Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-10-21
), WIS, THURSDAY, OCTOBER q, 1880.

TO fight for then as that viii end it." Did tbs
people respond to that2 The answer was: This
Icandidate is better than his party. He was only
unready: but his party was untrue. Applause
But vet the great statesman that the affection;
Of the people had climbed about; that had writ
ten a more glorious page III our history than any
one since W ashingtOn [applausel: that had made
liberty universal, and had diSpelled the shadow:
of color and the lines of race is the president foi
US rather than the great general of the union
untrue during the trials through which this coun-
try had passed" Applause.1 So the people did
not accept the great union general.
Well, in 1868, they said: I'VE offer you a can
didate now from the north-always from the
nOrth-GOyernor Seymour, a candidate better
than his party" Well that was true. How un-
der heaven should these people think-wheT ours
IS government not of men, not of kings not oil
nobles but of the mass of the popular feeling and
OF public principle that IS represented in the pres
! idency-hOw, say, should they think that a
party could commend itself TO the suffrage by say
ing its candidate was better than they? What a
reason for taking party, that it is worse than
| the candidate Laughter. L don't know that
our countrymen have eaten of the insane root
| and have gone mad, but don't think that anY
answers they made to that proposition show that
| they have lost their wits at all. Well now Gov.
! Seymour was better than the party. In fact rs
he has gone on increasing in excellence l think
he IS better than any party, or, in fact, | don't
}
/ [Laughter.] That may be. | know he showed a
/ very extreme instance of that forgiving spirit
! and that humbleness of soul which are said to
mark the Christian when, clothed with the sword
of power and speaking in the name of authority,
when your streets were red with the blood Of in-
nOcents, he spoke to the rioters as his friends.
| Now, that suits man for some departments of
| life, but not for the command of the army and
navy of the United States. [Great applause
| MORE OF DEMOCRATIC oFFLRs.
Well in 1872 they said: "Those people are
| very hard to please. We have offered them can
| didates that were better than our party; now we
will offer them another candidate, aman whe
| don't belong to our party at all. Laughter. ]
| These northern men" they said ''are of rather
melOdramatic temperament. They Ikea show
! and what could be finer show than for great
party to take candidate for the presidency right
off from the top of the other party. Laughter |
Well, they said, you must admit that that can
didate is better than our party daughter. ]
They said: I'VE only presented YOU before a 10y
al patch upon mOth-eaten garment of rebellion
and democracy" [Laughter.l We'll" We re-
piled, 1--WE admit that you have not presented Il
patch, but you have actually clothed yourselves
III another mans garment" and we added: Our
notion that the party that is in power ought to
be in power, is the transaction which the American
people pass upon in their presidential elections,
and We will vote for Gen. Grant and not for Hor-
ace Greeley" [Applause.
''Well" they said ''we have tried everything
Now we will have man after heart,
man that does not come from the republican
party, man that is not better than own party,
who can tell about these tickle, melodramatic
northerners, who are always running into scrapes
for want of prudence thrift and f0Tethought-a
people that you not keep out Of the fire out
OF the water" And so they presented our dis
tmguished fellOw-citizens and my classmate-
Samuel j. Tilden. Laughter. Well, that was
very fine. Now they say: Look at him! See
how we have come back to our true colors Did
you ever see" say they, "a pattern that was bet
ter matched by patch on it than the democratic
party was by Samuel j. Tilden? Laughter
Now you can not object to that" Well, the peo-
pie said Let us look at that. Didn't you
Vnen twenty years ago-lS562 for this Tilden
candidacy was in 1860 Let us look a THAT.
Somehow or other it strikes us that history is
peating itself, and that the voters that voted
for Buchanan are to vote for Tilden, and we will
agree that, so far as we can see IN record and i'll
temper, Tilden and Buchanan are as like as two
peas. Laughter.] Now, we have had that pat
tern before, the people said ''and we will choose
Hayes" [Great applause.
Well now, gentlemen, We come along down. At
their elections the democratic party has been
made up of the same cOnsituents-the solid south
and the dessicated democracy of the north
laughter and the people have passed upon them
as such. And now they present again the same
EcOmbination-the solid south and the dessicated
democracy of the north, neither more nor less
and they have chosen a candidate, saying, HAY
ing tired ourselves with pleasing you by Offering
every pattern and patch We will give you another
candidate that is better than our party" Indeed,
a very eminent public thinker and writer, who
seldom speaks within bounds has thought to
frighten the people of tie country that espOused
the republican candidate by saying that our
didate (God bless hm0 General Garfield Ttremen-
dous applause and cheenng]-this is the crushing
criticism upon hiIn-s M better than his party.
Well, we thought so we hought so. We thought
the party as good scOuld be, and that, while
it could findin its ranks md in its lead many ymen
that were worthy of its aonors and its votes We
really must be excused from saying could find
| any one man that was bitter than the great re
publican party. lApplalse.]
Now this is an extraordinary business. The
democratic party, conscious of the beam in its
own eye and knowing that there isnot even a
mote in the eye of the eepublican party Qaugh-
teri, has sought to makea balance of the beam in
the democratic party against the mote in the re-
publican candidate WILL that is an extraordin-
ary situation A whole party trying to make a
balance out of themselves against what they
charge as a blemish in or candidate They try
to make balance against the enormous iniquities
unrepented of and net yet laid aside; every eplu-
let every plume every rifle, every cartridgebox
| every sword-belt, every hOlser still surrounding
the democratic party in It's rdatlon to our insitu
tim" and our prosperity, the! think to draw at
tentiOn to what they call note in our candidate.
NO BETTER THAN EIs PARTY"
ell gentleman when Mr.. Black desiring to
help his party, said that Garfield personally was
one of the honest warmest- hearted. most gueless
men that he ever knew Tapnause], that he vas a
man of genius, of learning, of eloquence, OF
popular power, he knew W bere to put the only
| arrow that could pierce any harness Of our candi-
date when he said: But good as he is, he can
not in politics and in government be any better
than his party [Laughter and applausel. Now, |
Gen. Garfield [applause stands before the Ameri- |
can people rs candidate for the highest hOnOrS |
upon plane of longer md more varied exper-
ience of better proved opacity, of larger benevo
lence of a comprehenive mind and tender
heart for his countrymeis difficulties and dangers
and sorrows that any candidate that has been |
presented to the peopl of the United States bv |
either party since HenryClay.
l had occasion to remrk four years ago ON the |
superciliousness of our Eastern people here
New York and New EIgland, and the Atlantic |
board-Of taking it for ranted that because the |
candidate, lifted up on he shoulders of the great
people of the west was lot as familiar to OBJ
servaton and as clear 1Our estimate as one of |
our great men; of assuming that he was not so fit
as he should be and and voting in the dark |
against him as so many did against President |
Hayes. But now that L has stood in the light |
four years now that his,ountrymen and the pub
lie men of Europe hav estimated his public SER
vices and when our peole feel that the full rush
of honesty, of fidelity wich brought prosperity
IN the very finger-ends CeYery man in the land
they begin to think hat if they had known
President Hayes as wellour years ago as they do
now, he would have lad a larger majority.
TGreat applause and crs of That's SOL We
had the same talk aOut him then that they
would ike to engage ou IN now about Gen.
Garfield. They had the same talk about him
then, L say, that he ,emed to be good man,
but they did not know eactly by what counsels
and advisers he would surrounded. They did