The weekly Oskaloosa herald. [volume] (Oskaloosa, Iowa) 1855-1885, 1872-07-25
SPEECH OF SENATOR CONkLiNC AT
COOPER INSTITUTE,

.... Nb" Ohh, cuiJ Ao'
Senator Conkling, this evening,
addressed a large and enthusiastic
Republican meeting at Cooper In
stitute, on "Grant and his detamers."
The hall was handsomely decorated.
Jackson S. Schultz presided. Mr..
Conkliug said that no canvass had
ever stirred him SO deeply, no cleo
ton had ever appealed so strongly
to his sense of fair play. No can
vass within his memory had been so
full of foul injustice and malice /;
none ever more strongly tested the
common sense and generosity of the
American people. Eleven years in
Congress made him a close observer
of public men. Among them all one
never knowingly failed in his duty,
Ulysses S. Grant. If there has been
one who did firmly, wisely, and well,
things given him in charge, that one
was the soldier in war and the quiet
patriot in peace, who has been
named again by every township in
forty-six States and Territories for
the great trust he now holds. Yet
this man honest, brave, modest and
proved by his tranacendant deeds,
to have been endowed with genius,
common sense and moral qualities
adequent to the greatest affairs; this
man who saved his country, who
snatched our nationality and our
cause from despair and bore them
on his shield through flame and bat
tie, in which but for him they would
have persisted this man under
whose administration our country
has fiourished as no one dared pre-
dict; this man to whom the nations
gratitude and benediction are due,
is made mark for ribald jibes, obi.
Gus and groundless ISLANDERS. Why
is all this ? Simply because he
stands in the way of the greed of
politicians and schemers. The Pres
ident cannot enter into the contro-
versy to defend himself, the peculi-
arities of his position forbidding it,,
while his chief competitor is man.
aging behind the curtain a news
paper, from which he pretends to
have retired, is free to defend and
puff himself up and fills his paper
with scurrilous talsehoods in hope
of blackening the name which is one
of the treasures of the nation, and
which will be the pride of posterlty.
All this pollution will disgrace only
its author; it will not disgrace Grant
or the nation because the nation
will spurn and resent it. The
disgusting personalities employed on
Gen. Jackson secured his election.
An offended people struck back and
they will strike again Had the cool
veterans of Democracy formed or Sc
lected the issues to be presented,
they would have been wise enough
to have SO framed them that the peo-
pie could decide in their favor with
out fixing stigma upon General
Grant, without blasting his name or
doing him wrong but democratic
statesmen and leaders in hundred
fights have been mere lockers On.
The leadership has been assumed
by Republican renegades and outs
men 30 eaten up with envy or SO
maddened with the loss or refusal of
place and patronage that nothing
would satisfy them short of raven
Gus and revengeful personal raid.
When man turns Turk he splits on
the cross, and when wide-throated
ultra Republicans clandestinely trade
with the enemy and then turn trait
Ors to their party, they become the
meanest and fiercest, OF opponents,
just as a Yankee slave overseer from
New England was always more bru-
tai than those born in the south. The
question is not merely whether Grant
shall be President, but whether the
President shall be pronounced by
the nation fool, knave, imposter,
and an enemy to his country. Had
the issue been taken on public meas
ures and public questions have been
raised as to whether the new ques-
tions or those which have divided
the parties heretofore, the popular
verdict would have been the verdict
only between parties. The policies
and principles of such verdict would
have rested on public grounds and
personally disparaging TO no one,
and in that case Gen. Grant could
not complain. The Senator said the
Cincinnati platform was alibel upon
Grant; the Cincinnati Convention
was composed of a group of disre-
putables from the political gutter.
Upon what issue were the people to
pass 1t could not be the civil serv-
ice reform, for the President had in
augurated that; the Democrats had
no reason to vote for Greeley unless
Grant was unworthy of confidence or
respect.
The remainder of Senator Conk-
Inns speech was devoted to a review
of the San Domingo project, the
charges of nepotism, and an expo
sition Of the motives of Trumbull,
Schurz, and Sumner, iu deserving