The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-09-20
IOWA POLITICS.
Speech of Hon. James #. Will
SON, at Altoona, lowe.


poses the Republican party was never more
important to this country than it is to-day.
This feeling permeates the party in Iowa. It
controlled that memorable convocation of the
representatives of the party which met at Des
Moines on the 9th dayof June last, and placed
in nomination our present State ticket.
No political convention has been held in this
country for years that has attracted such gem
eral attention as did that one. After its adj
journment it's proceedings received an extra
ordinary amount of criticism both in this
country and abroad. Never has there been a
convention held anywhere whose members NOR
perfectly understood what they proposed to do
and more thoroughly did what they proposed.
They meant to maintain the unity Of the Re-
publican party in Iowa, and they did it. No
new test of party fealty was allowed there. 1t
has not been so in every other State Wait
until after the October elections and you will
see whether Iowa or Ohio did the wisest and
best thing. The Republican party of Iowa
never has had a broken line, never has faitered.
First in at the organization Of the party the
Iowa Republicans have never lost flag
nor fight. When other States
were faltering last year, and some
were driven to the very outskirts of the battle
ground. Iowa held the field with 10000 major
ity. There is not truck and diCker element in
all orr ranks in the State of sufficient numbers
and Importance to disturb the equanimlty of
the party. The members are earnest believers
in the principles of the party their votes are
convictions. These are the reasons why Iowa
has not been s. doubtful State, and why the Des
MOines Convention could reject new tests and
harmonic it's action. If disaster comes to the
national organization in the future it will not
originate in Iowa.
It has been charged in quarters beyond our
State that the Republicans in Iowa are not in
accord with the party on the subject of the pa
Cihcation of the Southern States and CiYil-ser-
vice reform. because the Des MOines Convention
did not indorse President Hayes action rela-
tive thereto don't intend to discuss Presi-
dent Hayes actions here, but have a few
words to say concerning this charge against the
Republican partyof Iowa. The Republicans Of
this State do most earnestly desire the paCifCa-
ton of the Southern States, and Of all the
States. They have no greater love for force
and military power per Sc than the most ardent
Democrat who hates a national soldier and loves
State rights. They stand on the national plat
form Of the party. They hold that this re-
public ia a nation whose citizens are entitled
every right in every part of its Jurisdiction, as
well as abroad. They claim no right to inter
fere with the local concerns of other States
but they do claim that the rights of citizens of
the United States as COntradisting ulshed from
those which pertain to them as citizens of the
several States are not matters of mere local
concern that the rights of free locomotiOn
for business, pleasure, or change of dOmicile is
sacred to the citizen, and Jock with suspicion
upon any policy whose most ardent supporters
find it necessary to fix upon citizens who de-
eide to enjoy this right the contemptuous
epithet of "carpet-baggers !" that to the poor
and the ignorant as we'll as the learned and
the rich the same rights obtain, and they re-
ject the doctrine that everything shall be sur
rendered to the keeping of intelligence and
property" alone that the col0red people of
the South, who are the workers of that re-
gion, shall realize that freedom is not
mockery, and that the ballot is not curse
that the action Of the national authorities in
every department in these several respects
shall tend to the realization of these rights and
purposes. With nothing short of this end at
tanned will the Republicans of Iowa be CON
tent. Let that real peace which comes through
justice and right dong prevail in the Southern
States, and no part of this nation will be more
reioiced than the people OF Iowa.
Now, what Of civil. service reform? The Re-
pubicans of Iowa are as heartily in favor of a
true civil service as they are of equal rights.
Nor will we quarrel among ourselves concern
inc the subject atall. We may not all agree as
to modes, nor are we bound to indOrse every
rule which the President may adopt, any more
than we are bound to approve every appoint
ment which he may make. When he says, 81
will appoint none but the best men to office
there is no discord in the approving response
of the Republicans of Iowa. When he says, "HaY-
ING selected the best men and placed them in
office will not allow them to participate in the
active party and political affairs of the country"
it is not opposition to civil-service reform for
Republican to dissent. Of all men who ought
to actively participate in politics, from the pri-
maries to the polls, the best men are the right
ones The civil-service order did not touch the
seat of the disease, nor embrace the ground of
complaint 1T is not the fact that Federal Off
GERS have participated in the management Of
the political affairs of the country that is either
the ground of complaint or the basis Of scandal.
1t was the manner of the system which consti-
tuted both. Tt was charged that the Federal
administrations used the multitude of their
appointees to manipulate the party pri-
maries and conventions to promote
personal ends or allowed factions
within the parties to do So This was of easy
remedy by simply proclaiming the absolute
political freedom Of each Federal ofice-holder
without danger to his tenure of Office. Free
dom of action in the political field. and not
circumscribed action, was the thing needed.
Full-groWn free N n in Office, and not dwarfed
men in bonds, should be the rule. The civil
service knife has cut the wrong lgament 1t
should have cut the one which bound the office
holder to the special and permanent work Of
the administration and not the one which con-
nected him with the ordinary political duties of
the citizen. No man ought to be appointed to
public Office except from considerations of
the public good. No man ought to be allowed
to remain in office who misuses it for thesspro-
motion of the mere personal ends of himself
OF of the administration which appointed him.
In so far as this goes the President has the full
sympathy and will have the hearty support of
the Republicans of this State. But wherein
his order abridges the ordinary political rights
of citizens who hold public stations, it is, in
my Judgment, a mistake which time will show
him ought to be corrected, and doubtless will
be for there can be no bolder stroke of civil
service reform than the undoing of an ACT
which proves not to have been right one.
The brightest page in the history OF
Gen. Grants administration is the one
whereon appears his conduct in the Santc
Domingo affair. The annexation of that