Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-06-25
TAYLOR'S KEYNOTE.
Speech of the Temporary Chairman
at Springfield.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION
Accept my profound thanks for the dis
tinguished honor you have conferred
upon me, in making me temporary chair
man of this, the largest and most enthu+
siastic convention ever held in Ohio. We
are again confronted by issues. State and
National, of the most vital Importance.
Since you last met in convention, the
most anomalous event in history has
transpired in our country. By cOmbi-
nation of crimes, accidents and blunders
this Government, with all its great in
terests, has passed out of the control of
the party that saved it from treason and
disunioD, into the hands of the party,
which, through its leaders, sought for
| four long and bloody years to tear it
from its proud place among the nations
of the earth, and hurl its discovered
| fragments into the vortex of anarchy
and dissolution. This crime of crimes,
condoned by the Over-magnanimity of
the Republican party, unatoDed for and
unrepented of, by its chief participants,
rears its head again in the government
at Washington. The soldiers of this
Union, brave defenders of their coun>
trys honor, have suffered the humilia>
tion of seeing the men they fought and
vanquished on the field, elevated to the
high places of the nation, and entrusted
with the public welfare. This stigma
must be wiped out, and here the work
must begin, to be completed in 1888. The
nation, born of the throes of the revolu-
tion, and redeemed by her loyal sons
from secession, must be rescued from
the domination of the Democratic party.
If this shall be the outcome of our mas
tional chastising, then shall this afflic+
tion, though grievous for the moment,
work out for us far more exceeding
and eternal weight of national glory.
The responsible duty of marking out a
line of policy, and d.of deciding upon men
and measures, around which the Repub+
licans shall rally for victory, is the work
of this Conkention. And ] desire to
suggest the fact that the Democratic
leaders and the present Democratic ad-
ministration are i'll content with the
meager triumph they won last fall; and
success is but half success, when con-
fined to the very narrow margin of
few hundred votes in an aggregate of
over ten millions. Their victory accom-
plished through treachery and fraud,
UdoCO upOh AO 10 AlOIAO lDOlC
than barren ideality to them unless it
can be supplemented by conquests more
decided, and won upon bolder issues.
They require victories in Ohio and New
York and Virginia, this year, to remove
the cloud and to ratify their doubtful
title to the Presidency. To this end eve
ry nerve of the administration will be
strained. Nobody will be long deceived
by the bogus cry of reform. Whatever
can be done to continue the Democratic
party in power will be done, though eve
ry principle of the constitution, and eVe-
~ law upon the statute books should be
trampled under foot. If you doubt this,
turn to the history of the Democratic
party. l., pathway in all the past has
Deen through spOils aRd blood and trea-
son. Neither bench nor bar, church nor
State, men nor devils, have been able to
stand in the way of the ungodly ambi-
tion of the leaders of the Democratic
party.
THE ADMINISTRATION.
l have no criticisms to make on Presi>
dent Cleveland. l believe him to be in
finitely better than the party leaders who
are behind him. The most prominent
feature of bis administration, however,
is the embarrassment under which he
labors because of his obligations to the
civil service reformers of New York
and New England and the ex-Confeder+
ates of the South. The effort to har-
monize these conflicting elements will
become more and more hopleess and i'm
possible; and the hypocritical cant
which now characteriZes the hollow
pretense of civil service reform will pass
away with the summer showers. The
South always has, and always will con-
troll the Democratic party, no matter
whom they place in the Presidential
chair. Even now, men who have been
hid away in the mountains of New Eng
land because the taint of disloyalty was
upon their garments, men who struck
hands with the coAspirators who met in
Canada during the war to devise schemes
for the destruction of the northern
States, men who boast of their treason
and who have disdainfully refused citi-
Zenship, men who openly avowed their |
devotion to jeff. Davis and the cause in |
which he was engaged, are appointed to |
places of the highest trust, while men |
whose loyalty and ability have never |
been questioned, men who fought in the |
Union army from Sumter to AppOmat-
toX, are removed to make places for |
boastful rebels. 1t is a scene to make
angels weep, and to sting every loyal
man in this land as with scorpions
fang when, upon the floor of the Amer
ican Congress there are to be found men
to stand up, and with serene satisfaction,
parade before the country the fact that
they were in the Confederate Congress-"
that they were in the Confederate
Army and with warm eulogiums, de-
clare jefferson DaAis" to be "man of
honor and patriot" Ohio should be
forever proud that she had one Senator
who dared to rise in his place and de-
clare that jeff Davis was conspirator
and traitor, in the war and before the
war, and would be so branded for a
thousand years to come. But the eulor
gist of the arch traitor, the man who
his seat in the United States
Congress in 1860 to take seat in the
secession convention of his State, and
fight in the rebel army, and who was the
trusted and confidential agent of the
abroad, dusing the war, is
to-day at the head of the department
which controls all the pension interests
Of the Union soldiers, and is honored
with seat in the Presidents Cabinet.
Three months of Clevelands adminis>
tration have scarcely elapsed, and yet we
have seen score of unrepentant rebels
placed in representative positions abroad
We have seen the stars and stripes at
half mast in Washington in honor of the
man who plotted to burn northern cities
and law waste Northern States. We have
seen honors piled mountain high on red
handed traitors while Union men and
Union soldiers are directed to "pass by
IN the other side." THE war is over"
.ry these men, while they never omit an
to faunt their treason in
he faces of American people.
THE REAL ISSUE.
The time has come to lay aside weak
zneed sentimentalism. The South sur
rendered at AppommattoY. but unfortu-
ataiv haV haQn SurrAndariDr | ,