HARRISON'S SPEECHES. (continued 3)

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:

My Friends—You have already been told that this reception was not planned by me, and yet I do not regret that I have yielded to the urgent solicitation of your representatives and have consented to stand for a few moments in the presence of this magnificent and instructive audience. [Applause.] I say instructive, for that public man is dull indeed who does not gather both instruction and inspiration from such meetings as this. [Applause.] I thank you for any measure of personal respect and interest which your coming here to-night may witness, but I do not see in this immense gathering any testimony that is personal to me. I prefer to regard it as another witness added to the long number I have seen before of the deep-seated and earnest interest of our people in the public questions that are to be settled in November. [Applause.] I choose rather to regard it as a pledge that this interest you manifest in me to-night will not stop here, but is the pledge of continued and earnest personal work by each one of you for those principles which have won the consent of your minds and the love of your hearts. [Applause.] I cannot enter in any detail into the discussion of public questions; I would not at all put myself between you and these great, important issues. I would, in all I may say, put them to the front. We are here citizens of a great, prosperous, magnificent Nation. We have common interests. We are here charged with the common duties to perpetuate, if we can, the prosperity and to maintain the honor of this great Republic. [Applause.] We are here to-night in the enjoyment of free government. We are here in the individual possession of better opportunities of development, of a larger prosperity, and of more individual comfort than are possessed by any other people in the world. [Applause.] The great economic question as to what shall be our future legislative policy is stated with a distinctness in this campaign that it has never had before, and I believe the verdict and decision will have an emphasis and finality that it has never had before. [Applause.] If there is any one here present to-night that knows of any land that spreads a more promising sky of hope above the heads of the poor and the laboring man than this, I would be glad if he would name it. The one fact that I do not need to stop to demonstrate by statistics, the one fact that I could call out of this vast audience hundreds of witnesses to support by their personal testimony, is that the scale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in the world. [Applause.] If this were not true, why is it that the workingmen and the working-women of the older lands turn their faces hitherward? If there is a better country, one that offers better wages, fuller hopes than this, why is it that those who are in quest of such better things have not found it out and turned their faces thitherward? Now, if that is true, then why is it true, and how is it to be continued—this condition of our country? It is because, and only because, we have for years, by our protective tariff, discriminated in favor of American manufacturers and American workingmen. [Applause.] Strike down this protective system, bring our workingmen and working-women in equal competition in the products of their toil with those who labor abroad, and nothing is clearer than that these mills and factories must reduce wages here to the level with wages abroad, or they must shut down. You have the choice to make; you, the free citizens of this country, whose ballots sway its destiny, will settle these questions in November. [Applause.] I ask you how? Don't be deceived by the suggestion that this is any contest over a seven per cent. reduction in the tariff schedule. We are allowed now to say, I think, that all those who are entitled to speak for the Democratic party have declared that it is opposed to protection. That being so, the issue is clearly, distinctly, strongly drawn. I beg you all—not in my interest, but in your own; in the interest of your families and the country you love—to ponder this question; to think upon it with that seriousness its importance demands, and when you have thought it out, settle it, settle it in November, so that we shall be free for years to come from this agitation in behalf of free trade. [Great applause.]

I thank you again for this kindly demonstration. I beg you to accept these brief suggestions as the only but inadequate return that I can make you for this kindness. [Applause.]

PUT-IN-BAY, OHIO, AUGUST 31.

The residents of Put-in-Bay Island, about five hundred in number, tendered General Harrison a reception on the thirty-first of August. The steamboats from Cleveland, Detroit, Toledo, and Sandusky brought several thousand excursionists. General Harrison and his party on their arrival from Middle Bass Island were met at the pier by all the residents of Put-in-Bay Island, headed by their most distinguished citizen John Brown, Jr., son of the celebrated "Ossawatomie" Brown, of Harper's Ferry fame.

From a pavilion in the adjacent grove John Brown introduced Hon. Charles Foster, who said:

Fellow-citizens—General Harrison came to Middle Bass for the purpose of rest and quiet. At the solicitation of a number of people of this section of country—a great number, I might say—he has kindly consented to give a reception here to-day, upon one condition—that he was not to make a speech. Now, fellow-citizens, I have the very great pleasure of presenting to you General Benjamin Harrison, the Republican candidate for the presidency. [Applause.]

As Governor Foster concluded, General Harrison arose midst a shout of welcome and spoke as follows:

My Friends—I have found Governor Foster to be a very agreeable and thoughtful host, and I find him to-day to be the most agreeable master of ceremonies who has ever attended me at a public reception. I like his announcement of the condition under which I appear before you to-day.

I never enjoy a banquet when my name is on the programme for a toast. I do not, therefore, intend to speak to you about any of those questions that are engaging your minds as citizens of this prosperous and mighty and happy Nation. We are here to-day as Americans, proud of the flag that symbolizes this great Union of States; proud of the story that has been written by our fathers in council and in war, in the formation and defence and perpetuation of our magnificent institutions, We are here in the immediate neighborhood of one of those great historic events that was among the most potential agencies in settling our title to the great Northwest. If we had stood where we stand to-day we could have heard the guns of Perry's fleet. If we had stood where we stand to-day we could have welcomed him as he came a victor into Put-in-Bay.

These institutions of ours are in our own keeping now, and not only our fundamental institutions, but the fame that has been won by those who have gone before. I may therefore properly say to-day that a campaign like this demands the thoughtful consideration of every American voter. We are prosperous. [Cheers.] The story of our prosperity, of our development in wealth, of our achievements in finance as a Nation, since and during the war, is almost as notable and almost as admirable as that of our achievements in arms.

