The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1880-09-09
Gen. (sarficld's Grafton.

| invited 10 ne present ana deliver an adj
dress, which he accepted, and spoke as fol-
lows:
| FELLow-CIT1zESs This is y great fam
! lily gathering, q military family, for in
war regiment is to the army what a fam
lily is to the whole civilized community.
Here portion of the platform fell
A military reunion without some excite
ment and some accident would be altogeth-
er too monotonous and tame to be interest
ing, and in this good-natured audience we
can have a good many accidents like
that and still keep quiet and be happy.
Nineteen years ago l met crowd of earn
est citizens in that courtroom above stairs
Your bell was rung, your people came out,
the teacher OF your schools was among
them; the boys of the school were there,
and after we had talked together little
! flag, the teacher of the school offered him.
self to his country, and twenty of his boys
with him. Two hundred of your chill
dren stood in the centre Of our military
family and bore those old banners that YOU
see scattered before you to-day. We are
grateful for the welcome rendered us to-
day by this great assembly Of our old
neighbors and friends of Ashland county.
Now, tellow-citizens, a regiment, like
family, has right to be a little clannish
and exclusive. It does not deny the right
of any other family to the same privileges,
but it holds the members of its own family
little nearer and little dearer than any
other family in the world and so the For
ty-second Regiment has always been a
band Of brothers. The worst thing I have
ever heard said against it is that all its
three field officers came home alive, and
they are all here on this stand to-day. 1t
was perhaps 4 little against us that no one
of us had the honor to get killed or seri-
ous}y crippled: but we hold that it was not
altogether our fault, and we trust that
some day or other you will have forgiven
! us, if you have not to-day, for being alive
and all here together. l want to say an
other thing about the soldiers work. +
know of nothing in all the circle of human
duty that unites men as the common
suffering and danger and struggle that
war brings upon a regiment. YOU cannot
know q man SO thoroughly and so soon rs
by the tremendous tests to which the war
subjects him. These men knew each other
by sight long before they knew each other
by heart, but before the y got back home
they knew each other as you sometimes
say you know 4 song. For they had been
tested by fire: they had been tested by star
walton, they had been tested by the grim
presence Of death, and each knew that
those who remained were Union men,
men that in all the hard, close chances of
life had the stuff in them that enabled
them to stand up tn the very extremes
they did, and such men 50 tried and so ac-
qua;nted never got over it, and the rest of
the world must permit them to be Just a
little clannish towards each other. We
have been meeting together in this way for
rearly fifteen years, and we have made a
pledge to each other that as long as there
are two Of us left to shake hands we will
meet and greet the survivors. I see here
and there bald head like my own, or 4
white one like Capt. Gardeners, but to me
these men will he boys until they die. We
call them boys. We meet and greet them
as boys. even though they become very old
| boys. Nothing can get us a great way
! from each other while we live. l am glad
to meet these men here to-day Here
another portion Of the platform broke
down precipitating General Garfield and
two or three Of the reporters to the ground
| When he had mounted another portion of
the platform and recovered his breath he
continued: I was glad also that there was
nobody hurt when that broke, and nobody
made unhappy, and I will conclude all I
wanted to say, more than I intended to
|
without one single thought of revenge in
their hearts. They went out to maintain
this Union and make it immortal to put
their own immortal lives into it and make
it possible that the people of Ashland
should make the monogram Of the United
States as you see up there pointing to the
monogram on the building a wreath with
"Union'' inside Of very large s:N.")-a
a capital s'N' that stands for nation. a
nation SO large that it includes "U. S. A."
all the people Of the republic-and will
include it for evermorc; that is what we
meant then and it is what we mean now.
And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of
the Forty-second Regiment for I have
been talking mainly to you. and if any of
this crowd have overheard I am not to
blame for i'll say. fellow-citizens and
comrades, greet you to-day with great
satisfaction and bid YOU cordial goodbye.
Democratic Fraud in Maine Last
| Year.
| New York Times.
| The supreme court of the state of Maine
has Just decided what is known as the
Cumberland county case" the details of
which are instructive They illustrate
very forcibly the democratic methods pur-
sued in Maine and elsewhere. At the
September elections in 1879 VIM. L.
Prince was the republican candidate for
commissioner of the county OF Cumber-
land, and VIM. B. Skillin was the demo-
cratic candidate for that Office. In max
ing up the returns Gov. Garcelon and his
democratic associates threw out the entire
vote of the city of Portland, the return
being rejected as illegal because two votes
were returned as scattering, when the re-
turn should have given the names of all
the candidates voted for. This rejection
Of 6,3l3 votes cast in the city Of Portland
defeated the republican candidate on the
face OF the returns. But it SO happened