Part 7

The Clay County miners had not concluded their reception before a delegation of several hundred arrived from Bloomington, Illinois, headed by the John A. Logan Club, under the lead of General Geo. F. Dick, William Maddox, John A. Fullwiller, M. B. Herr, and Dr. F. C. Vandervoort. Their orator was Dr. W. H. H. Adams, formerly President of the Illinois Wesleyan University. General Harrison, replying, said:

_My Bloomington Friends_--When I received here, yesterday, a very large delegation from Illinois, I expressed the opinion that they must be the "rest of the people of Illinois that had not been here before." I suppose you are a remnant that could not get into line yesterday. I thank you as I have thanked those who preceded you, for the interest which the people of your State have manifested, and for your cordial fellowship with Indiana. I will not discuss the issues of the campaign. You have already thought upon the platforms of the two parties. Some of you have perhaps taken your politics by inheritance. It is now a good time to review the situation. We have the same interests as citizens. Let us all consider the history and declarations of the great parties and thoughtfully conclude which is more likely to promote the general interests of our people. That is the test. The British Parliament does not legislate with a view to advance the interests of the people of the United States. [Cries of "No, never!"] They--rightly--have in view the interest of that empire over which Victoria reigns. Should we not, also, as Americans, in our legislation, consider first the interests of our people? We invite the thoughtful attention of those who have hitherto differed with us as to these questions. Our interests are bound together. That which promotes the prosperity of the community in which you dwell in kindly association with your Democratic friends promotes your interests and theirs alike. Thanking you for this visit, I will ask you to excuse me from further speech. [Applause.]

INDIANAPOLIS, JULY 27.

Kosciusko County, Indiana, contributed two thousand visitors on the twenty-seventh of July, under the leadership of Capt. C. W. Chapman, James H. Cisney, Reub. Williams, Louis Ripple, J. E. Stevenson, Wm. B. Wood, T. Loveday, John Wynant, Charles Adams, Nelson Richhart, Captain A. S. Miller, Clinton Lowe, P. L. Runyon, James A. Cook, Frank McGee, and John Burbaker, all of Warsaw. Judge H. S. Biggs made the presentation address. General Harrison replied as follows:

_Mr. Biggs and my Kosciusko County Friends_--I did not need to be assured of the friendliness of the Republicans of your county. It has been evidenced too many times in the past. Before the convention at Chicago the Republicans of your county gave me the assurance that my nomination would meet the cordial approbation of your people. I am glad to welcome you here to-day, and regret that your journey hither has been so tedious. You are proud of the State in which you dwell; proud of her institutions of learning; proud of her great benevolent institutions, which I notice by one of these banners you have pledged yourselves to protect from party spoliation and degradation. [Applause and cries of "Good! Good!"] But while we have much that is cause for congratulation, we are not enjoying that full equality of civil rights in the State of Indiana to which we are entitled.

Our Government is a representative government. Delegates in Congress and members of our State Senate and House of Representatives are apportioned to districts, and the National and State Constitutions contemplate that these districts shall be equal, so that, as far as possible, each citizen shall have, in his district, the same potency in choosing a Member of Congress or of our State Legislature as is exercised by a voter in any other district. We do not to-day have that condition of things. The apportionment of our State for legislative and congressional purposes is unfair, and is known to be unfair to all men. No candid Democrat can defend it as a fair apportionment. It was framed to be unequal, it was designed to give to the citizens of favored districts an undue influence. It was intended to discriminate against Republicans. It is not right that it should be so. I hope the time is coming, and has even now arrived, when the great sense of justice which possesses our people will teach men of all parties that party success is not to be promoted at the expense of an injustice to any of our citizens. [Applause.] These things take hold of government. If we would maintain that respect for the law which is necessary to social order, our people must understand that each voter has his full and equal influence in determining what the law shall be. I hope this question will not be forgotten by our people until we have secured in Indiana a fair apportionment for legislative and congressional purposes. [Cheers.] When the Republicans shall secure the power of making an apportionment, I hope and believe that the experiment of seeking a party advantage by a public injustice will not be repeated. [Great applause and cries of "Good! Good!"]

There are some other questions affecting suffrage, too, to which my attention has, from circumstances, been particularly attracted. There are in the Northwest several Territories organized under public law with defined boundaries. They have been filled up with the elect of our citizens--the brave, the enterprising and intelligent young men from all the States. Many of the veterans of the late war have sought under our beneficent homestead law new homes in the West. Several of these Territories have been for years possessed of population, wealth, and all the requisites for admission as States. When the Territory of Indiana took the census which was the basis for its petition for admission to the Union we had less than 64,000 people; we had only thirteen organized counties. In the Territory of South Dakota there are nearly half a million people. For years they have been knocking for admission to the sisterhood of States.

They are possessed of all the elements of an organized and 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.