The assembling of our revenue was even more difficult than the assembling of armies, and yet we were able to maintain those armies in the field, and have been able since not only to bear up the great load of debt, but to pay it off, until that which was once thought to be a burden that would crush our industries has come to be in our hands but as the ball the boy tosses in play [cheers]; and we are to-day confronted with the question, not how we shall get money, but how we shall wisely stop some of those avenues by which wealth is pouring into our public treasury.

It is an easier problem than that which confronted the great war Secretary, in whose name you so delight—how to raise revenue to prosecute the war successfully. It will be wisely solved. And may I note also the fact that, notwithstanding this complaint of excessive revenue, there are some who suggest that they are not able adequately to arouse the popular indignation against excessive taxation because they cannot disclose to the people when or how they are paying the taxes? [Applause.] It is taken, they say, so indirectly and so subtly that these—our plain people—don't know that they are paying them at all. [Applause.] But I must not cross this line of party discussion. I have had a pleasant stay in this most delightful neighborhood, and I cannot let this public opportunity pass without expressing, for myself and for Mrs. Harrison, our grateful appreciation of the kind and thoughtful hospitality which has been shown to us by the people of these islands. [Prolonged applause.]

FORT WAYNE, IND., SEPTEMBER 4, 1888.

General Harrison and party, en route home from Middle Bass Island, arrived at Toledo on the evening of Sept. 3, and were again the guests of Wm. Cummings. At night they were tendered a reception by Mr. and Mrs. John Berdan, at their residence.

On the morning of Sept. 4 the party started homeward. The first stop was at Fort Wayne, where several thousand Hoosiers welcomed their leader. Supt. Wall, of the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne Railroad, introduced the general, who spoke as follows:

My Friends—I desire to thank you for this cordial demonstration. I thank you not so much for myself as for the party to which most of us have given the consent of our minds. I am glad to know that the people are moved to a thoughtful consideration of those questions which are this year presented for their determination. Under a popular government like ours it is of the first importance that every man who votes should have some reason for his vote; that every man who attaches himself to this or that political party should intelligently understand both the creed and the purposes of the party to which he belongs. I think it is universally conceded by Democrats as well as by Republicans that the questions involved in this campaign do have a very direct bearing upon the national prosperity, and upon the prosperity and welfare of the individual citizen. I think it is conceded that the result of this election will affect beneficently or injuriously our great manufacturing interests, and will affect for weal or for woe the workingmen and working-women who fill these busy hives of industry. [Applause.] This much is conceded. I do not intend to-day to argue the question in any detail. I want to call your attention to a few general facts and principles, and the first one—the one I never tire of mentioning; the one I deem so important that I do not shun the charge that I am repeating myself—is this: that the condition of the wage-workers of America is better than that of the wage-workers of any other country in the world. [Applause.] Now, if that be true, it is important that you should each find out why it is so; that each one of you should determine for himself what effect a protective tariff has had and is likely to have upon his wages and his prosperity. Does it need to be demonstrated that if we reduce our tariff to a revenue level, if we abolish from it every consideration of protection, more goods will come in from abroad than come in now? And what is the necessary effect? It is the transfer to foreign shops of work that you need here; it is to diminish American production and increase English production.

That is to be the effect of it. It is, not worth while to stand upon nice definitions as to free trade. Some think it enough to say that they are not free-traders because they are not in favor of abolishing all customs duties. Let me remind such that the free-trade countries of Europe, recognized to be such, have not abolished all customs duties. A better distinction is this: The free-trader believes in levying customs duties without any regard to the effect of those duties upon the wages of our working people, or upon the production of our own shops. This, then, is the issue. Take it to your homes. There are many confusing and contradictory statements made in the public press and by public speakers. Ask any of those who assail our protective system whether they do not believe that if their policy is adopted a larger amount of foreign-made goods will come into this country. It is their purpose to increase importation in order to cheapen prices. I think I may safely ask you to consider the question whether this cheapening of prices, which they seem to regard as the highest attainment of statesmanship, is consistent with the rate of wages that our working people enjoy now, whether it will not involve—if we are to have foreign competition without favoring duties—a reduction of American wages to the standard of the wages paid abroad. [Applause.] Do you believe for one moment that two factories making the same product can be maintained in competition when one pays thirty-three per cent. more to its workingmen than the other? Is it not certain that wages must be equalized in those competing establishments or the one paying the higher wages must shut down? [Applause and cries, "That's the thing!"] Here in this city of Fort Wayne, so important and so prosperous, we have a fine illustration of the accruing advantages of a large factory and shop population. It has made your city prosperous as well as populous, and it has made these outlying Allen County farms vastly more valuable than they otherwise would have been. These interests harmonize. But I only want to ask you to think upon these questions; settle them in your own minds, for it is agreed by all that, as they shall be settled one way or the other, your interests and those of your families and of this community, and of every other like community in this country, are to be affected, favorably or unfavorably. May I not appeal to you to review these questions, to throw off the shackles of preconceived notions and of party prejudices, and consider them anew in the light of all the information that is accessible to you? If you shall do that I do not doubt that the working people of this country will this November forever settle the question that American customs duties shall by intention, by forethought, have regard to the wages of our working people. [Applause.]

And now, if you will pardon further speech, I shall be glad to avail myself of the arrangements which the committee have provided to greet personally any of you who may desire to greet me. [Prolonged applause and cheers.]

HUNTINGTON, IND., SEPTEMBER 4.

The next stop was at Huntington, where two thousand people were congregated.

