Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1883-12-08
REVENUE REFORM.
MR.. HENRY WATTERSON DISCUSSES
IT'S RELATION TO THE STATE
OF PARTIES.
THE STORY OF HOW THE
SOUTH WAS TAUGHT FREE
DOM AND GREW TO
BE A GIANT.
The People Will spit upon the Lobby
and Defy the Bandit Lords
of Monopoly.
Cooper Institute Crowded With the
Greatest Thinkers of the East,
Who Heartily Applaud
the Speaker.
His Address I'm Full.


cluded the best thinkers in this section,
who give attention to the subjects of
free trade, fair trade and protection. |
While the closest attention was given
the utterances Of the speaker, the ap- |
plause was generous and genuine.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher presided
and presented Mr.. Watterson, who had
a most cordial reception. Mr.. Beecher
said: "As to the charge that am a |
republican, 1 do not deny it, but they |
do not own me. Every citizen must |
do what he can to further the ends of
the government, and he can only do
this by working with enc of the great
man, but only by courtesy. l am q
citizen, and | am here to perform my
duties as SUCH" Mr.. Beecher went OH
to say that he believed the protective
system was a grinding oppression on
the poor men of the country. If it
was right to tax clothes and books
and pictures and iron, it could not be
wrong to tax ministers, and yet he did
not intend tax should be put up
on such men as DR.. Hall. 1t was per-
protectionists.
short address by David A. Wells.
MIR. wATrERsoN's ADDRESS.
lam sure there was no need for me,
or for any one, to travel all the way
from Kentucky to instruct you, fellow
citizens, in prudent and honest doc
trines of revenue reform. l wish rath-
er to talk to you about the relation Of
these to the present state of parties and
public affairs. l have come with
message from Gods country. l have
come from the wheat-field aud the cot.
ton; patch to tell the hot and fat gos-
pellers of monopoly that there is land
ON the other side of the Alleghanies and
the Blue Ridge. Through you, who
are all right, want, if possible, to
reach those who are all wrong; and,
seeing how the wind sits in certain
quarters, it does seem about time that
some one should remind the east that
| there are a west and south.
THE TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE.
Let me assure you that say this in
no sectional spirit. | feel entirely at
home here and shall speak with perfect
unreserve. L know that you are with
me heart and soul, and you know that
am with you heart and soul, and it
makes q great difference to a man
whether he be surrounded by his friends
or his enemies. Naturally such ali as
semblage as this, and such suggestions
as have come to us tonight, produce a
confidence bordering on elation. So,
shall net qualify, nor excuse the salts
faction it gives me to deliver the mes
sage which the south and west send to
the east. 1t is simply "Stand from be-
tween lis and the SUM-"
do not mean to be boastful. am
willing to admit that, according to the
ratio of population, there are as many
"natural born fools" in the south and
west as there are in the east. But we
have one considerable advantage over
you. We are an educated people; we
have passed with honor through the
university Of war and taken degrees in
the college of bankruptcy. We have
had our ups and downs, our tribula-
tions and our trials, and we are sick
unto death of temporizing and tomfool-
ing. Victims of mistaken economic
theories, we know what vicious sys-
TEN is, and what, worked out to its
logical and inevitable consequences, it
can do, first to blind, and then to ruin,
a people. You have yet to learn and
there is just the difference.
refer particularly to the south, and,
with the melancholy but instructive
story of the south as my warrant, en-
treat the protectionist of to-day to
peruse the lesson and beware of the
fate of the slave-Owner of yesterday.
There is remarkable analogy be-
tween the sophisms of protection and
the sophisms of slavery. Indeed, pro-
lection is but new slavery, which the
misled rapacity of eligarchism is set
ting up in place of the old. The one
is as sectional in its operations, tenden-
cies and alliances, and as aristocratic
and arrogant in Its temper, as was the
other. In both, the thoughtful student
may trace the course of error working,
through the lust of avarice and power,
a moral, social, industrial degradation
then financial destruction then political
annihilation. In blood, treasure and
tears, in sack-cloth and ashes, the south
has paid its debt. But, with the his
tory of the south before it, is it not
amazing that there should be any party
in this country wild enough to urge i'll
, telligent people to adopt a set OF doc.
trines which are not only false upon
their face, but have been tried and
found to be both false and ruinous III
practice?
THE STORY OF THE SOUTH.
There was land Of wine, milk and
honey. The soft sunshine of Gods
J love and bounty had kissed it into 8
rich fruition whilst it yet slept in the
cradle of the wilderness. A people
gay and brave, and simple minded and
tender hearted, found the infant Sleep
ing and took it into their arms They
awakened it to human life. They
brought it up to robust manhood.
They taught it freedom and it grew to
be giant. Not less than its brother
who had been handled by the storms
and nurtured upon the rocks of New
England, did this young American love
liberty, and when the time came fol
f the two to stand in q common defense
side by side and shoulder to
shoulder, they went forth with
one brain and heart to drive
back the advancing legions OF special
privilege. AS | recall it. there was a
high priest of protection on the other
side Of the Atlantic who claimed the
. right to give beunties and levy taxes
with willful regard for the interests
; OF the few, and very little, if any, re-
l gard for the interests of the many. As
is not often the case. the many had the
sense and courage to organize and
4 carry into effect all opportune revolt
. and, as is always the case when they
have and do, monopoly went down be.
fore them. In word, the war of the
revolution was 4 great revenue reform
' movement, and the triumph with which
it ended victory for commercial, nc
less than national freedom.
1t would have been strange, indeed
if such struggle and such conyalsions
as it occasioned everywhere, had no