Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1872-03-01
From the Washington Patriot
SALE OF ARMS TO FRANCE.
Senator Schurx's Great
Speech.
NOTES 1T TIE CAPITOL.
TUESDAY. February 20

TUESDAY. February 20.
The Senate Chamber, probably, upon no
previous occasion presented such an ap-
pearance as to-day. During the impeach-
ment times the galleries daily swarmed
with youth and beauty, gaily attired, and
the floor was perfectly alive with the solid
black mass OF masculine humanity. Upon
other occasions, the notable San Domingo
debate, for instance, the crowd has been
great and the interest intense. But to-day
the crush was tremendous. Tier above
tier arose the sea of heads. So great was
the press that large numbers of ladies were
unable to obtain admission at all. AT the
instance of Mr.. Fenton, the cloak rooms
were thrown open to such ladies as could
not obtain entrance to the galleries. In a
very few minutes these rooms OverfOwed,
and the Senators on the outer row of seats
were soon surrounded by the fair ones.-
Very few Senators can on any occasion at
tract such an assembly as was drawn to-
getheT in anticipation Of the speech Of Mr..
Schurz.
Mr.. Schurz did not disappoint those who
had gathered to listen to him. The blank
cartridge which excited the derision of Mr..
Morton, is being rapidly metamorphosed
into cartridge which will do more deadly
execution in the seried ranks of the Ad-
ministratiOn cOrruptionists than all the
millions of cartridges which it illegally dis
posed Of to the agents of France. If
Messrs. Conkling and Morton did not, to
use homely phrase, get their belly full to-
day, their looks and actions much belied
the /. Mr.. Schurz piled up the evidence,
nc ,ntain high, producing not only the
IN statements of Remington on the
witness stand, but also the sworn testi-
mony of LIE Cesne, the president of the
French armament commission, showing
that these parties We're dealing directly
with the United States Government in
their purchases of arms. He also analyZed
the letter of General Dyer to Remington,
with the official endorsement Of Secretary
Belknap, given expressly to expedite the
settlement of RemingtOn's accounts with
the French government, and thus estab-
liShed the charge of illegal and unauthOr-
lied action. He dissipated into thin air
the ridiculous assumptions of Morton and
Conkling, that the agitation of this matter
in the Senate Will furnish Prussia with
ground of complaint against the United
States. These two Senators, with all their
affected ignorance, are just as well aware
as the rest of us, that all the circumstances
of these transactions have been before the
European public for months, and are in
fact better known to people abroad than to
the people of the United States. Neither
the tnesse of Mr.. Conking, the unscrupu-
lous adroitness of Mr. Edmunds, nor the
| browbeating of Mr.. Morton can avail to
| rescue this administration from the awk-
ward position i'll which it is now placed
before the people Of this country, and the
nations of the world. That this whole
affair reeks all over with fraud and wrong
is SO plain that he who runs may read.
Mr.. SchIrZ spoke in befitting terms
ri ampnImnnt
aimed at Mr.. Sumner, himself, and the
Marquis de Chambrun. That Senator,
driven into corner, acknowledged that he
had hunted up an old law passed in 1900,
through the operations of which, he hoped,
in some way, to visit condign punishment
on Senators who have the manly indepen-
dence to stand up in the effort to expose
the abuses of an Administration which are
a by-word the country over. Mr.. Schurz
stated that all the information which led to
the agitation of this matter was obtained
| from an American citizen, and that the in
dignation Of NIr. Conkling over the publi-
| cation of the letter of Gen. Belknap to Sec
retary Fish was thrown away, for Gen.
| Belknap himself had expressed q desire
that it be made public The very peril
nent question was asked by Mr.. Schurz,
what would the American people think,
| when Senators who were standing up in
| ened with the terrOTs of the dungeon for
their temerity. But he declared that he
need not fear that the people will not sus-
| tain him; that he intended to follow the line
| of duty he had marked out, undeterred by
! the power of the Administration, or the
threats OF its whippers-in. The contempt
| of Mr.. Schurz, both in word and manner,
was whitening, and Mr.. Roscoe Conkling
never appeared in o more unenviable light
| or eVinced more uneasineSS. The keen ra-
| pier of logic and sarcasm welded by the
giant hand of the Missouri Senator, cut
through and through the unhappy Roscoe,
and under the most favorable circunlstan-
ces it can scarcely be expected that he will
recover for many days. His faithful ally,
the Senator of Indiana, was in no less pitia-
! BILE plight. Pinned down by the home
thrusts Of Mr.. SchurZ, he finally took re-
fuge in a dogged refusal to answer any
more 'insolent" questions. The peroration
of Mr.. Schurz, i'll which he arraigned the
Administration and its Senatorial claquers,
was thrillingly eloquent, producing the
most profound impression on mind and
| heart Of that rapt assembly, and the rever-
berating echoes Of which will ring in thun-
der tones over every hill and through every
valley of this great land.
Mr.. Morton, boiling over with passion,
then claimed the floor. The crowds, which
thronged floor and gallery, and who up to
| this time had preserved silence, which was
almost painful, awoke, with start, as from
trance. The first few harsh notes which
escaped from the Administration spokes-
man seemed to send a shiver through the
| frame of all, and rapidly through every exit
| flowed that tide of humanity. This could
not but be humiliating to Mr.. Morton, the
more so, as he was compelled to suspend
| for several min1ItaS until nuiet was narfiallV
restored. This little incident affords re-
| fex of public opinion, much more striking
| than the subsidized utteranceS of the edi-
| torial strikers of the Administration read
| by Mr.. COnkling on yesterday. That it
| was not without its effect it took the eye of
| no seer to discern.
| Mr.. Morton having previously refused to
| answer the 'inSOlent" questions of Mr..
Schurz, condescended bare allusion only
| to the subject before the Senate, and then
branched off into bitter personal attack
on the Missouri Senator, heaping upon his
head the foulest aspersions, and vainly
| trying to put him in the character of low,
artful demagogue, the part which Morton
himself knows so well how to play. The
! arinnus of the crusade of the administration
! Senators against Mr.. Schurz stuck out in Il
! hundred places through the fiimsy cover
| ing which Mr.. Morton sought to throw
! around it. 1t is nothing less and nothing
more than that he does not bow down and
worship the military chieftain in the White
| House. To Mr.. Schurz was due, said Mr..
| Morton, the presence Of Mr.. Blair in the
| Senate.
Mr.. Blair pertinently responded that his
presence in the Senate was due to the
| votes of the people Of Missouri. This is
not the first time that he has seemed to
I 80 Ar41no