In response to repeated calls General Harrison said:

My Friends—Our stop here is altogether too brief for me to attempt to speak; yet I cannot refrain from expressing to you, my friends of Huntington County, my sincere and grateful appreciation for the evidence of your kindness in welcoming me so cordially to my home after a brief absence. I have not travelled very far this time, but I have seen nothing either on this visit, or any more extended visit that I have heretofore made, to win away my interests and affection from the great State of Indiana. [Great applause.] It is great in the capabilities, both of its soil and its citizenship [applause]; great in its achievements during the war. When our country was imperilled no State more nobly or magnificently responded to the demands which were made by the general Government for men to fight and to die for the flag. [Applause.] I am glad to greet in this audience to-day my comrades of the war, and all who have gathered here. I beg to thank you again for your kindness.

PERU, IND., SEPTEMBER 4.

At Peru a committee, headed by Hon. A. C. Bearss and Giles W. Smith, waited upon General Harrison, who addressed an audience of over two thousand as follows:

My Friends—I am very much obliged to you for that kindness of feeling which your gathering here to-day evinces. I have had a brief visit for rest, and I am come back to my home with very kind feelings toward my friends in Indiana, who have, not only during this important campaign, but always, when I have appealed to them, treated me with the utmost consideration. I have not time to-day to discuss the issues of this campaign. They are extremely important, and they will have a direct bearing upon the prosperity of our country. I can only ask you to think of them, and not to mistake the issue. It is very plain. It is the question of whether our tariff laws shall be a protection to American workingmen and a protection to American manufacturing establishments. Those who advocate tariff for revenue only do not take any thought of our wage-workers, but let their interests take care of themselves. On the other hand the Republican party believes that high regard should be paid to the question what the effect will be upon wages and upon the protection of our American shops. Those who believe the doctrine agree with us; and those who assail it, and say it is unconstitutional, as has recently been said by a distinguished citizen, would destroy our protective system if they could. We must believe so, because we must impute to them sincerity in what they say. I believe this campaign will settle for many years to come the question of whether legislation shall be intelligently directed in favor of the doctrine that we will, so far as may be, see that our farmers may find home consumers for their home product, and that these populous manufacturing centres may give a larger value to the farms that lie about them. You have these questions to settle. They affect your interests as citizens. I am sure that everything that regards them, as well as everything that regards the candidate, may be safely left in the kind hands of these intelligent citizens of Indiana and of the United States. [Great cheering.]

KOKOMO, IND., SEPTEMBER 4.

The city of Kokomo welcomed the party in the evening with a brilliant illumination by natural gas. Three thousand people were present. General Harrison said:

My Friends—I very much appreciate this spontaneous evidence of your friendliness. That so many of you should have gathered here this evening to greet us on our return home after a brief absence from the State is very gratifying to me. Kokomo has been for many years a very prosperous place. It has been the happy home of a very intelligent and very thrifty people. You are now, however, realizing a development more rapid and much greater than the most sanguine among you could have anticipated three years ago. The large increase in the number and business of your manufacturing establishments, the coming here from other parts of the country of enterprising men with their capital to set up manufacturing plants, has excited your interest and has promoted your development. There is not a resident of Kokomo, there is not a resident of Howard County, who does not rejoice in this great prosperity. I am sure there is not a man or woman in this city who does not realize that this new condition of things gives to your boys, who are growing up, new avenues of useful thrift. It opens to those who might otherwise have pursued common labor access to skilled trades and higher compensation. There is not a merchant in Kokomo who does not appreciate the added trade which comes to his store. There is not a farmer in Howard County who has not realized the benefits of a home market for his crops [applause and cries of "Good!"], and especially for those perishable products of the farm which do not bear distant transportation. Now I submit to your consideration, in the light of these new facts, whether you have not a very deep interest in the protection of our domestic industries and the maintenance of the American standard of wages. There can be no mistaking the issue this year. In previous campaigns it has been observed by evasive platform declarations. It is now so clear that all men can understand it. I would leave this thought with you: Will the prosperity that is now realized by you, and that greater prosperity which you anticipate, be better advanced by the continuance of the protective policy or by its destruction?

TIPTON, IND., SEPTEMBER 4.

At Tipton Junction, where several hundred people had congregated, General Harrison said:

My Friends—There is no time this evening for me to say more than that I thank you very sincerely for this cordial evidence of your kindly feeling. I will not have time to discuss any public questions. You will consider them for yourselves, and can have ready access to all necessary information.

NOBLESVILLE, IND., SEPTEMBER 4.

At Noblesville the train was met by a special from Indianapolis, bearing the Columbia Club, a uniformed organization of three hundred prominent young men, who had come to escort General Harrison to his home.

To the assembled citizens of Noblesville the general said:

My Friends—You are very kind, and I am grateful for this manifestation of your kindness. I cannot speak to you at any length to-night. You are in the "gas belt" of Indiana. The result of the discovery of this new fuel has been the rapid development of your towns. You have shown your enterprise by hospitably opening the way for the coming of new industrial enterprises. You have felt it worth while not only to invite them, but to offer pecuniary inducements for them to come. If it has been worth while to do so much in the hope of developing your town and to add value to your farms by making a home market for your farm product, is it not also worth your while so to vote this fall as to save and enlarge these new industrial enterprises? [Applause.] Let me acknowledge a new debt of gratitude to my friends of Hamilton County, who have often before made me their debtor, and bid you good-night.

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 4.

