Arizona weekly citizen., 1882-09-24
REPUBLICAN RALLY.
An Enthusiastic Meeting.
Judge De Forest Porter Talks to the
 People.


Masonic Hall could not, under any } circumstances, contain larger numbeI
 of people than Thursday night greeted !, Hon. De Forest Porter. The Judge wal
 passing through Tucson. and was pre-.
 vailed upon to stop over one day and
 talk to the people of this city. The
 notice of meeting was necessarily very
 limited, else the capacity of the hall
 would have been entirely inadequate to
 accommodate the people. The band was
 Tn attendance with its cheerful strains.
 Mir. J. A. ZabriskIe presided and called
 the meeting to order shortly after eight
 o'clock, and introduced the speaker of
 the evening in the following language: | REPoBTED BY E. W. RIsLEY.
 Mir. Zabriskie said: Gentlemen of
 the Republican Club. We have met
 this evening to receive the candidate
 for Congress of the Republican party, a
 gentleman who IS well known to the
 citizens of thls Territory, who has oc-
 cupled prominent positions in the Ter
 rtory and who has been unanimously
 chosen by the Phenix convention as the
 Republican nominee for Delegate to | Congress; a gentleman who will speak
 to you tonight on the questions which
 agitste the political parties of the Ter
 r1tory and nation; gentleman who IS thoroughly yersed in all the principles that great party has advocated ! for so many years. Allow me to in- troduce to you the Hon. De Forest
 Porter, applause the Republican can didate for Delegate to Congress, who
 will certainly be elected at the next
 election, November :.
 SPEECH OF HON. DE FOREST PORTER.
 MT. Chairman and fellow citizens:
 Until quite recently, 1t bss been a long time since l attempted 10 make any thing like political speech and at this
 time do not propose to moke a speech of that character distinctively.
 | l received the nomination of the Re
 publican party for the office of Delegate l to Congress, and 1 pledged myself that fl l received that nominatiOn-being in
 the East at the tIme-that l would make
 the canvass. l returned from the East a
 few days before the convention met,
 bus after all the delegates had been
 elected, believe, except perhaps those from the town of Phenix. That con- yention saw fit, after considering the whole field to place me in nomination for this office, and in receiving 1t, fellow citizens, and in endel .oring to carry out the object of the convention, l feel as though great responsibility had been placed upon me. From the very nature of the office in our Territory, the result attained at Territorial con- yention IS necessarily unsatisfactory to some parts of the Territory. So long as We are in Territorial condition and but one small office of delegate to fill, we cannot expect that perfect harmony that exists ID State, where not only members of Con gress but governors, judges and a multitude of other offices are to be filled, and each member goes home feel ing that he has accomplished something for his section. While We are iu a Territorial condition We must rec0g- nize the inherent difficulties that are to be overcome. There Is only one office, Ysvspai cannot have 1t and give 1t to Pima county, Maricopa cannot have 1t and give 1t to Pima or Yavapai. It must go somewhere. Never has the central portion of Arizona had & delegate in Congress. Men from that part of the Territory have run for office, Judge Rush, King 5. WoOlsey and others, but in every instance they have been defeat ed. The Representative in Congress has come either from Yavapai or Pima counties every time with out a skip, and what I wish to say is that if we are going to have Republican party in this Terri tory we must make up our minds that we will recognize all localities and all portions of the Territory, and that we cannot all have the same thing at the same time. know of my own knOwl- edge that at the present time in all the central portion of the Territory there IS a better feeling existing between thal portion of the Territory and the ex- tremes than has ever existed before. l
 believe and know that people are not asking anything that IS unreasonable. All that they ask is this, that we work together for a common cause and serl- ously. honestly and candidly consider what Is for the best good of the party, and that we adopt such men and such measures as in the aggregate judgment of the whole party will best rebound to its prosperity. Applause,
 There is a disposition on the part of certain citizens of both parties to make light of political questions and treat them as a joke, something that really ought not to engage ths attention of reputable men, but when we come to consider that we are not living under a monarchial form of government, but that We have government of the people, by the people and fer the people, 1t Is the duty of every man that has the right to exercise the elective franchise, to de- vote some portion of his time to politl- cal questions, to look into the character of the candidates and to scrutinHe them closely, that they may be able to act in- telligently. To carry on the affairs of this government elections are necessary, con- | ventions are necessary and nominations are necessary; and l believe 1t IS the duty of the candidate who has received the nomination of a party, to meet, so far as he IS able, all of the people whose interests, under certain contingencies, are to be entrusted in his hands; and m this Territory when person starts for the purpose of accomplishing that Ob- ject he finds that 1t IS 6 very gigantic undertaking. We have a Territory nearly three times as large as the State Al NCN 4bA n anu OuA AAAAAbnu AhNAAANAoo only enable the candidate for office to 1 travel a short distance upon 1t, conse- quently it involves long journeys over the worst and best portions of Arizona in order that the candidate may put himself in intercourse with the people | of the Territory; in order that he may act inteIligently, if elected, by the peO- ple, when be comes to discharge this trust, and with that view 1t has been my aim, and will be until the close of this campaign, to meet as many people of the Territory of Arizona as l may. Fol lowing that course have recently been in the northern portion of Arizona and I find some things there that interest me outside of political questions l ind the railroad stretching across that coun- try where many years ago l used to ride out to Beals Springs where 1t was then nothing but paper survey and won- dered, WAS 1t possible that railroad would ever come into that remote part of this Union, yet only the other day, down, away below Railroad Springs, m that gloomy canyon, l had the pleasure of addressing a meeting of some four hundred men, who were constructing this great highway of the Nation. From there I travelled on towards point where the track has been laid and found that the railroad IS undoubtedly fixed fact. It is something that IS to be built, and if is not only to be built, but for some reason, of which I am not advised. there seems to be feverish en- deavor to build 1t at the most rapid 1 rate. The country IS filing with peo- ple. which, when I was there nine years ago. was absolutely deserted, absolutely | no living being in all that region. And l what more do we find in looking over that country? this, that the same re-