The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-08-24
THE OHIO CAMPAIGN.
1t is Opened by Judge West at
BellefOuntainp.
A Review Of the Important Questions
Of the Day.

OF the Day.
CINCISNATI, Aug, 16.-The Ohio cam
paign opened onight at Bellefountain'
in a speech by Judge West, as follows:
Ny FRIENDS AND NEIGHBoRs: Ihayt
been assigned to make the opening
speech Of the campaign at home. This
is fitting and appropriate. Just twenty
seven years ago to-day | came among
you fortuneless and stranger. You up
held my hands, stimulated my hopes
encouraged my aspirations. Many times
have you testified your confidence by
advancing me from honor TO honor
many times have you testified your will
ingness to advance me further Now
when this last highest tribute is tender.
ed, it is meet that |, who am 50 deeply
indebted to you for what / am and what ]
have been, should make this acknow-
edgement of my gratitude by addressing
you first in opening the campaign. dc
it the more cheerfully because in you
will be found sympathetic response to
the opinions / shall utter However
they may differ from the views of others
you know they are the convictions OF
sincerity, deduced from reason and re-
Election, ard honestly believed to be pro-
motive Of the common welfare.
And, first of all, let me assure you, my
friends, and through you, the good peo
pie of our noble commonwealth, that if
the nominations at Cleveland shall be
ratified in October, it shall be my pride
and my endeavor to execute the high
Office in the interests of all and for all;
not harshly, but in kindness, tempering
justice with clemency, and throwing
about every right fperson and property
the equal and absolute protection of flaw.
The Cleveland Convention reaffirmed
as an entirety the National platform of
1875. On it last year We foughtand won.
The principles it enunciates and their
discussion are fresh in the recollection of
all.
Two additional planks ofprincipal i'm
portance were added at Cleveland; one
favoring the reconciliation of silver, the
other recommending the creation Of a
National Bureau of Industry. The deep
interest awakened by the labor agitation
ranks the latter first in importance, and
it will be first considered
Recent and existing industrial distur-
Dances have developed an alarming phase
in our American civilization and social
condition. The unhappy contest be-
tween opposing sections of the country
was fraught with scarcely greater peril;
that was struggle for divided dominion
and separate ascendency; this is the
bursting of the volcano beneath our feet;
upheaving the foundations of social or
der, and threatening with annihilation
the fabric of industrial and commercial
freedom. Thoughtful men look on with
apprehension and ask: as the history
of the Old World civilization to repeat
itself here? Is there an irrepressible
conflict between labor and capital, in
separable from augmented population
and dimished employment, whose an
archial tendencies can be averted only
at the expense of military subjugation?
This is the grave problem presented for
solution; the overshadowing issue Ofthe
hour which courage must encounter and
prudence decide 1t cannot be ignored
if we would; it should not if We could
Thrice has the Old World remedy of
military Intervention been applied in as
many years without extinguishing the
cause that invoked it. 1t was applied by
Governor Allen in the Hooking Valley
the emute was stilled and the public
mind settled back into its accustomed
repose. 1t broke out afresh in the valley
of the Tuscarawas; again it was repressed
by military power, and the public alarm
WIS succeeded by the feeling that all
was well. Now it burst forth in con-
suming fires ofnational proportion. The
viscious seize upon. the commotion it has
caused as the occasion for exercising
ing their criminal passions, for applying
the lncendiary torch. for the shedding
of innocent blood. Upon these, reason
and clemency expendthemselves in vain
1t is, however. gratifying to know that SO
few, if any, with hearts willing and hands
ready for honest toll, joined them in
their carnival of destruction. That des-
truction has been stayed, the uprising
from which it sprung suppressed by the
National arms, and quiet reigns.
Shall the public again fold Its arms in
fatal security without investigating its
cause or seeking to discover and apply
some peaceful remedy more efectual
and enduring than arms? Or shall we
rather familiarize ourselves to the exer-
tion OF military power in the manage
ment Of our social affairs, and confide
our institutions, our interests, and our
destiny to the exclusive guardianship OF
military protection? Shall We, without
an effort TO reach some peaceful solution
of our social antagonisms, rather suffer
their violence 10 become the pretext for
strengthening our military establish
ment and through its effect the over.
throw of our popular Government and
public liberty? No, no. We must meet
the danger at the threshold; while dis
order must be repressed, rights main,
tanned, and property protected by the
sirong hand when the necessity shall
arise, we must not allow the existence Of
causes capable of peaceful remedies tc
impel US to that state where we shall be
forced to choose between military des
potism and social anarchy. Let us rather
demand the exhaustion of all peaceful
appliances. If these shall fail to protect
the rights aid maintain the relations Of
labor and capital, then, ard then only
must the Old World history be suffered
to repeat itself on American soil.
That there should be an irreconcila'
BILE antagonism necessarily tending to
collision between labor and capital Is
most unnatural; their rights are distinct
equally entitled to invoke and have the