The home-coming of General Harrison was a veritable ovation. Fifteen thousand people greeted and accompanied him to his residence, led by the Columbia Club, the Veterans' Regiment, and the Railroad Men's Club. Escorted by Gen. Foster, Daniel M. Ransdell, and W. N. Harding, General Harrison—standing in his own door—facing the great assembly, said:

My Friends—Two weeks ago to-day I left Indianapolis quietly for a brief season of rest. We met in Ohio very considerate and hospitable friends, who allowed nothing to be lacking to the enjoyment and comfort of our brief vacation. But, notwithstanding all the attractions of that island home in Lake Erie, we are to-night very happy to be again at home. The enthusiastic welcome you have extended to us has added grace and joy. I think I may conclude that nothing has happened since I have been gone that has disturbed your confidence or diminished your respect. [Great applause and cries of "No! no!"] At the outset of this campaign I said I would confidently commit all that was personal to myself to the keeping of the intelligent and fair-minded citizens of Indiana. [Applause.] We will go on our way in this campaign upon that high and dignified plane upon which it has been pitched, so far as it lay in our power, commending the principles of our party to the intelligent interest of our fellow-citizens, and trusting to truth and right for the victory. [Applause.] Most gratefully I acknowledge the affectionate interest which has been shown to-night by my old comrades of the war. [Applause.] I am glad to know that in this veteran organization there are many who have heretofore differed with me in political opinion, but who are drawn in this campaign, by a sense of our common interests, to cast in their influence with us. I desire also to thank the Railroad Club for their kind greetings. There has been a special significance in their friendly organization, and I am grateful, also, to the members of the Columbia Club for their part in this demonstration. Now, with an overwhelming sense of inability to respond fittingly to your cordiality and kindness, I can only thank you once more and bid you good-night. [Applause.]

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 6.

On the night of Sept. 6 General Harrison, in company with General A. P. Hovey, Ex-Gov. A. G. Porter, Hon. James N. Huston, Hon. R. B. F. Pierce, Judge Walker, and other friends, reviewed from the balcony of the New-Denison Hotel ten thousand marching Republicans.

It was one of the most brilliant and successful demonstrations of the campaign. The great line was composed of eighty-two Republican clubs and associations of the city of Indianapolis, commanded by Chief Marshal Hon. Geo. W. Spahr, assisted by the following mounted aids: Major Geo. Herriott, Moses G. McLain, Dan'l M. Ransdell, Thomas F. Ryan, W. H. H. Miller, John B. Elam, Dr. Austin Morris, Col. I. N. Walker, Wm. L. Taylor, W. A. Pattison, Capt. O. H. Hibben, Charles Murray, Ed. Thompson, Charles Wright, S. D. Pray, J. E. Haskell, Wm. Thomas, W. H. Tucker, Joseph Forbes, Ed. Harmon, Lou Wade, John W. Bowlus, M. L. Johnson, Miles Reynolds, W. E. Tousey, R. H. Rees, and W. D. Wiles.

The column was divided into four divisions, commanded by Col. N. R. Ruckle, Col. James B. Black, Horace McKay, and Hon. Stanton J. Peelle. A great mass-meeting followed the parade, and the issues of the campaign were presented by General Hovey, Gov. Porter and Hon. John M. Butler.

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 8.

General Harrison on this date received perhaps the most unique delegation of the campaign: a band of one hundred girls and misses, aged from seven to fifteen years, organized by Mrs. Mattie McCorkle. At their head rode Master Charles Pettijohn, six years old, mounted upon a pony, followed by a drum corps of eight young boys. The girls marched four abreast, dressed in uniforms of red, white and blue, carrying mounted Japanese lanterns. They were commanded by Miss Florence Schilling. After singing "Marching through Georgia," Master Pettijohn, on behalf of the young ladies, presented the general a handsome bouquet and made an address. General Harrison honored the young orator and the club with a speech, and said:

When some one asked this afternoon, over the telephone, if I would receive some children who wanted to pay me a visit, I gave a very cheerful consent, because I thought I saw a chance to have a good time. That you little ones would demand a speech from me never entered my mind, nor did I expect to see a company so prettily uniformed and so well drilled, both in marching and in song.

Children have always been attractive to me. I have found not only entertainment but instruction in their companionship. Little ones often say wise things. In the presence of such a company as this, one who has any aspirations for the things that are good and pure cannot fail to have them strengthened. The kind words you have addressed to me in song come, I am sure, from sincere and loving hearts, and I am very grateful for them and for your visit. Some of the best friends I have are under ten years of age, and after to-night I am sure I shall have many more, for all your names will be added.

And now I hope you will all come in where we can see you and show you whatever there is in our home to interest you. I would like you all to feel that we will be glad if you will come to see us often.

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 10.

General Harrison's visitors to-day comprised six hundred G. A. R. veterans and their wives from Northwestern Kansas—en route to the Grand Encampment—under the lead of General W. H. Caldwell, Frank McGrath, C. E. Monell, W. S. Search, Dr. A. Patten, J. W. Garner, and Dr. J. R. King, of Beloit, Kan. Colonel W. C. Whitney, Commander of the First Division, was orator, and assured General Harrison that "Kansas grew more corn and more babies than any other State in the Union." In response the General said:

My Comrades—I have a choice to make and you have one. I can occupy the few moments I have to spare either in public address or in private, personal greeting. I think you would prefer, as I shall prefer, to omit the public speech that I may be presented to each of you. [Cries of "Good! Good!"] I beg you, therefore, to permit me only to say that I very heartily appreciate this greeting from my comrades of Kansas.

The bond that binds us together as soldiers of the late war is one that is enduring and close. No party considerations can break it; it is stronger than political ties, and we are able thus in our Grand Army associations to come together upon that broad and high plane of fraternity, loyalty, and charity. [Applause and cries of "Good! Good!"] Let me now, if it be your pleasure, extend a comrade's hand to each of you. [Applause.]

