The Portland daily press., 1886-09-13

| matter of office holders?
Another great point which they made dur
ing the campaign, especially IN the west,
| the hills of New England, was that the Re-
| publican party had boarded up in the treas
| ury of the United States uncounted millions
| which might be poured out in fructlfylng
| streams to gladden. the land. Now, L admit that
| we never found that fault with them when we
| came into power. daughter and applause.)
| But it was charge that they made against
| us, and the Democratic orator set the fig
ures somewhat in proportion to his rank in
| the party. Mr.. Samuel j. Randall, who is
| an able Democrat, and strong man, stated
| that there were $500, 900 there. Mr.. Hen
| bricks, who was the largest Democrat al
| lowed upon the stump being the candidate
| 100000. Now it is very true that Mr.. John
| Sherman, who knew, promptly corrected the
| statements, and told the people of the Uni
| ted States that, while he did have $400,000,-
| 600 in the treasury $100000000 was reserved
to make good 1856, 600 of greenbacks al
ready out, and that another large sum was
| reserved to secure the bank circulation al
| ready out, and the balance was reserved to
| secure the gold and silver certificates which
| belonged to other people. Fortunately in
| this you do not have to rest upon the testi-
| mOny of anybody upon the other side. The
| very first thing the Democratic Secretary of
| the Treasury did after coming into power
| was to reform his bookkeeping in order to
| Randall had been mistaken. You will find
| in the very first report OF the Treasury De-
| partment issued in November, 1885, that the
| only money that the government had in the
| treasury that belongs to 1t, unlncumbered,
| was $S,O0O000 Did the Democratic Secre-
| tary of the Treasury proceed to pour that
| out upon the world? On the contrary, he
| set himself at work and boarded up $72,000-
| 600 more. We had left the country in so
prosperous a condition that in the course of
m nntSI61
| penses of the government he was able to add
| $72,000,000 more to what was already in the
| treasury, so that he had $S0,000000 in the
treasury when Congress adjourned. Now the
| the Democratic leaders in the House looked
| each other in the face and those who had
| been making this talk upon the stump said,
| toward the end of the session, "It will never
| do for us to face the people of the United
| States in this way; they will want to know
what has become of the S4OO.O00,OO0." And
| so Mr. Morrison, the Democratic leader, and
a very able and upright man, introduced
BILL not to pour out the $400, ,00e, 900, but to
pour out the $72,oOo,OOO that the Democratic
Secretary of the Treasury had boarded. He
passed the bill through the House, and then
it went up to the Senate, and the Senate
said, This is a great country; 1t takes
great deal of money to do its business, and
we will give the Democratic Secretary of the
Treasury the right to store up twenty mil
lions on deposit, and also give him the right,
in any great crisis, to suspend this law"
The Senate passed the bill, and it was re-
turned to the House, and the house passed it
and it was sent to the President, and the
President put it in his pocket. Now, just
mark what this transaction was. The DEM
ocrats had had possession of the House, with
a single exception, since 1874 and during all
that time they had Republican Secretary of
the Treasury, and they never once proposed
to limit his discretion as to boarding money
| in the treasury, but the moment a Democrat
| ic S S,cretary was placed in charge, they. pro-
| posed to take from him the Identical dlscre-
| tion which they had always repOsed in a Re-
publican Secretary. (Applause) Now, you
| can Judge what the House thought of the
| administration when it passed that bill, and
| you can judge also what the President
| thought of the House when he pocketed it.
