The Portland daily press., 1884-08-20

The exercises were held in hard wood
grove on the hill side, where the people began
to gather as early as eight O'Clock in the morn
ing. They whiled away the time in singing
jubilee songs, eating lunches, e,c Camp
1hee!iug john Allen, improved the oppor-
tuat5 to make temperance speech aud was
received with great applause. 1t was de-
lightful diy, 18th not u cloud in the sky,
while u cool bresz rastlol tue leaves of the
grove. The hllis all mountains of the Sandy
and Read river rsgious formed sublime
amphitheaire for tho animated scene.
The meeting wag called to order at one
o'clcck by Hou. j. w. Porter. Prayer was
offered by Rev. Apsey of Cambridge, Mass :,
after which Mr. Porter announced the organi-
zation of the meeting as follows:
President-Nelson Dingey, jr.
Vice-Presidents-D. G. Bean OF Wilton. 7.
G. Hoyt Of Pennington.
Secretariess-M. Il. Noble of Phillips, D. Fl.
Knowlton of Farmlngton, o. M. Moore of
Waterville.
President Dingley in taking the chair spok @
as follows:
MR.. DINGLEY' 8 SPEECH.
Congressman DiDgley. on taking the chair,
spoke substantially as follows:
F'elloao Republicans, Ladies and Gentlemen
We stand to-day on sacred ground. Thirty
years ago, on the 7th of August, 1854, almost
on the verI spot where 1 now stand, the Re-
publican party of Maine was christened and
held its first delegate convention as distinct
organization, bearing the name which marks
it as the party of freedom, Justice and equal
rights.
Two years before, in 1852, in the sdioinino
county of Oxford the first blow had been struck
against the arrog ant power of the Bourbon De-
mocracy, by the progressive temperance and
anti.savery wing OF that party, led BY such
sterling men as Hon. John j. Perry, Sidney
Perham, Alden Chase, Hiram Hubbard ami
the late Hon. Noah Prince, r. S. Stevens. DIR.
7. a. Brown, DIR. Mitchell and others. The
immediate occasion Of this action of the pro.
gressive and temperance wing of the Democra-
cy, was the denomination by the Oxford coun-
ty Democratic convention of two Senators who
had opposed Gov. Hubbard because he had
signed the Maine law of 1851, which was passed
by union of temperance Democrats, Wings
and Free Sellers. The little fire kindled on
the inspiring hills of old Oxford extended the
next year 1853) into every county in the State,
and led to the famous mass convention of inde-
pendent Democrats in Portland, which Hput
that old war-horse, Hon. Anson p Morrill,, in
nomination as an Independent Democratic can
dldate for governor against Albert Pilsbury
the regular Bourbon Democratic candidate.
When the slave rover fully developed their
purposes by forcing the Democratic party to re-
peal the Missouri Compromise on the Both of
May. 1884, in order that Kansas and Nebraska
might be opened to slavery, the rising feeling
OF resistance to It's expressions found in Maine
a political field already white for a harvest of
freedom. The IL 600 Democrats who had vot
ed for Auson P. Morrill, at the election of 1858,
nine-tenths of the Wings and all the Free
Solers, found themselves in full accord on the
overshadowing nat onal issue of resistance to
thA nXtAnainn of al md fbn aIx1 1aoc
exciting State issue OF resistance to the aggres-
sioDS OF the dram shop.
1t was inevitable that men who thought
alike on the great ISSUES of the day should drop
their Old party associations and names, and
come together in one organic alton and under a
common name. Parties whicf live and be-
come power are born not made; are welded
by common principles and identical aims, and
not By desire to obtain the offices.
30 it came TO pass that the three political Or
ganizaton in Maine Composed OF men who
thought alike, although meeting at first in sep
arate county conventions, inevitably came to
unite on common nominations, and common
platform of principles. But it was in this free
dom-luving county of franklin that this prac,
tical union which existed Ia every county in
Maine, between free Democrats, Free Soilers
and anti-slaVery Wings first found expression
in one convention, nominating candidates as
one organization, and formally announcing
that hencefork they would stand shoulder to
shoulder as the new party of freedom, whose
name should be the Republican Pdrty.
do not propose to detain you, my friends,
by rehearsing the events of that August day,
years ago, when the freedom-loving voters OF
franklin county assembled in this beautiful
village in three separate conventions as men,
bers of three distinct parties, and comparing
| notes through a committee, discovered what
all knew before, that they were of one mind
and one aim, and of right ought to be one or
ganiZation and one party.
B. Morrison, j. W. Porter, J. G. Hoyt, Alvan
Currier, Sewall Cram, W. 81. Josselyn, p M.
Stubbs, j. D. Prescott, G. j. Talbot, J. Fl.
Willard, b. F. Eastman, Seward Dill, John
Titeomb, Robert Goodenow, A. G.. Wheeler,
j. S. Swift O. L. Currier, P. M. Garcelon and
others-some still living and with us here TO-