GENERAL HARRISON'S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.

Indianapolis, Ind., September 11, 1888.

Hon. M. M. Estee and others, Committee, etc.:

Gentlemen—When your committee visited me, on the Fourth of July last, and presented the official announcement of my nomination for the presidency of the United States by the Republican convention, I promised as soon as practicable to communicate to you a more formal acceptance of the nomination. Since that time the work of receiving and addressing, almost daily, large delegations of my fellow-citizens has not only occupied all of my time, but has in some measure rendered it unnecessary for me to use this letter as a medium of communicating to the public my views upon the questions involved in the campaign. I appreciate very highly the confidence and respect manifested by the convention, and accept the nomination with a feeling of gratitude and a full sense of the responsibilities which accompany it.

It is a matter of congratulation that the declarations of the Chicago convention upon the questions that now attract the interest of our people are so clear and emphatic. There is further cause of congratulation in the fact that the convention utterances of the Democratic party, if in any degree uncertain or contradictory, can now be judged and interpreted by executive acts and messages, and by definite propositions in legislation. This is especially true of what is popularly known as the Tariff question. The issue cannot now be obscured. It is not a contest between schedules, but between wide-apart principles. The foreign competitors for our market have, with quick instinct, seen how one issue of this contest may bring them advantage, and our own people are not so dull as to miss or neglect the grave interests that are involved for them. The assault upon our protective system is open and defiant. Protection is assailed as unconstitutional in law, or as vicious in principle, and those who hold such views sincerely cannot stop short of an absolute elimination from our tariff laws of the principle of protection. The Mills bill is only a step, but it is toward an object that the leaders of Democratic thought and legislation have clearly in mind. The important question is not so much the length of the step as the direction of it. Judged by the executive message of December last, by the Mills bill, by the debates in Congress, and by the St. Louis platform, the Democratic party will, if supported by the country, place the tariff laws upon a purely revenue basis. This is practical free trade—free trade in the English sense. The legend upon the banner may not be "Free Trade"—it may be the more obscure motto, "Tariff Reform;" but neither the banner nor the inscription is conclusive, or, indeed, very important. The assault itself is the important fact.

Those who teach that the import duty upon foreign goods sold in our market is paid by the consumer, and that the price of the domestic competing article is enhanced to the amount of the duty on the imported article—that every million of dollars collected for customs duties represents many millions more which do not reach the treasury, but are paid by our citizens as the increased cost of domestic productions resulting from the tariff laws—may not intend to discredit in the minds of others our system of levying duties on competing foreign products, but it is clearly already discredited in their own. We cannot doubt, without impugning their integrity, that if free to act upon their convictions they would so revise our laws as to lay the burden of the customs revenue upon articles that are not produced in this country, and to place upon the free list all competing foreign products. I do not stop to refute this theory as to the effect of our tariff duties. Those who advance it are students of maxims and not of the markets. They may be safely allowed to call their project "Tariff Reform," if the people understand that in the end the argument compels free trade in all competing products. This end may not be reached abruptly, and its approach may be accompanied with some expressions of sympathy for our protected industries and our working people, but it will certainly come if these early steps do not arouse the people to effective resistance.

The Republican party holds that a protective tariff is constitutional, wholesome, and necessary. We do not offer a fixed schedule, but a principle. We will revise the schedule, modify rates, but always with an intelligent provision as to the effect upon domestic productions and the wages of our working people. We believe it to be one of the worthy objects of tariff legislation to preserve the American market for American producers, and to maintain the American scale of wages by adequate discriminative duties upon foreign competing products. The effect of lower rates and larger importations upon the public revenue is contingent and doubtful, but not so the effect upon American production and American wages. Less work and lower wages must be accepted as the inevitable result of the increased offering of foreign goods in our market. By way of recompense for this reduction in his wages, and the loss of the American market, it is suggested that the diminished wages of the workingman will have an undiminished purchasing power, and that he will be able to make up for the loss of the home market by an enlarged foreign market. Our workingmen have the settlement of the question in their own hands. They now obtain higher wages and live more comfortably than those of any other country. They will make choice of the substantial advantages they have in hand and the deceptive promises and forecasts of these theorizing reformers. They will decide for themselves and for their country whether the protective system shall be continued or destroyed.

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:

Governor Rusk, Comrades of the Grand Army, and Ladies—I did not suppose that the Constitution of our country would be subjected to so serious a fracture by the executive of one of our great States. [Laughter.] Four years is the constitutional term of the President. [Laughter.] I am glad to see you; I return your friendly greetings most heartily. Your association is a most worthy one. As I said to some comrades who visited me this morning, it has the best reason for its existence of any human organization that I know of. [Applause.] I am glad to know that your recent encampment at Columbus was so largely attended, and was in all its circumstances so magnificent a success. The National Encampment of the G. A. R. is an honor to any city. The proudest may well array itself in its best attire to welcome the Union veterans of the late war. In these magnificent gatherings, so impressive in numbers and so much more impressive in the associations they revive, there is a great teaching force. If it is worth while to build monuments to heroism and patriotic sacrifice that may stand as dumb yet eloquent instructors of the generation that is to come, so it is worth while that these survivors of the war assemble in their national encampments and march once more, unarmed, through the streets of our cities, whose peace and prosperity they have secured. [Applause.]

