Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-07-24
Speech Of Senator Conkling.

New York, %. Hon. Roscoe Conkling
addressed large meeting at Cooper Ins,i-
tute to- night. which was presided over by
jackson Schultz, his text being, The Presi-
dental battle OF 1872, Grant and his fam
ers, deeds not Words The speech was very
long and would fill twelve TO fifteen columns
OF the New York papers
lie commenced by saying For twenty
years II has been my privilege TO address my
neighbors upon political issues, and TOO much
aIdur has perhaps been among my faults yet
no canvass has ever stirred ue so deeply as
this. No election has ever appealed SO
strongly to my sense of fair play, and no cam
vass within my memory has ever been so
tull of toul play, injustice .and malace none
ever more strongly tested the common sense
and senei o,ity oi the Amtric IN people.
Eleven years service IN Congress continued
Mr.. tunkilng, has made me a close observer
OF tour Piesld, nts and OF many public men,
aud II among them all there is one living or
dead. who never knowingly failed in his duty
that one Is L. 5. Grant. 1t there has been a
high official ever ready to admit and correct
an or Or, II there has been one who did wise
ly, firmly and well the things given him in
charge, that one is the soldier in war and the
quiet patriot III peace, " % has been named
again by every township in forty-six States
aud territories for the great trust he now
holds. let this man, honest, brave, modest,
and proved by his trauscendent deeds to be
endowed with genius, common sense, moral
qualities ado quate to the greatest affairs; this
man who saved his country and who snatched
our nationality and our cause from despair,
aud bore them on his shield through the
flame Of bat le in which, but for him, they
would have persisted; this man under whose
admlnistrati IA our country has tiourished as
no one dared predict; this man to whom a
nations gratitude and benediClions are due,
is made the mark for rihald jibes and odious
ground, SIS SANDERS. Why is all this? Sim
ply 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
W ithout Indignation. They are deceived by
the cloud of calumny which darkens the
sky. The Inventors are men dstempered
with grief, or else the sordid and the vile
who follow politics as the shark follows the
ship. A war Of mud and missiles has been
wsged tor months.
The President his family, and all nearly
associated with him, have been despatched,
and truth and decency have been driven far
away. Every thief and comorant and dro e,
who has been put out, every batfied measure
for fleace and plumber, every man with
grievance or grudge, all who have something
10 make by change, seem to wage unbrided
tongue or drive Il foul pen. The President
cannot enter the lists of controversy and de-
tend himself the propretits of his station
forbid it. His chief competitor managing
behind the curtain of 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 scurrilous falsehoods in
in the hope of blackening name which is one
of the treasures of the nation, and which will
be the pride of posterity. All this pollution
will in the end, disgrace only its authors, it
will not disgrace Grant or the nation, because
the nation will spurn and resent 1t. The dis