Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1882-10-22
Blaine on the Republican Party.

In opening the Republican canvass
i'll Maine few days ago, ex-senator
Blaine thus eulogized the Republican
party:
This country to night, from ocean
to ocean, from lake to Gulf, presents
a degree of prosperity widespread,
more general, more firmly based and
founded than ever before In its his
tory. Now, I do not say that legise
lation has brought about all that, but
legislation has aided it, and it Ger
tainly has not hindered it. If you
wait for the law to grow crops or to
spin cotton or to forge iron and steel,
you wait for a long time, but if you
feel that the law is behind you and
above you and around you, protect
ing and encouraging you, you raise
crops and spin cotton and forge the
steel with a good deal more as
surance of good prices and a
fair market, and all that the
law could dc, and all that a wise
administration of law has been able
to effect, can be claimed by the Re-
publican party without a division of
the honor with any other party of
the country. Loud applause For
twenty-one years past last March
the destiny of the United States of
America, in so far as that destiny
can be controlled by political party,
has been in the keeping of the Re-
publican party of the United States,
and if there be a greater chapter of
history written in the annals of hu~
man kind | would like Governor
Plaisted, or any other gentleman
supporting him, to be kind enough
to point it out. If there be any
chapter of history in which human
progress has been so rapid, in which
human rights have been guaranteed
so firmly and enlarged so grandly as
within that period, [ am ignorant of
where to look for it or where to find
it, and now at the end of these
twenty one years, in this blessed
year of 1882, we find an opposition
made up Of two or three parties
What do they propose to do? Moths
ing. The positive measures, the ags
gressive policies, the definition IF the
line, and the meets and bounds of
legislation have all been taken and
prescribed by the Republican party,
and outside of it we have had obiec-
ton, and cavil, and bubble, and
SANDER, and all manner of dishonora-
bic and mean critics following as camp
followers after great procession
that has gone ahead. but | challenge
any gentleman to show that in the
whole of the twenty.one years the
Democratic party and its various
side issues, like Gr9enback and labor
and other organizations has ever pro
posed measure that was able to be
materialized in the form of O bill
or resolve of the Congress of the
United States for the amelioratior
of any human woe or for the adj
vacement of any public good. APP
plause.l Whatever may be SAID O
: the Republican party, and that {
party could be in power twenty-ont
years and not make a mistake would
: be absurd-that party could hav,
millions OF people and not dishon
est man among them would b.
absurd-but whatever can be said o
:. the Republican party, there is on
thing that never can be truthful,
said: it never can be said that it wa
not brave party. 1t never can b
said that it had drop of cowsrd
blood in its whole organizotion-T az
plause never When that institu
. ton which represented 100000
900, encased in the prejudices of tw
Il centuries and representing the labo
d element of fifteen States and thrice
e million people stood III the way of til
= Union; the Republican party met
>. with the sword of justice and it wa
. not applause and never fro
'e that hour to this, never in any cris
n that in these full twenty,one yeal
j.. of the Republican party's majorit,
never in one case has it been unwii
ling, or unable, or afraid to take tt
responsibility; and, gentlemen, yo
pirate of the South, and the wrong
done to it; why, since Maine was
ct State-aye, identically since Mail
lie was State-the date serves me pr
We cisely. coming in on top of the gre
in Missouri compromise, that first VIC
O. and deep agitation of the SLAYER
question-never from that hour
this in the sixty-two years that hay
a interviewed has the feeling betwee
Est the North and South been as cordi
an and frsternal as it is Tonight a
in plause never has the time bee
go before when, in every county al
O. district and settlement of the Sout
IL l. L.