Every man and every woman should do them honor. We have a body of citizen soldiers instructed in tactics and strategy and accustomed to the points of war that make this Nation very strong and formidable. I well remember that even in the second year of the war instructors in tactics were rare in our own camps. They are very numerous now. [Laughter.] Yet, while this Nation was never so strong in a great instructed, trained body of veteran soldiers, I think it was never more strongly smitten with the love of peace. The man that would rather fight than eat has not survived the last war. [Laughter.] He was laid away in an early grave or enrolled on the list of deserters. But he would be mistaken who supposes that all the hardships of the war—its cruel, hard memories—would begin to frighten those veterans from the front if the flag was again assailed or the national security or dignity imperilled. [Applause and cries of "You are right!"] The war was also an educator in political economy.

These veterans, who saw how the poverty of the South in the development of her manufacturing interests paralyzed the skill of her soldiers and the generalship of her captains, have learned to esteem and value our diversified manufacturing interests. [Applause.] You know that woollen mills and flocks would have been more valuable to the Confederacy than battalions; that foundries and arsenals and skilled mechanical labor was the great lack of the Confederacy. You have learned that lesson so well that you will not wish our rescued country, by any fatal free-trade policy, to be brought to a like condition. [Applause and cries of "Good! good!"] And now, gentlemen, I had a stipulation that I was not to speak at all. [Laughter.] You will surely allow me now to stop this formal address, and to welcome my comrades to our home. [Applause.]

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 15.

General Harrison held three receptions this date. The first was tendered the Scott Rifles of Kansas City, all members of the G. A. R., en route home from the Columbus encampment. They wore the regulation blue uniform and carried muskets. Captain Brant introduced his company, stating that in bringing their arms with them "they did not intend to do General Harrison any violence." The General responded:

Captain and Comrades—I did not need to be assured that comrades of the Grand Army, whether bearing arms or not, brought me no peril. No loyal and orderly citizen will mistrust their friendliness. The people of Indiana will not ask that you procure any permit or give bond to keep the peace before passing through this loyal State with arms in your hands.

I am especially complimented by the visit of this organized company of the Missouri militia, composed wholly of Union veterans. It gives evidence that those who served in the Civil War are still watchful of the honor and safety of our country and its flag; that our Government may rest with security upon the defence which our citizen-soldiers offer.

And now, without alluding at all to any topic of partisan interest, I bid you welcome, and will be pleased to have a personal introduction to each of you, if that is your pleasure.

The second reception was extended to a delegation of twelve hundred workingmen from New Albany, Floyd County, organized into political clubs, among whose leaders were Walter B. Godfrey, M. Y. Mallory, Geo. B. Cardwell, M. M. Hurley, W. A. Maynor, Andrew Fite, Chas. R. Clarke, J. W. Edmonson, L. L. Pierce, Horace Brown, N. D. Morris, T. W. Armstrong, D. C. Anthony, John Hahn, R. E. Burke, Albert Hopkins, F. D. Connor, Frank Norton, M. McDonald, M. H. Sparks, W. H. Russell, J. N. Peyton, Daniel Prosser, Geo. Roberts, and G. H. Pennington. A band of G. A. R. veterans from far-off Texas happened to be present at the reception, among them Col. J. C. De Gress, Wm. Long, John Herman, S. C. Slade, W. H. Nye, W. H. Tuttle, Geo. A. Knight, and Dr. S. McKay. James A. Atkinson, a glassblower of the De Pauw works at New Albany, delivered an able address on behalf of the visitors. General Harrison responded as follows:

My Fellow-citizens—There is something very distinctive, very interesting, and very instructive in this large delegation of workingmen from the city of New Albany. Your fellow-workman and spokesman has so eloquently presented that particular issue upon which you have the greatest interest that I can add nothing to the force or conclusiveness of his argument. He has said that the interests of the workingmen were especially involved in the pending political contest. I think that is conceded even by our political opponents. I do not think there is a man so dull or so unfair as to deny that the reduction of our tariff rates so as to destroy the principle of protection now embodied in our laws will have an influence on your wages and on the production of your mills and factories. If this be true, then your interest in the question is apparent. You will want to know whether the influence of the proposed reduction of rates is to be beneficial or hurtful; whether the effect will be to stimulate or diminish production; whether it will be to maintain or increase the rate of wages you are now receiving, or to reduce them. As you shall settle these questions, so will you vote in November. [Applause.]

No man can doubt that a reduction of duties will stimulate the importation of foreign merchandise. None of these plate-glass workers can doubt that a reduction of the duty upon plate-glass will increase the importation of French plate-glass.

None of these workers in your woollen mills can doubt that the reduction of the duty upon the product of their mills will increase the importation of foreign woollen goods.

And, if that is true, is it not also clear that this increased importation of foreign-made goods means some idle workingmen in your mills? The party that favors such discriminating duties as will develop American production and secure the largest amount of work for our American shops is the party whose policy will promote your interests. [Applause and cries of "Hit him again!"] I have heard it said by some leaders of Democratic thought that the reduction proposed by the Mills bill, and the further reduction which some of them are candid enough to admit they contemplate, will stimulate American production by opening foreign markets and that the interests of our Indiana manufacturing establishments would thus be promoted. But those who advance this argument also say that it will not do to progress too rapidly in the direction of free trade—that we must go slowly, because our protected industries cannot stand too rapid an advance; it would not be safe. [Laughter.] Now, my countrymen, if this plan of revenue reform is to be promotive of our manufacturing interests, why go slowly? Why not open the gates wide and let us have the promised good all at once? [Laughter and applause.]

