The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-06-04
TIL E PRESS.
TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 4, 1879.
Senator Summers Speech.


Those who have read Senator Summers
remarkable speech will find little in it that is
new If they have been at all conversant with
the current gossip, ISLANDERS and calumnies of
the New York Sun and the majority of the
Democratic journals of the country. There
is nothing as the World says that is new e1-
cept the story about ex-Secretary Stanton
and even that has been published in Wash
ington correspondence the past winter. Mr..
Sumner has collected all these ISLANDERS and
caumnies, classified them, embellishes them
with his formidable rhetoric and presents
them as real. He has nursed his natural dis
like for Gen. Grant into hate and that hate
has turned into a venom that has the past
wear been so conspicuous as to mark nearly
every word and act in his public and private
record So far has this spirit of hatred pos
sessed him that his private conversation, it is
said, consists largely of the vilification of the
President. So in the last hours of the ses-
sion whenthe most important bills were pend
ing, he takes the opportunity to launch into
a speech which for malignity and venomous
detraction has never been equalled. The
Senator ransacks the history of all times,
seeks the most infamous characters that
have blackened the annals of the past
and, taking the most hideous crimes
of all, unites them in completing his charac-
ter of the President. The Caesars of the past
are the most beneficent of men compared
with Gen. Grant. The Neros of history are
the very angels of mercy compared with the
hideous monster that Mr.. Summers distorted
fancy depicts in the White House. In Mr..
Summers Indictment, he has selected the lit
tie errors and mistakes, of which there have
been as few as any Administration has ever
made, and most of which as errors of judg-
ment were corrected long since, and magni
fled them into high crimes and misdemeanors
worthy of impeachment. In the bitterness
of his hate, he sneers at the man who few
years since "earned few hundred dollars a
year by tanning hides and ''by the war pass
ed to be President" The great Senator not
only sneers at honest toll, and intimates that
the Presidency belongs to a privileged class,
but in that brief sentence ''by the war passed
to be President" bridges over those four wears
of war in which citizen Grant, without ever
asking for promotion, by his mighty deeds
became the leader of our armies and by his
persistence, valor and skill brought the ma
ton from the depths of dependency to vic
tory and peace, while the Senator himself
was helplessly finding fault with President
Lincoln and his confederate Schurz was
drawing the pay of political major-general
Tor which he was utterly incompetent to rem
der any equivalent. Mr.. Sumner may imag-
inc that his forensic efforts conquered Vicks-
burg-succored the beleagued army at Chat
tanooga- cheered the Union army on to the
bloody work in the jungles of the Wilderness
that his brilliant rhetoric throttled the re-
bellion and held it in deadly grasp for
nine months about Richmond and caused
the surrenderat Appomattox; but the people
think differently. They yet remember those
four years and will gratefully remember the
man who, coming from the ranks of the indus
tries of the country, more than any other
man, by great victories and great deeds, saved
the nation. The people will not believe that
the selfish, unambitious soldier has so soon
assumed the most glaring crimes of the mon
sters of history and the most abhorrent vices
OF the Newgate calender. The people who
have been grateful to the great leader of our
armies will compare his deeds with the words
of the Senator. They viii give Mr.. Sumner
all the praise due to his noble efforts in edu-
eating the nation to hate slavery but they
will not forget the man whose deeds made the
Senator's theories possible.
In March 1871, Mr.. Sumner with more oc-
casion assaulted the President. At first the
people who had supported Gen. Grant were
inclined to believe the statements of the Sena-
tor, but the bitterness which at that time was
fast growing upon Mr.. Sumner was so appar-
ent that they were led to examine the charges
only to find them groundless From that day
Gen. Grant was stronger with the masses |
who elected him. With the intelligence of |
the country this studied arraignment of the |
President, so scurillous, so venomous, so full |
of madness, will not blast with its fiery fury |
the name of Gen. Grant but return with |
swift vengeance upon its author. All those
men who like GEN. LOGAN have not fully en-
dorsed Gen. Grants administration, will be
driven by the merciless injustice of the Sena-
tors assault to rally about the President and |
hurl back his indignant words, as did the Hi
nois soldier-senator.
L tell the Senator from Massachusetts
now that he will find response to that malig-
nant speech in every crutch that aids a wound
ed soldier to wend his way through the world;
in every wooden arm; in the grieyed heart of
every widowed mother aaOnrninO for har fri. |
OF son. In these, and in the hearts of all loyal
people of this country he will find response that
over@helm him and all his oratory. All these
will speak in thunder tones in defence of one
Of the most gallant soldiers that ever lived in
any nation on earth.