The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-07-29
&C., Kirkpatrick i'm Portland,

| Saturday. by invitation of the Greeley Club,
| with that carefully written speech in his pocket
which is his sole stock in trade in this cam
| paign, and which he has already retailed down
ON the Kennebec, winning the smiles and ap-
| plause of the worshippers of Horace in that sec
ton, and affording satisfaction to the Republic
| cans. It's sharp speech and must have cost
Judson goodimany seepless nights and much
| practice before q mirror. The General is
why little man of 125 pounds weight with
| grey eye and brown mustache and voice as
high and piercing as a fife.
Before the exercises began at the hall, the
| Portland Band took position ia Market
| Square, where they called the crowd together TO
| see the solemn ceremonies OF throwing out
| Greeley and Brown flag, The duty done,
| three cheers were given; We understand that
| that was the exact number-ve like to be &C
| curate in tigures-and the Band fed out down
| town to pick up recruits-like the peid piper of
| Hameliu. who drew after him all the children
| of that city, as a revenge on the inhabitants
| A platoon of Democrats with the General in
the centre, we believe, led the procession, and
marshaed them into City Hall.
The galleries held good many ladies' while
the mon and boys who were to witness the hid
eousness of Gen. Grant, as drawn by the i'm
| partial, honest and patriotic pencil of General
Judson Fitzpatrick, formerly U. S. Minister to
Chill, almost filled the lower floor.
H. F. Kurdish, President of the Greeley Club
presided He begged and insisted that the
people ,who had gathered around the door
would come in and take the empty seats in the
northwest corner of the hall, where two or
three hundred could find room, but they
wouldn't do it; and Mr.. f. went on to explain
that the formation of the Liberal Republican
party was necessity. He said that the MEM
bers didn't propose to parade the streets clad in
the garb of our forefathers, and they did not
need torches to help them find the way to vic
tory. His hearers thought that was good
point on the Republicans, and cheered him.
Then Gen. Fitzpatrick was introduced. He
laid his manuscript softly on the desk and for
about fifteen minutes INDUCED in general ret
respect of the politics of the country, beginning
with the adoption of the Constitution, and con-
cluded that there are now no issues OF impor-
lance upon which all honest men are not acting
as one. The Republican doctrine he said, teach
es that allegiance to Grant has precedence OF
loyalty to country, and Democrats are alien
enemies. The Liberal Republicans have as
sembled as men of all classes, devoted to
breaking down all past political distinctions
and in disregard of the crack of party whip.
In 1868 he worked and voted for Grant; he now
proposed to work equally hard for his defeat.
In 1868 he spoke of Grants matches skill and
indomitable energy as soldier. He should
now detract nothing from these merits. He
proposed to speak of the President solely as
politician. When we tell you that this nation
has been plundered by this administration as
never nation was before, we are met with the
cry, He fought in the Wilderness; and when
the people clamor for Civil Service Reform or
protest against the use of bayonets to secure an
election, we hear similar responses The story
of the wrongs perpetrated upon defenceless
people are drowned by plaudits of Grant. The
speaker referred to the closing scene at the
Philadelphia Convention, when the equestrian
portrait of Grant was unrolled at the back of
the stage as the quick fufillment of a prophecy
he had made but few days before: the imam
on horseback had come, the Caesar, booted and
spurred, sashed and sworded for trampling on
the liberties of the people" Since George
Washington, said he, no President had been
charged with want of personal integrity. 1t
was left for Grant; and this truth is growing in
the minds of the people and is being repeated
in the press and openly declared on the floor of
Congress. The Liberal Republicans heed not
the charges of enemies, but when Schurz and
Trumbull and Sumner rise in theiri official
places and charge Grant with conduct which If
true would hurl him from position, we have
right to demand investigation; but the friel DIS
of the administration stifled Summers resou-
ton for an investigation.
The Speaker next charged Gen. Grant with
bestowing places of trusts for pecuniary con-
siderations, and made the accusation that Stew
art, Borie, Dan. Butterfeld and Tom Murphy
got their places by subscriptions to funds for
Gen. Grants personal benefit. The usual and
familiar charges of nepotism took up consider
able time and after a eoarSo fling at tho NOM
nation of Henry Wilson as a necessary meas
ure to get KNOWN Nothing on the head and
tail of the Presidential ticket, Gen. Fitzpatrick
went on to deny Fictitious claim that Gen.
Grant had liberated 200, 600 of slaves and es-
tablished universal suffrage. Lincoln did the
first as a military necessity, and the other has
no existence. The next was the thrice-explod
ed charge that four-tifths of the internal revs-
nue. is expended in its collection; then he denied
that Gen. Grant had paid 100000 of the
| national debt;the people have done it. Besides,
| if the claim was correct one it was not very
creditable for Grant had received 81 100000 10000
the past three years, and ought to have done
more. Grants pacific Indian policy is illustrat-
ed by daily murders on the border. He had
never punished political offenders, therefore
Republicans ought not to complain of Horace
Greeley for hailng JEFF. Davis. The General
then took up three planks in the Republican
platform. If Gen Grant is in favor of civil
service reform let him prove it by turning out
of office his thousand incompetent officials
The revenue plank means everything or moth
ing; it was fixed to suit everybody; now you
see it and now you don't. The soldier plank is
illustrated by Grants cruel neglect of Farragut,
the appointment of Secretary Robson; the dis
missal of one-arnaed and one-legged soldiers by
the score he defrauded Sherman out of $25,OOO
by selling to committee a house which he had
previously sold to Bowen, and "made it all
right with the latter by giving him the con-
troll of the political patronage in the District;
by his raising Rawlins, comrade and soldier
of no ability, to place in the Cabinet, and re-
| IdSlUG, Wu6u SuluLuOucu W uCaeH7pCu Va hio
old friend, to leave ball at Saratoga; and
finally, by his Punishment of Gen. Hancock, a
ranking Major General, to Arizona for daring
to aspire to the Presidency. Gen. Fitzpatrick
next exhibited the consistency of his speech,
and forgot the promise of his exordium to treat
Gen. Grant solely as politician, by devoting
twenty minutes to deliberate and insolent de-
NAL that Gen. Grant had any military ability
whatever, saying substantially that he never
won battle but that the great victories of the
war were accomplished by the subordinate
officers. He protested, in the name OF many
brave Maine boys, against laying the glories of
the war upon his head Grant is an unlettered
man, who never reads and knows no law but
his own will.
The General here put in a funny anecdote OF
two to relieve the tedium of personal abuse,
and then went on to decsribe the scenes at Bal
tmore where rebel and loyal music varied the
proceedings and there was general "clasping
of hands by the North and South, and painted
delightfully."- exaggerated contrast between the
nominations of Gen Grant and Horace Greeley
and declared that the reputed rebsls of the
South and the Liberal Republicans of the
North were bound to clasp hands across the
bloody chasm half-flled with 100000 heroic