Is it that these philosophers think the cup of prosperity will be so sweet and full that our laboring people cannot be allowed to drink it at one draught? [Applause and cries of "Good! good!"] No, my countrymen, this statement implies what these gentlemen know to be true—that the effect of the proposed legislation is diminished production and diminished wages, and they desire that you shall have an opportunity to get used to it. [Applause.] But I cannot press this discussion further. I want to thank you for the cordial things you have said to me by him who has spoken for you. I trust, and have always trusted, the intelligence and conscience of our working people. [Applause.]

They will inevitably find out the truth, and when they find it they will justify it. Therefore, there are many things that have been said to which I have not and shall not allude while this contest is on. They are with you: the truth is accessible to you, and you will find it. Now, thanking you most heartily for the personal respect you have evidenced, and congratulating you upon your intelligent devotion to that great American system which has spread a sky of hope above you and your children, I bid you good-by. [Cheers.]

The crowning event of the day was the reception of several hundred members of the Irish-American Republican Club of Cook County and Chicago. The visitors were met by the Home Irish-American Protection Club, Patrick A. Ward, President, assisted by the Columbia Club and several thousand citizens. Their demonstration was one of the most notable of the campaign. This club was the first political organization in the country to congratulate General Harrison on his nomination. The evening of June 25 the club met and adopted the following, which was telegraphed the General:

The Irish-American Republican Club of Cook County, Illinois, congratulate you and the country upon your nomination. We greet the gallant soldier and true American, and rejoice with our fellow-citizens of every nationality in the glad assurance your nomination gives that the industries of our country will be protected and the honor of the Nation maintained with the same courage and devotion that distinguished you on the bloody field of Resaca. We salute the next President of the Republic.

Nathan P. Brady, President.

Leaders of the delegation were Hon. John F. Finerty, F. J. Gleason, Dennis Ward, Richard Powers, and Messrs. Russell and O'Morey. Thomas F. Byron, of Lowell, Mass., founder of the Land League in America, accompanied the club. In the absence of President Brady their spokesman was Mr. John F. Beggs. General Harrison delivered one of his happiest responses. He said:

Mr. Beggs and my Friends of the Irish-American Republican Club of Cook County, Ill.—You were Irishmen, you are Americans [cheers]—Irish-Americans [continued cheering], and though you have given the consecrated loyalty of your honest hearts to the starry flag and your adopted country, you have not and you ought not to forget to love and venerate the land of your nativity. [Great applause.] If you could forget Ireland, if you could be unmoved by her minstrelsy, untouched by the appeals of her splendid oratory, unsympathetic with her heroes and martyrs, I should fear that the bonds of your new citizenship would have no power over hearts so cold and consciences so dead. [Cheers.]

What if a sprig of green were found upon the bloody jacket of a Union soldier who lay dead on Missionary Ridge? The flag he died for was his flag and the green was only a memory and an inspiration.

We, native or Irish born, join with the Republican convention in the hope that the cause of Irish home rule, progressing under the leadership of Gladstone and Parnell [cheers] upon peaceful and lawful lines, may yet secure for Ireland that which as Americans we so much value—local home rule. [Cheering.] I am sure that you who have, in your own persons or in your worthy representatives, given such convincing evidence of your devotion to the American Constitution and flag and to American institutions will not falter in this great civil contest which your spokesman has so fittingly described. Who, if not Irish-Americans versed in the sad story of the commercial ruin of the island they love, should be instructed in the beneficent influence of a protective tariff? [Continuous cheering.] Who, if not Irish-Americans should be able to appreciate the friendly influences of the protective system upon their individual and upon their home life? Which of you has not realized that not the lot of man only, but the lot of woman, has been made softer and easier under its influence? [Applause and "Hear! hear!"] Contrast the American mother and wife, burdened only with the cares of motherhood and of the household, with the condition of women in many of the countries of the Old World, where she is loaded also with the drudgery of toil in the field. [Applause.]

I know that none more than Irishmen, who are so characterized by their deference for women, and whose women have so fitly illustrated that which is pure in female character, will value this illustration of the good effects of our American system upon the home life. [Continued applause.]

There are nations across the sea who are hungry for the American market. They are waiting with eager expectation for the adoption of a free-trade policy by the United States. [Cries of "That will never happen!"] The English manufacturer is persuaded that an increased market for English goods in America is good for him, but I think it will be impossible to persuade the American producer and the American workman that it is good for them. [Applause and cries of "That's right!"] I believe that social order, that national prosperity, are bound up in the preservation of our existing policy. [Loud cheering and cries of "You are right!"] I do not believe that a republic can live and prosper whose wage-earners do not receive enough to make life comfortable, who do not have some upward avenues of hope open before them. When the wage-earners of the land lose hope, when the star goes out, social order is impossible, and after that anarchy or the Czar. [Cheering.]

I gratefully acknowledge the compliment of your call, and exceedingly regret that the storm without made it impossible for me to receive you at my house. [Applause and cries of "Thanks! thanks!"] I will now be glad to take each member of your club by the hand. [Continued cheering.]

INDIANAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER 18.

General Harrison's callers to-day numbered about five thousand, over half of whom came from Vermilion County, Illinois, led by a company of young ladies, in uniform, from the town of Sidell. Hon. Samuel Stansbury of Danville was Marshal of the delegation, aided by E. C. Boudinot, D. G. Moore, Chas. A. Allen, J. G. Thompson, and W. C. Cowan. Col. W. R. Jewell, editor Danville Daily News, was spokesman. General Harrison, in response, said:

My Illinois Friends—The people of your State were very early in giving evidence to our people and to me that they are deeply and generally interested in this campaign. I welcome you and accept your coming as evidence that the early interest you manifested has suffered no abatement. It was not an impulse that stirred you, but a deep conviction that matters of great and lasting consequence to your country are involved in this campaign. Your representative in Congress, Hon. Joseph Cannon, is well known in Indiana. [Applause.] I have known him for many years; have observed his conduct in the National Congress, and always with admiration. He is a fearless, aggressive, honest Republican leader. [Applause and cries of "Good! good!"] He is worthy of the favor and confidence you have shown him.

