the war, have left their marks upon us, and, as we gather from year to year, we notice the signs of advancing age, and the roster of our dead is lengthened. We are reminded by the minutes of our last meeting, that have been read, of the presence at our last reunion of that faithful and beloved officer who went out from this county, Major Reagan. With a prophetic instinct of what was before him, he told us then that it was probably the last time that he should gather with us. God has verified the thought that was in his mind, and that simple, true-hearted, brave comrade has been enrolled with the larger company. We are glad to-day to be together, yet our gladness is sobered. As I look into those familiar faces I notice a deep sense of satisfaction, but I have not failed to observe that there are tears in many eyes. We are not moved to tears by any sense of regret that we gave some service to our country and to its flag, but only by the sense that we are not all here to-day, and that all who are here will never gather again in a meeting like this. We rejoice that we were permitted to make some contribution to the glory and credit and perpetuity of the Nation we love. [Applause.]

Comrades who served under other regimental flags and who have gathered here with us to-day, we do not boast of higher motives or greater service than yours. We welcome you to a participation in our reunion. We fully acknowledge that you had a full--possibly a fuller--share than we in the great achievements of the war. We claim only this for the Seventieth Indiana--that we went into the service with the full purpose to respond to every order [cries of "That's so!"], and that we never evaded a fight or turned our backs to the enemy. [Applause.] We are not here to exalt ourselves, but I cannot omit to say that a purer, truer self-consecration to the flag and country was never offered than by you and your dead comrades who, in 1862, mustered for the defence of the Union. [Applause.]

It was not in the heyday of success, it was not under the impression that sixty days would end the war, that you were mustered. It was when the clouds hung low and disasters were thick. Buell was returning from the Tennessee, Kirby Smith coming through Cumberland Gap, and McClellan had been defeated on the Peninsula. It seemed as if the frown of God was on our cause. It was then, in that hour of stress, that you pledged your hearts and lives to the country [applause], in the sober realization that the war was a desperate one, in which thousands were to die. We are glad that God has spared us to see the magnificent development and increase in strength and honor which has come to us as a Nation, and in the glory that has been woven into the flag we love. [Great applause.] We are glad that with most of us the struggle in life has not left us defeat, if it has not crowned us with the highest successes. We are veterans and yet citizens, pledged, each according to his own conscience and thought, to do that which will best promote the glory of our country and best conserve and set in our public measures those patriotic thoughts and purposes that took us into the war. [Applause.] It is my wish to-day that every relation I occupy to the public or to a political party might be absolutely forgotten [cries of "Good! good!"], and that I might for this day, among these comrades, be thought of only as a comrade--your old Colonel. [Great applause.]

Nothing has given me more pleasure on this occasion than to notice, as I passed through your streets, so beautifully and so tastefully decorated, that the poles that have been reared by the great parties were intertwined [applause]--and now I remind myself that I am not the orator of this occasion [cries of "Go on!"], but its presiding officer. The right discharge of that duty forbids much talking.

Comrades of the Seventieth Indiana, comrades of all these associated regiments, I am glad to meet you. Nothing shall sever that bond, I hope. Nothing that I shall ever say, nothing that I shall ever do, will weaken it. And now, if you will permit me again to acknowledge the generous hospitality of this community, and in your behalf to return them our most sincere thanks, I will close these remarks and proceed with the programme which has been provided.

General Harrison was unanimously re-elected President of the Association, Colonel Samuel Merrill Vice-President, M. G. McLean Secretary, Major James L. Mitchell Treasurer.

When the motion was put by one of the veterans on the adoption of the report re-electing General Harrison to the presidency of the Association, the veterans answered with a "Yea" that brought cheer upon cheer from the crowd.

General Harrison, visibly affected, simply said: "I feel myself crowned again to-day by this evidence of comradeship of the old soldiers of the Seventieth Indiana." [Cheers.]

On his return from Clayton, General Harrison was visited at his residence by fifty veterans of Potter Post, G. A. R., Sycamore, Ill., _en route_ home from the Columbus encampment. They were introduced by General E. F. Dutton, colonel of the One Hundred and Fifth Illinois Infantry, and commander of the Second Brigade, Third Division of the Twentieth Army Corps.

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 14.

All trains arriving from the East this day brought large delegations of homeward-bound veterans from the Columbus, Ohio, encampment. The first to arrive was one hundred veterans of Ransom Post, St. Louis--General Sherman's Post--who were introduced by Col. Murphy. General Harrison, responding to their greeting, said:

_Comrades_--I esteem it a pleasure to be able to associate with you by the use of that form of address. I know of no human organization that can give a better reason for its existence than the Grand Army of the Republic. [Cries of "Good!"] It needs no argument to justify it; it stands unassailable, and admits of no criticism from any quarter. Its members have rendered that service to their country in war, and they maintain now, in peace, that honorable, courageous citizenship that entitles them to every patriot's respect. I thank you for this visit, and will be glad if you will now allow me to welcome you to my home.

In the afternoon the streets of Indianapolis were overflowing with marching veterans from Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Kansas, headed by the National Drum Corps of Minneapolis, and commanded by Department Commander Col. James A. Sexton, of Chicago, and a brilliant staff. The great column passed through the city out to the Harrison residence. Conspicuous at the head of the line marched the distinguished Governor of Wisconsin, General Jere M. Rusk, surrounded by his staff of seventeen crippled veterans, among whom were Capt. E. G. Fimme, Secretary of State of Wisconsin; Col. H. B. Harshaw, State Treasurer; C. E. Estabrook, Attorney-General; Philip Cheek, Insurance Commissioner; Col. H. P. Fischer, Maj. J. R. Curran, Maj. F. L. Phillips, Maj. F. H. Conse; Captains W. W. Jones, H. W. Lovejoy, and W. H. McFarland. Eighty members of the Woman's Relief Corps accompanied the veterans, and were given positions of honor at the reception. When General Harrison appeared he was tendered an ovation. Governor Rusk said: "Comrades--I consider it both an honor and a pleasure in introducing to you the President of the United States for the next eight years--General Benjamin Harrison." [Cheers.]

General Harrison responded as follows: