The daily gazette., 1876-10-17
The Speech Ofan independent.


The addresses of Mr.. Parke Godwin, !!
former editor of the New York Evening
Post, to the Cooper Union, New York, on
on Tuesday evening, was on ''the issues
involved in the present canvass" The
fact that up to the close of General Grants
first term of Office Mr.. Goodwin was an
earnest republican and subsequently join
ed the liberal reformers gives peculiar in
terest to what he says.
This address Mr.. Goodwin had been
invited by many of the more prominent
bankers and business men of New York
to deliver. He started out with the prop
osition that the questions which originat-
ed the civil war had been definitely settled,
and that there were other issues to by
adjusted that were vital to the prosperity
of the country. These issues, he contended,
the dominant party was incompetent to
| deal with. The fruits of the war were
decentralization ofthe public service, heavy
taxation, and the impoverishment of the
people. Confronted with these great evils
the leaders of the republican party either
evaded or trifled with them.
From the beginning of its careerthe re-
publican party had no policy, and it had
never succeeded in framing one. at was
originally" he said; sawar party, organiz-
ed for particular purpose, and outside of
that purpose, in the field of craftsmanship
was without definite principles of any
kind" Made up of fragments of pre-
existing parties, it was heterogeneous in
its composition. Having no obvious
defined, or consistent political convictions,
it been driven hither and thither bymany
warning impulses inside of itself growing
,Out of the various afiinities of its MEM
bers." BY what he styled ga master stroke
Iofpolicy," whilst the nation was emerg
ing from an exhausting war, sour finan-
cial managers thought the best thing to do
was to pay off the debt that did not ma
ture for twenty years to come" Instead
of practicing in all departments of the
government the most rigid economy, "they
plunged into such extravaganza that, in
this last year of its power, the expense of
the administration have been one hundred
millions more than the frst," whilst their
estimates for the next year were twenty
five millions in excess of the last. He
arraigned them for special legislation, and
for making the tariffsubservient to private
interests. ID
. Turning to the merchants he said -
Where are your clipper ships, once our
: pride and the admiration Of the world !?
Where is your tonnage, the second in the
world Where are your stately steamers
dotting the seao Gone, taxed out of eX-
> istence, and the tariff which straddled
your interests, like the old man of the sea
straddling the shoulders of Sinbad the
. sailor, still remains and will remain so
. long as the dominant party is in CONTROL"
> lie spoke of Mr.. Morton as Senator
/. governed by no fixed principles. Sherman's
/. bill for the resumption ofspecie payments
he described as 1.-THE Sherman sham" LII
: the administration of civil service reform
5 two evils, he said, were prominent. One
the usllIpation of the power of appoint
ments; another, ''dispensingthese appoint
/, ments as rewards for partisan sevility.'
: Insecurity of tenure in office led to official
:. corruption:
During the Grant adm inistration the
defalcations had amounted to five mill
; ions of dollars, larger sum than had
been stolen previously in the whole per-
. old the government had been in exist
ance." In drawing toward the close of
his address Mr.. Goodwin remarked:
: "Four years ago prominent republi-
can said, Our party is rotten from rind to
core.' Four years ago Charles Sumner
denounced the San Domingo job as a
monstrous iniquity, Four years ago Carl
Schurz said the sale Of arms to France
had disgraced the United States in the
leyes of the civilized world. Four years
ago Mr., Jacob Cox was shouldered out
because he attempted to inauglrate re-
form. And four years ago. in 1877, many
|, of the best and most honorable members
left the ranks of the republican party, ut
terly disgusted with the corruption into
which they saw it sinking.
5 Yet the administration four years ago
} was as an angel of light and purity COM
: pared with the dark aud sinister forms it
had since assumed. For before 1872 the
bayonets of the United States were not
considered necessary to influence elections
and overthrow appointments fairly made
/ by the people. 1t was since that time,
| too, that the speaker Of the House OF
Congress had shown by his own letters
that he had been the helper and supper
. ter Of jobbers, whose tavors he had Sc
; cured by the influence of his official posi-
\ ton.
Finally, Mr.. Goodwin paid a glowing
tribute to Governor Tilden, denounced
the rancor with which he had been assail-
ed by republican journals and speakers,
:. and wound up by declaring the hope OF
the country to be in democratic success
, at the November elections, and that in
the centennial year democratic victory
r would be Il harbingcr of another century
n Of peace, progress and development"
!. GENERAL NEWS,