Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-24

New YORK, July 23.-Roscoe Conkling ad
dressed large meeting at Cooper Institute to-
night, which was presided over by Jackson S.
Schultz, his text being THE presidential battle
Of 1872; Grant and his defamers deeds, not
Words The speech was very long, and would
ill twelve to fifteen columns of the New York
papers.
He began by saying: For twenty years it has
been my privilege to address my neighbors upon
political issues, and too much ardor has per-
haps been among my faults. Yet no canvass
has ever stirred me so deeply as this; no cleo
ton has ever appealed so strongly to my sense
OF lar play; no canvass within my memory has
ever been so full of foul play, injustice and
malice; none ever more strongly tested
the common sense and generosity of American
people. Eleven years service in congress, con-
tlnued Conkllng, has made me a close observer
OF lour presidents and OF many public men, and
IL among them all there is one living or dead
who never knowingly failed in his duty that
one is Ulysses ). Grant; if there has been a high
official, ever ready to admit and correct an
error, if there has been one who did wisely,
firmly and well the things given him in charge
that one is the soldier in war and the quiet
patriot in peace, who has been named again by
every township, in lorty-sX states and terrific
RES for the great trust he now holds; vet this
man, honest, brave and modest and proved by
his transcendant deeds to be endowed
with genius, common sense and moral
man who saved his country who snatched our
nationality and our cause from despair and bore
them on his shield through fame of battle in
which, but for him, they would have
persisted, this man under whose admin
istration our country has flourished as no one
dared predict, this man TO whom ma.
TONS gratitude and benedction are due, is
made the mark for rbald jest and odious
groundess ISLANDERS. Why is all this? Simply
because he stands in the way of the greed and
ambition OF politicians and schemers. Many
honest men join in the cry, or hear it without
Indignation. They are deceived by the cloud of
caumny which darkens the sky, but the inven-
tors are men distempered with griefs or else the
sOrdid and vile who follow politics as the SHARK
follows the ship. A war Of mud and missiles
has been waged for months; the president, his
family and all nearly associated with him have
been bespattered, and truth and decency have
been driven far away. Every thief and cormo.
rant and drone who has been put our, every
Datfed mouser for place or plumber, every man
with grievance or grudge, all who have
something to make by charge, seem to wag an
unbridlcd tongue or to drive foul pen The
president cannot enter the lists of controversy
and defend nimsef-the properties of his sta
ton forbid II. His chief competitor managing
behind the curtain u newspaper from which he
pretends TO have retired, is free TO defend and
puff himself, and feels free to fill his paper with
base and scurfilous lalsehoods in the hone of
of the nation and which will be the pride of pos
tcrity. All this pollution will in the end Disgrace
only its authors. 1t will not disgrace Grant or
the nation, because the nation will spurn and re.
sent it. The! disgusting personalities emplicd
upon General Jackson secured his reelection,
an offended people struck back and they will
strike back again.
Mr.. Conking, after stating that the opposi-
ton had blundered in arragning the president
for ignorance, dishonesty aud vice, spoke o. the
sell-cOnstituted crowd at Cincinnati, that motley
group made up of a few respectable men who
have since repudated it and Of the most piebald,
disreputable collection TO be scraped from the
cutters and sewers of politics. These political
Lazzeroni pretending TO represent states, laid
down the platform on which Greeley thinks he
is running.
Quotations were here made from the Cncin.
natl platform and John Cochrane's address ar.
raigning the president for personal crime
Mr.. Conkling then characterized the tariff
resolution at Cincinnati as Il mere tumble and
shallow evasion; the amnesty resolution as
spent, because general amnesty bill was passed
weeks ago; and civil service reform as not in
ISSUE because the president recommended and
inaugurated it, aud the Philadelphia convention