The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1880-12-03
TO COL. INGERsOLI-GREETTNG.

lie
You are credited with having made the
best and most effective speeches for Garfield
that were delivered during the late campaign,
and. knowing something of your abundant
oratoricaI resources, your perfect good hu-
nor, imagination and tact, your ability to
avoid strong point and the almost unerring
sagacfty with which you detect a weak point
in the armor of your adversary / have no
doubt the praise is deserved. did not have
the pleasure Of hearing you, IN spite of dill
gent effort in that direction, but am salts
fed there were many points in AIr. Garfield's
public career which you did not consider;
many grave charges to which you carefully
failed to allude in the most consequential of
your public utterances. \ speaker of your
experience and reputation is impregnabie
upon a platform The Rev. Mr.. Beecher
even goes so far as to claim that you are IL
rcsistible 1t must be admitted, however,
that no matter how brilliant your speech or
logical your argument, you took your verdict
by default. The defendant was not in court.
You were not required to answer TO the
pIeadings OF verify your authorities.
You were kind enough, yesterday, to sub
init to an interview with a reporter of the
Washington Post, and think you will credit
us with having set you down with as much
. exactness rs stenography and type are capa-
bic Of insUTing ! have no doubt too, that
YOU have said about the best that anybody
can say i'm defense of Gen. Garfield election
and Gen. Hancock's defeat. You may lie
right in all that you do say haven'tretain-
ed he pride of opinion with which I entered
. e. 4Tsa4
Democratic party is dead-too dead for res
uErectton-it may be that the Republican
party has renewed, for another twenty years,
. its lease Of life and supremacy-it may be
that it can only be put down by some other
organization, which can dive deeper in what
YOU style Charger and grander liberty
but, even if all this is true, and especially if
it be true that all the glorious results You pic
ture are sure TO follow the Inauguration OF
Gen. Garfield, you viii he obliged to admit
that we have been skating on very thin ice
for the last three weeks.
BE good enough to remember, Col. Inger-
soil, that less than ten thousand men in the
cityor State of New Yorl, could have changed
all this, That q rainy day, a half dozen fires,
a small riot, or the exercise of a little more
vigilance ON lhe pant of dozen men in the
city Of View York would have sent General
Hancock to the White House at the head Of
this now very dead Democratic party, and
that instead Of prafsing Nj. Jewell as great
statisticiau youmight nave been damninghiln
as a fool. in political matters at least, you
Will be forced to ponder with me,
son what slender thread
Hang everlasting things
But after all, is it not possible that the Re
publican party is unworthy of the praise You
give it, and may it not be just possible that
the Democratic party is entitled to more ?
Nou say that if 1 were to start a rev party
the first thing would probably do would be
to leave ont of it q hundred Democrats now
promiucutas sSUcH. Undoubtedly. But even
if you were commissioned to nh their places,
there are as many Republicans, when you
would go to - well, say Iudia-to avoid.
am sure that the frs. man You would not
take Is that vulgar fraud and uauseatiug hyp.
ocrite, who for four years has been diligently
proving that such fraud as Pccksnim is not
an impossibiity--R. B. Hayes. 1t Is some
compensation to belong to the Democratic
party, cvenif one acc0mplisEes nothingm more
by it than to get rid of.aHy association with
him.
If you mean by new party, a party Of
merely good, liberal fellows, Of men who,
while they have pronounced views, have with
them the utmost federation for the views of
others-of men who have not learned the
thrift which follows fawning or, with JOHN
Sherman, how to become q millionaire on a
modest salary of five thousand dollars a year
of men who would scorn to take advantage
of sfch of their fellow men as fortune had
placed under their authority to control-of
men who would not compel their employees.
their dependents or their relatives to vote as
they dictated-of honorable men who would
neither steal noT purchase votes, nor contrib
ute the means wherewith they might be
bought-there are many in both parties that
each Of US would caiI-merelyt to see that they
had transportation.
Parties, so composed, are not possible
The stronger the party, the more it has tc
give, the meaner its membership. Please ia
tell me, if you can, what inducements there
have been to attach man to the Democratic
party for the last twenty years-other than
its principles? Not to be egOtistical take
my case for an example. For twentv-fom
years I have been advocating its doctrines
and voting for its candidates. Profit it has
not given me-preferment it could not give
me. There is no Office at the disposal of any
Chief Magistrate it could have elected that
have ever wanted or would take Why
then, have ] been Democrat? The organ
iZatiou seemed to be dead enough i'm $50 and
1872 to satisfy anybody but a cannibaL i
could hardly elect a Justice of the peace, il
public notice had to be given Of the intention
The Republican party had drawn to its foll
pretty nearly all the wealth and activity o
the country. Like individuals suddenly
made prosperous, itarroCated to itself all tht
decency and intelligence eXtant. To be &
Democrat ia many places was to be an out
cast. You, who are SO fond of liberty an,
humanity Of grand order. ten me, if yot
cam why man, not born into idiocy OF over
taken by it. should have remained Demo
crat for twenty-four years?
It was so easy and so profitable. too, t.
change Like the gates of that place yGu de
i cline to take stock in, the gates of the Re
publican party stood open night and day
There was no Democrat SO mean as to lacl
( a welcome. His sins, though scarlet, werr
instantly oblterated and forgotten. And We
you-thoughtlessIy, I must beIieve-taIl
about the final collapse of an organization
which, without power patronage, or q fai
prospect Of either, could so hold its believer
together as to mount upward from its pitia
bic condition in 1870, TO the control of bot
7 Houses Of Congress and the election of il
President in less than six years. 1t may b
dead, bat not from the blows of its heredita