If some one were to ask to-day, "What is the matter with the United States?" [laughter and cries of "She's all right!"] I am sure we would hear some Democratic friend respond, "Its people are oppressed and impoverished by tariff taxation." [Laughter.] Ordinarily our people can be trusted to know when they are taxed; but this Democratic friend will tell us that the tariff tax is so insidious that our people pay it without knowing it. That is a very unhappy condition, indeed. But his difficulties are not all surmounted when he has convinced his hearers that a customs duty is a tax, for history does not run well with his statement that our people have been impoverished by our tariff system. Another answer to your question will be perhaps that there is now a great surplus in the Treasury—he will probably not state the figures, for there seems to be a painful uncertainty about that. I have sometimes thought that this surplus was held chiefly to be talked about. The laws provide a use for it that would speedily place it in circulation. If a business man finds an accumulated surplus that he does not need in his business, that stands as a bank balance and draws no interest, and if he has notes outside to mature in the future he will make a ready choice between leaving his balance in the bank and using it to take up his obligations. [Applause.] But in our national finances the other choice has been made, and this surplus remains in the national bank without interest, while our bonds, which, under the law, might be retired by the use of it, continue to draw interest.

You have a great agricultural State. Its prairies offer the most tempting invitation to the settler. I have heard it suggested that one reason why you have outstripped Indiana in population was because the men who were afraid of the "deadening" passed over us to seek your treeless plains. [Applause.] But you have not been contented to be only an agricultural community. You have developed your manufactures and mechanical industries until now, if my recollection is not at fault, for every two persons engaged in agricultural labor you have one engaged in manufacturing, in the mechanical arts and mining. It is this subdivision of labor, these diversified industries, that make Illinois take rank so near the head among the States. By this home interchange of the products of the farm and shop, made possible by our protective system, Illinois has been able to attain her proud position in the union of the States. Shall we continue a policy that has wrought so marvellously since the war in the development of all those States that have given hospitable access to manufacturing capital and to the brawn and skill of the workingman? [Cries of "Good! good!" and cheers.]

From Louisville, Ky., came 1,000 enthusiastic visitors, led by the Hon. Wm. E. Riley, Hon. R. R. Glover, Hon. Albert Scott, W. W. Huffman, W. M. Collins, M. E. Malone, and J. J. Jonson. A. E. Willson, of Louisville, delivered a stirring address on behalf of the Republicans of Kentucky, to which General Harrison responded as follows:

My Kentucky Friends—There have been larger delegations assembled about this platform, but there has been none that has in a higher degree attracted my interest or touched my heart. [Applause.] It has been quite one thing to be a Republican in Illinois and quite another to be a Republican in Kentucky. [Applause.] Not the victors only in a good fight deserve a crown; those who fight well and are beaten and fight again, as you have done, deserve a crown, though victory never yet has perched on your banner. [A voice, "It will perch there, though, don't you forget it!"] Yes, it will come, for the bud of victory is always in the truth. I will not treat you to-day to any statistics from the census reports [laughter], nor enter the attractive field of the history of your great State. I have believed that these visiting delegations were always well advised as to the history and statistics of their respective States. [Laughter.] If this trust has been misplaced in other cases, certainly Kentuckians can be trusted to remember and perhaps to tell all that is noble in the thrilling history of their great State. [Great applause.] Your history is very full of romantic and thrilling adventure and of instances of individual heroism. Your people have always been proud, chivalric, and brave. In the late war for the Union, spite of all distraction and defection, Kentucky stood by the old flag. [Applause.] And now that the war is over and its bitter memory is forgotten, there is not one, I hope, in all your borders, who does not bless the outcome of that great struggle. [Applause.] Surely there are none in Kentucky who do not rejoice that the beautiful river is not a river of division. [Great applause.] And now what hinders that Kentucky shall step forward in the great industrial rivalry between the States? Is there not, as your spokesman has suggested, in the early and thorough instruction which the people of Kentucky received from the mouth of your matchless orator, Henry Clay [applause], a power that shall yet and speedily bring back Kentucky to the support of our protective system? [Applause.] Can the old Whigs, who so reverently received from the lips of Clay the gospel of protection, much longer support a revenue policy that they know to be inimical to our national interests? If when Kentucky was a slave State she found a protective tariff promoted the prosperity of her people, what greater things will the same policy not do for her as a free State? She has now opened her hospitable doors to skilled labor; her coal and metals and hemp invite its transforming touch. Why should she not speedily find great manufacturing cities spring up in her beautiful valleys? Shall any old prejudice spoil this hopeful vision? [Great applause.] I remember that Kentucky agitated for seven years and held nine conventions before she secured a separate statehood. May I not appeal to the children of those brave settlers who, when but few in number, composed of distant and feeble settlements, were received into the Union of States, to show their chivalry and love of justice by uniting with us in the demand that Dakota and Washington shall be admitted? [Applause.] Does not your own story shame those who represent you in the halls of Congress and who bar the door against communities whose numbers and resources so vastly outreach what you possessed when you were admitted to statehood? We look hopefully to Kentucky. The State of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln [enthusiastic cheering] cannot be much longer forgetful [cries of "No! no!"] of the teachings of those great leaders of thought.