| daughter andlapplause.) You have the un-
| preiudiced and unbiased opinion of two
| wings of the Democratic party each of the
| other. Naughter) What do you think of it
| 1t seemed to me at the beginning of the
| last session that in two particulars the DEM
| ocratic party had the finest opportunity for
| the exhibition of craftsmanship that was
ever granted to party in this country. At
| that time we found ourselves almost without
| navy AT the close of the war we had
| navy almost all wooden The navy was
sufficient then, but navies decay. Twenty
| years put an end to the best navy of wooden
| ships in the world, and after this the DEM
ocratic House. the House always having the
right to initiate appropriations, had refused
| to build new ship. For ten years there
| has not been new ship at the Kittery navy
yards. The Democratic House said, I'VE
| Will not trust you Republican officials. We
will repair ships, but we will not build
them." Well, they carried that out to a
| pretty severe extent, for they had to have
| some ships somehow, and l said to them, at
| the first session was there, 1T seems to
me. after tour of Kittery navy yard, that
| if the way you appropriate in this House is
| carried much farther it will amount to your
| taking an old ship to pieces and building
new ship around the hawser hole. Great
laughter and applause) Well, they did not
| Qaughter), and they did not pay much atten-
tion to what | said. Naughter.) And, in
| deed, they seldom pay much attention to a
man at his first session, anyway Qaughter.)
| That policy, and most expensive one, then
| have continued, and every now and they
| charge it upon us, saying, See the amount
| of money we have appropriated for navy.
and see what has become of it. Appropri-
| atedl Yes, but appropriated on their plan,
| and we had to follow their directions. But
| that thing came to an end, and at the begin
| ming of the last session we found ourselves
| without steel ships, the only ships proper to
| build, and our seas almost swept of navy
They could not claim any longer that they
| could not trust the officials because they had
| a Democratic Secretary of the Navy, and a
New York Democrat at that Now,
| then, what had they to do? Simply
| to propose to build navy, and we Republi-
cans were pledged by our speeches for ten
| years, and by our votes for ten years, to sup
| port them, and then Democratic officials
| would build the ships. In other words they
| would go ahead, trailing us after them, and
have all the glory, and we would have to
| keep our mouths closed because we would
| have to vote for the bill Surely, there was
clear plain way for them to conduct them
selves. What did they do? The Alabama
mittee, brought in a bill to expend six and a
| half millions of dollars for the navy, enough
| to start half dozen ships, not to build them,
but to start them. Now, six and half mil
| lions of dollars is a good deal of money, as
pocket money, but it is very small sum for
nation that raises three hundred and fifty
millions of dollars every year, and SO easily
that no one knows that he is burdened by 1T,
except some stump orator, perhaps. SIX and
half millions of dollars, when that bill
came into the House the Democratic leaders
said, "cut the bill in two, or we will kill 1t, y
and they cut in two. We Republicans prom
ised them every Republican vote for the
larger sum, and we gave them every. Repub-
lican vote without an exception in the whole
list and we told them that if they would
give us thirty Democrats we would pass the
larger sum, but we did not have the thirty
Democrats. and they, passed the bill appro-
priating three and half millions of dollars.
We'll, know of but one excuse for that,
which was that the Democratic secretary OF
the navy had had for eighteen months the
power to build two ships and had not even
|
this? For men do not act without motives. /
will tell you, after | speak of the fortldca-
tions.
/ suppose you all know that we are in
rather defenceleSS condition. l do not
wish you to consider me an alarmist. This
nation, with its sixty millions of people, and
possessing more riches than amy other
| nation in existence, can never be beaten OF
overthrown. We are too big and too strong
to be in any danger; but, after all, L can con-
ceive of circumstances under which oul
feelings might be badly hurt. daughter
We have three forts located in our harbor
Fort Gorges, fine bit of masonry, Fort
Scanned and Fort Preble. But suppose an
English war ship, with sixteen inch gun
modern rifed, should stand half dozer
miles off the shore and pitch into. one OF
those forts ton of cold cast steel? Thai
fort would not want another one. We art
| defenceleSS against modern artillery. Dc
YOU know how long it takes to build {
modern gun? Why, the time was wher
we only had to make mould and run
enough metal into it. and in few month:
we would have an eleven inch or a fifteer
inch gun At the close of the war we hat
the best artillery in the world, but today al
that is changed. Today gun has to bt
built up. You cannot cast steel in large
masses You have to have, first tube, and
then a Jacket shrunk on close around it, anC
then rings around that, and so on until yor
have built gun strong enough to stand the
recoil. How long do you suppose it woulC
take to build such gun in this country to-
day? One cannot be built in less thar
.t.a nier - t,.ol,