The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-07-24
POLITICAL ISLANDER.
What Henry Ward Beecher Thought of Dem-
ocratic sIander Of Public Men in 1880.

Ocratic SANDER of Public Men in 1880.
From Henry Ward Beecher's Sermon, Preached at
Plymouth Church, Noyemberl IA, $780,
good name is rather to be chosen than great riches
A good name is better than precious ointment.
Proverbs xxi, and vi. i.
ssThe value of good name is just as eminent
in regard to parties as it is to individuals to
firms, to corporations, to states and nations
What, when you come to the very marrow of it.
is the reason that the Democratic party has come
to scorn in this landq For am going to talk
plainly tonight. I don't ask what are the
sources from which votes have been gathered
but why is it that, taking the country through,
men of most feeling most religion, most civili-
cation, men most sound in business rela-
tions and men who stand highest in manhood
what is the reason that they are steadily en-
bodied and embattled against that partyl 1t is
because they have no confidence in its integrity.
1t is because it is rotten to the very center and
core; not every man that is in it. but the thing
called an organized party, which in its recent
manifesto before the work Of election had begun,
stultifed itself by the amazing declaration that
it renewed all its traditions and all its issues
that is to say, it's base subseryience to slavery,
its condoning secession, its refusing to help the
land through the great struggle for emancipa
ton and for liberty its obstruction to every step
/ of reconstruction, its blatant and persistent
folly in resisting all honesty in regard to cur
Fency and money matters these things so many
black streams, don't come from anything but
black pool at headquarters and at head waters.
It is party that has trucklcd to the baser rela-
tions and passions of men.
why is it that the Republican party, after
twenty years of power, has not lostitl Because
its reputation is such that men believe it means
liberty, civiizatian power for the best elements
in human society. That is its reputation and it
has gone into power again, or is on the eve of
doing it, unless the State of New York is thrown
out Laughter The Democratic party has
got bad name; and / don't know how it is going
to get rid of it. Certainly not in the measures
that have been taken will it be accomplished. In
the conduct of this campaign we expect, on eth
er side a certain amount of moral friction; and
am not here to say that the Republican party
has been without blemish. The conduct of the
campaign has developed certain elements of de-
pravity that never have been surpassed, and
very seldom equaled in this country; and it is a
part-of my purpose in preaching this sermon to
see to it that it shall never happen again. pro-
pose, as far as my testimony is concerned, as far
as can bring the Word of God to bear upon
this community, and the population at large, to
stamp the conduct that has been taking place
under the official sanction of the Democratic
party with such odium that man would sooner
sleep with a rotten dead man than with that
party.
"A good and great man is glory to State.
He may have faults which it may be fair to
mention, though perhaps uncharitable and un-
necessary. We cannot afford to put for four
years man in the presidential chair who is not
such man as the nation shall be proud of. By
as much as good name is a tower of strength to
a man and the glory of the nation over which he
presides, by just so much is the iniquity Of tax
ing away mans good name unjustly, foully.
That there has been most deliberate conspir-
acy carried out in all sits parts with foresight
with malign and infamous intent, to destroy the
name of General Garfield, I have no more doubt
than believe that / stand here, or that the
devil goes to and fro seeking whom he may
devour, up and down among men / have
watched the progress of it have seen the
venomous thrusts that have been made at him
a man believe as pure as any other man that
walks the earth; as conscientious, as sensitive
to everything that is pure and yirtuous; Christ
ian man, a Christian teacher, good father and
husband and neighbor, good man, whose whole
long life has been the earning Of reputation and
character that should rank him among the
good men of the earth.
IT am not speaking of the miserable scrib-
blers that have sought to join his name in the
transaction of money matters he has not
friend who, dying to-day, would not be proud to
put his estate into the hands Of James "A. Gar
field to take care of those whom he loved. Trust
is unbounded in him; yet they tried to make
him miserable thief and liar and to discrown
him. They seemed to think that noble citi-
zen, standing high in the estimation Of the
whole world is lawful prey, and that they are to
be credited with skill with power and greatness
that know how to disrobe him and to tarnish his
glory, which is the glory of the nation.
II say these things with grief would not
say them if the indignation of the Lord did
not stir me to the very bottom, and If did not
come that the men who undertook by lies,
by forgery, and by persistence in them, to
blight fair fame, that on that man should
rest the Indignation of the Lord and of the
nation, so that the people should be
the voice of God come to judge such man. 1t
will come, it has come; and, as when the thun-
der breaks in the summer among the mountains,
its crashis caught up by this mountain and
thrown to that and to that, and goes echoing
down upon the horizon, so down through the
course Of time the men that have conspired in