The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-06-13
Ben. Buffers Remedy.
From the Congressional Record


For myself, let it not be said i have no
plans or details by which a remedy may
be administered. Under the rules of the
House have neither time nor opportunity.
have had to beg time for this almost in
opportune speech on this bill; for il will be
said ,"What has this to do with the army
bill?" saw no other opportunity in which
could call the attention of the House and
the county to this great and to me SEEM
ing impending danger, and it has this to do
with the army bill.
It is claimed that we must have large
standing army to repress the possible out
break of laboring men-to put them down
with the bsyonet, the machine gun and
cannon, if they quit work and strike, and
bad men should band together to take ad.
vantage of their necessities to inaugurate
violence and wrong. Remove the cause.
and then you will not need the army. The
only suggested need of an army will cease,
except on the Western frontier. Instead
of supporting four hundred men, at the ex.
penses of nearly million year, on the
frontier as regiment, support four hund-
red families, with strong, stalwart working
men at their heads, in place of that regi.
ment, and give them arms, and they will
protect themselves from your Josephs
your Sitting Bulls, or your Indians, whers
ever they may be found. Settle them to-
gether in communities of four hundred fam.
| lilies each, and they will be your army
not of consumers, but an army of produc
ers of large numbers, each settlement strong
er than regiment. Exercise the power
the constitution has given you and max.
them United States militia for your front
iers, and unlike soldiers, when they do no
fight they will produce, and not eat th'
productions ef others. Send out selected
head of a family, willing to work, with hi
wife and children, and give him forty acre
of land and only what your soldiers cos
you in transportation, clothing, forage, pa,
and quarters, and you will have a produc
sr at home to defead himself as our father
did in New England, as our fathers did il
New York, without the aid Of any regula
army. Expend the forty millions dollar
a year which your army annually costs yo
in putting settlers on lands of the frontie
with their families, who, in
few years, will not only be a. sell
supporting, bnt q self recruiting army
which shall add to and not decrease you
weath. Then it will be time to talk abou
disbapding your regular army, cutting
down to few soldiers to keep the guns an
carriages in several forts painted, and onl
educate your offers and let them turn thsi
efforts to civil life until by the possibl
contingency cf a foreign war they may b
called into action at the head of volentee
soldiers on whom yeu must at last depend
Depend in the several states upon a wei
reglated United States militia which the
constitution pre-supposes; and do not le
my ear be panied again by hearing it sal
that militia will not fght, or will sympa
thise with a mob of rietsrs. When tbs
hour comes your regular soldiers cannot b
depended upon any more than militia, an
the whole history of the armies of the worl
tells you that the regulars fratsrni7e wit
/. the people when the cause of the mob b,
, comes the cause of the people, and the &C
ion Of the mob Is revolution against the
oppressors who take away their liberti,
and their rights"