Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1876-10-19
HAnrroRp. October |.

faIrs.
Hartford, October l.
The Republican meeting in this city,
last night, was great, both in numbers and
enthusiasm. Beforehand there was fine
torehlght parade of Boys in Blue
The meeting was presided over by Sam
uel u. Clements Mark Twain 1t was his
| Introduction on the political rostrum, and
| he was received with much favor. He
! spoke as follows
LADIES AND GENTEEMEN-I feel very
| greatly honored in being chosen to pre-
side at this meeting. This employment
| is new to me. never have taken any
part in political canvass before, except
to vote. The tribe of which I am the
humblest member-the literary tribe-is
one (which is not given to bothering about
| politics, but there are times when even
| the Strangest departures are justifable,
and such season, I take it, is the present
canvass. Some one asked me the other
! day why it was that nearly all the peo-
| pie who write books and magazines had
! lately come to the front and proclaimed
| their political preference, such a thing
| had probably never occurred before in
! America, and why it was that almost all
| of this strange new band of volunteers
march under the banner of Hayes and
| Wheeler. / think these people have come
to the front mainly because they think
| they see at last a chance to make this
Government a good Government, because
they think they see chance to. institute
an honest and sensible system of civil SER
vice which shall so amply proyeits worth
and worthiness that no succeeding Presi-
| dent can ever venture to put his foot up
i on It. Our present civil system, born of
General Jackson and the Democratic par
! tY, so idiotic, so contemplate, so gro
/ focn11eF tn lyof
ges of DahOmney jeer and the very gods
of solemnity laugh. We will not hire a
| blacksmith who never lifted a sledge.-
| We will not hire a school-teacher who
does not know his alphabet. We will not
have man about us in our business life,
| in any walk of it, low or high, unless he
has served an apprenticeship and can
prove that he is capable of doing the
work he offers to do. We even require a
plumber to know something laughter,
and pause by the speaker] about his
/ business, [reneWed laughter, that he
shall at least know which side of a pipe is
| the inside. fRoars of laughter But
when you come to our civil service, we
serenely fill great numbers of our mi
nor public offices with ignoramuses. We
put the vast business of Custom House
in the hands of 1athead who does not
| knows bill of lading from a transit of
| Venus, laughter and applause, never
having heard of either of them before
| Laughter Under Treasury appoint
men6 we pour oceans ofmoney and accom-
panying statistics through the hands and
! brain of an ignorant ViIlager who never
before could wrestle with a two week s
wash bill without getting thrown
! [Great laughter Under our consular
system we send creatures all over the
world who speak no language but their
| own. and even when it comes to that, go
wading all their days through floods of
moods and lenses and fourishing the
scaips of mutilated parts of speech
| When forced to it, we order home for
eign ambassador who is frescOed all over
with-with- ndiscreetness laugh
ter, but we Immediately send one in his
place whose moral ceiling has percepti-
Bile shady tint to it, and then he brays
when we supposed he was going to roar.
We carefully train and educate our naval
officers and military men, and we ripen
and perfect their capabilities through
long services and experience, and keep
10 IhSesys ystenl of promotion. This is ex-
aetly what we hope to do with our civil
service under Mr.. Hayes. Applause. +
We hope and expect to sever that service
as utterly from politics as is the naval
and military service, and we hope to
make it as respectable too. We hope to
make worth and capacity the sole require
|
the amount of party dirty work the can
didate has done. By the time Gen. Haw-
ley has finished his speech, think you
will know why we, in this matter, put
our trust in Hayes in preference to any
other man. I am not going to say any
thing about our candidates for State of
ficers, because you know them, honor
them, and will vote for them, but Gener-
al Hawley, being comparatively stran-
ger, [laughter], will say single word
in commendation of him, and it will fur
nish one of the many reasons why I am
going to vote for him for Congress. ]
ask you seriously and thoughtfully
to look at just one almost incredible
fact. General Hawley, in his official
capacity as President of the Centennial
Commission, has done one thing which
you may not have heard commented
upon, and yet it is one of the most
} astounding performances of this de-
cade, an act almost impossible, perhaps,
to any other public officer in this nation.
| General Haw1ey has taken as high as
$12l 600 gate money at the Centennial in
) a single day, [pause and applause ant
never stole cent of it. [Great laughter
: and continued applause. From the Nee
York Times.