Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-10-09
HON. W. G. wHITTHoRsE ro.Hry
CONSTITUENTS. --

We are indebted tr the Pulaski Cit
izen for the following synopsis Of .
speech made by Hon. W. q. Whit
thorne at that place. few days ego.
His sketch of the country's general
political condition is drawn with q
masterly hand, while his position on
the currency question is thoroughly
representative Of the sentiments en-
-tertained not only by his immediate
constituents, butalso by nine-tenths of
essee.-NashuiHe An,aicaa.
In his opening remarks he ran brief
ly over the doings Of the last Congress.
detailing however, with some miruts-
ness, the struggle of the heroic minor
ity during the memorable crisis last
winter, known as the 49, hours lead
lock" in the House, pending the con-
sideratiou of the Civil Rights and
Force bills. He portrayed before his
auditors the desperate expedients re-
sorted to BY a desperate, dominant ma
jority, in the effort to regain their lost
power and position. In view ofthe in-
dications of the State elections of 1874,
it was evident to the Republican party
that solid Democratic victory in 1876,
IN the South, supplemented BY ike
result in New York, for instance. and
Indiana would give the country Dem
ocratic President. The handwriting
was on the WALL and Belshazzar vas
trembling for his totteriog throne.
Something must be done, and that
something was to seize the ballot-bo
south of the Ohio-throttle free suf-
frage In the Southern States, and thus
perpetuate Cesarism in the doomed
land. But thanks to the gallant baud
that stood to their guns, and slept upon
their arms through the ordeal of the
dead lock, so that the civil rights
and force bills failed, or were SO emas-
culated as to be practically harmless.
Failing In their purpose to capture, by
force mostfoul, the Southern vote, they
must look to some other quarter for
suceor in their extremity. A disas-
trous overthrow Of theirparty was i'm
minent and how to Aert it was the
stunning problem. Fooled in their
iEiquitous designs they call council
under the leadership of that trio Of
arch plotters, Butler, Maynard and
Smith, of Alabama. Their race SEEM
ed well nigh run, but their mission
was not accomplished, namely, the fur
ther subjugation and humiliation Of
the hated South. As falling Lucifer,
elected from heavens high battlements,
burning with revenge and bent on mis-
chief dire, turned his fiery eye on
esrth's fair Eden, so had these restless
malcontents plotted the overthrow of
country, constitution and civil liberty.
This they could only do by slecting
another President or by perpetuating
their power. Casting their baleful
eyes abroad, they beheld the greatcOm-
mereial centers of the Western eOnti-
nent situated in the North. There
were the sinews of war, men aud money,
there they they saw the plethoric purse
of the bloated bondholder grown fat on
the blood, aud sweat, and muscle of the
toiling millions-there the great man.
ufaeturing industries, the foster chill
dren of protective tariffs, had absorb
the very substance of PROSTATE labor.
They knew these monster :loneyed
were the power behind the
throne, that they held the bonds, han
died the money, manipulated the Press,
venal legislation, absorbed
rail road routes aud telegraph lines,
until Gould, and not Grant, was king,
and the common laborer was praeti-
cally enslaved. Now to conciliate
this money power was the aim of this
hungry horde cf plunderers, aud thus
to control the vote of the dependent
people. How shall it be done? BY
making the rich richer, and the poor
poorer, by lessening the circulating
medium, enhancing the value of bonds,
depressing the poor mans labor and
selling him out soul and body wife and
children, to the wealthy lords Of the
land. And to-day, this Is the vital issue.
and the point upon which turns the
veal or woe of the country. The
watch-word Of the protected capitalist
and the pampered stakeholder is hard
money and lower wages, while the pit
eous plea of oppressed millions, North
and South, goes up, bread, give US
bread fer our wives and children"
Let the battle cry of the yeoman in
the present crisis be sound currency,
constant employment and reasonable
compensation for our toll. And while
we avoid on Gne hand American cen
tralization, let US eschew, on the other,
Jacobinical communism.