The Indianapolis journal., 1884-09-16
GENERAL BUTLEE.
Twenty Thousand People Listen to Him in
Union Square, New York.

twenty Thousand People Listen to Him in
Union square, New York.
NEW York, Sept. l5.--B Between Is, 900 and 20,
600 people assembled at Union Square, tonight.
TO hear Gen. B. r Butler speak 1t required
the services of half 4 dozen policemen to make a
passage way for the General to reach the stand
He was loudly cheered The crowd was com
posed largely of laboring men DR. Ferdinand
Seeger called the meeting to order, and intro
duced Louis F. Post as chairman. Mr Post
in a brief address, introduced that great Ameri
can Governor. Gen. B. F. Butler The cheers
that greeted the General as he came to the front
continued several minutes When quiet was
restored, General Butler said, in part:
Friends and Fellow-citizens: Thanking Won
for your kind greeting. I assume that your deep
interest in the affairs of the country and in the
political measures which should be taken to re-
lieve them, has brought vast an audience
together, This is, indeed. a ratification by great
New York of the inauguration of the Peoples
party the true Democracy Unlike the labored,
tedious and involved platforms of other political
parties, that of the Peoples party is short in
cisive and comprehensive of every principle for
the conduct of the government of the Republic
and can be easily carried in the memory Of
each 1t is this Equality of right
equality of burdens. equality of powers
and equality of privileges to all men
under the law None can deny that those were
the fundamental doctrines of the fathers of the
Republic adopted by jefferson. elaborated by
Madison, and executed by jackson. They were
the oetrines of the Democracy when that party
was indeed the party of the peonle, uncontrolled
by corruptionists and monopolists. / need not
argue to you that, in these latter days. Unequal
ity of rights. powers. burdens and privileges has
been imposed by governmental action on the
people. Corporations on which public functions
are imposed, and to whom public franchises are
granted should be the servants Of the people
only: but how contrary is the practice. Rail
roads elevated and surface as soon as incor
porated, by ingenious, and most often
fraudulent contrivances, erect themselves into
terrific and outrageous moDopolies. by means
of which the people are robbed of their earn
ings. their business hindered and crushed, and
many impoverished for the sole benefit of the
few. The people have endeavored to protect
themselves by granting charters to competing
railroad lines which promised to procure them
lower prices for fare and freight. But it is an
automatic fact that railroad competition always
ends in railroad ombination, and that combna-
nation is most frequently directed to the destruc-
tion of other modes of transportation which they
cannot control. The capacity of the Erie canal
should have been enlarged years ago and is
there man who hears me that does not know
that it would have been done had it not been for
the persistent. united and selfish opposition Of the
railroads. Let it not be said that this is State
question; it rises to much broader and higher
proportions. 1t is national one. The burden
of goods brought upon the Erie canal to the city ]
of New York exceeds the ocean traffic from the
city of New York. and here is done more than
two thirds of the commercial business Of the
country. This. now, is great national free
waterway If any internal improvements of
rivers and harbors water ways by the general
government can be justified. why is not enlarge
ment of this canal by appropriations a most
worthy object. excepting. perhaps, Improvement
of the great Father of Waters, the Mississippil
With an alternation of Democratic and Rpnull-