Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1880-08-29
DEMOCRATIC STATE TICAET.


wORKINGMEN FOR HANCOCK.
Col. John w. Forney, in a recent
speech at Philadelphia, thus referred to
the movement among the working classes
TO return to the Democracy 1t is
among these millions that / find the an
tidote to the disease of official interior
ence in our elections and in the manage
ment Of our parties. Do you think the
skilled workingmen of the United States,
free to think and fearless to act, in the
present struggle sympathize with the
o~ficeholders Do you think they read
the blighted record Of James A. Garfield
and accept the party cry that it is not a
faithful picture of his public life! Do
you think these men read the thrill
ing history Of Winfield S. Hancock
without enthusiasm Above all, can
you conceive that they are cold and un-
responsive to the present condition of
the Southern people? l know that no
class of American citizens have improved
more than the American workingmen.
Before the civil war these men were
largely Democrats; yet when the war
broke out the mass rushed to the defense
Of the government. 1t is a fact quite
reconcilable with this theory that most
Of the leading manufacturers of the
North were old-line Wings. But when
the war broke out, masters and men,
with very few exceptions, became Re-
publicans. Now things have been re-
versed, and the Democratic party is re-
ceiving back the contributions it made to
the country twenty years ago, and the
name of General Hancock, like that of
General jackson, comes to the mind and
to the heart Of every workingman in this
country with a double charm. Because
Hancock means a higher and nobler and
purer evangelism than party, and because
Hancock means comradeship and unity
Of hearts and Of hands, the visible and
invisible relationship between States and
sections. the friendship that binds the
mechanic of Philadelphia to his friend in
New Orleans, to his friend in San Fran
cisco and to his friend in Boston. Such
are the magicians silently and resistlessly
working to the same common end"
TIE Amy avn TuYr nuAuur
In his letter of 1876 to Gen. Sherman,
Gen. Hancock laments the unfortunate
position in the public estimation in which
the Republican party have forced the
army. "The army" he writes. 'is labor.
ing under disadvantages, and has been
used unlawfully at times, in the judg-
ment of the people lin mine. certainly
and we have lost q great deal of the
kindly feeling which the community at
large once felt for US. It il time to stop
and unload. Our regular army has little
hold upon the affections of the people
to-day, and its superior officers should
certainly, 30 far as lies in their power le-
gally, and with righteous intent, aim to
defend the right which to us is the law
and the institutions which they repre-
sent"
These sterling words are all the more
valuable because they embody the disin-
terested and sincere opinion of one of the
best officers of the service. They were
not written for public effect; they were
not intended for the public eye. The
General Of the army had privately sought
Hancock's opinion in the threatening
crisis that followed the last Presidential
election, and the reply was intended for
his eye alone. Nothing could more strik-
ingly exhibit the true soldier and the
true citizen at the same time than his
lamentatisn owe the army's loss of q hold
on the affections Of the people, and his
earnest wish to see it reinstated in the
popular heart. We're he q mere soldier,
taking the rules of camp or barrack life
as his only law Of action, he would not
care for the people. He would be like
those European army officers who set the
monarch or the government who pays
them above the people, and his sword
would be ready to smite the liberties Of
the country at the order Of his superiors.
But Hancock is an American statesman
a $ well as an American general. He had
witnessed with grief and pain how, un.
der the Grant administration, the army
had been employed in the South to break
up Legislatures, to overawe the people,
to support robbers and adventures like
Kellogg, Ames, Chamberlain and Scott
while they plundered the States; he had
seen how . spirit Of fear and hatred Of
the army had begun to creep into the
public mind A. the result Of this lawless
policy, and he expresses his sorrow with
. soldiers bluntnsss Of speech In this
letter to- Sherman.
But 1t il strange that while Han cock
thinks the army has been used too freely
against the people the Republican leaders
think it has not been used freely enough.
They would place the Congressional cleo.
tions in all the States under military sur |
VIGILANCE; they would send the troops
back into Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama
and South Carolina to divide with the
people Of those States the duties and
privileges of government, and thrust the
sword and the bayonet into the domestic