Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1877-08-17
Speech OF General Garfield at tn
State Convention.

Hon. Jas. A. Garfield on assuming
the duties of permanent President of
the Republican State Convention, at
Cleveland, spoke as follows:
1t will be, probably, fifteen min
utes before your Committee on
Resolutions will be ready to
report, and take the in
tervening minutes to thank you for
the honor you have conferred upon
me to preside over the deliberations
of this great Convention.
Let me say that nothing is more
marked than the differences between
the great political parties than this:
That the Republican party repre-
sents, in its conventions, its best
thoughts and the best thoughts, as l
believe, of the nation. 1t is a pecu-
liararity of our political enemies
that for twenty years they have
been governed by the most-violent
elements of their party. The vio-
lent reactioanry elements of the
Democrats have commended their
policy and dictated their opinions
for many years in the past. In the
days of secession the most violent of
the party led and dragoOned behind
them all the better elements and
brought their party into line after
its worst thoughts. 1t was in the
davs of reconstruction; it has been
so ever since, and it was so one week
ago to-day, when the Democratic
party, representing the State of
Ohio, met at time when a great
and new peril threatened our people
"a peril peculiar and alarming in its
character; a peril that paralyzed the
great industries of the nation, by
stopping all labor everywhere in its
processes. And that convention, in
stead of speaking one brave word in
favor of law and order, and the
rights of the people under the law,
commenced by ignoring in the most
cowardly manner the great danger,
and dared to insinuate that all the
evils that have fallen on this cOun-
try had fallen upon it because of the
Republican party.
They dared to talk of the paUper-
ization of labor as TIE cause of the
great strike. They ak of the pau
perlzation of labor, who for fifty
mortal years have done all in their
power to put one-ffth of the labor,
ers of America under chains, and
buy them, sell them, whip them.
scourge them at the will of capital
lists, great applause, !, a policy that
degraded labor everywhere. And
then, after prating about the pau
perization of labor, in the Same
breath they demand a repeal of al
the laws that the Republican party
have enacted to protect labor in thi:
country by giving to our labOrers
fair chance TO compete in the mark
cts of the world with the labor of the
Old World. Applause. notice
that as an instance of the worst anC
most violent element of the Demo
cratic party, guiding its counsels and
moulding its policy, and they have
done more. In the same platform
only week ago to-day, they under
took to shake the solid foundation:
of our public peace by poisoning, II
they could, the very foundation oil
our political power, by asserting
that our Chief Magistrate, the mar
of our choice, was fraudulently
inaugurated; and attempted tt
throw a cloud of doubt upon his ii
tie to be President of the United
States. With what grace do they
saw that? They who sought by ev
ery means that all the worst ele
ments that America could produc
to carry their man into power, an'
when they saw they were going t.
: fail they sought, by the use of mon
ey in distant State, to buy Tres
idential elector, and thus purchase 10
gold the highest office in the gliI o
: the Republic. Failing i'll that the!
sought to prevent the counting o
the electoral vote in accordance VIII
tho Constitution and laws OF tn
, | Republic, and threatened clyl! wa
# tbe count should proceed in al
| orderly manner.
In order TO prevent that war
special tribunal was provided to de
, termine the great question of Con
| stitutional law that arose o
, that subject, and, although, a
honorable men, they were boun
D. to stand by the result of the tr
bunal, when the result was announ'
v ed the most violent element of tn
+ party determined, finding the resu
II unfnvorable to them, that no pres