The Portland daily press., 1888-09-08
SANFORD'S GINGER
THE BOY MAYOR
Talks to Tired Democrats in City
Hall.

People seem to be getting rather tired of
Democratic eloquence. for last evening even
with so great and distinguished a gentleman
as the Hon. VIM. E. Russell, the boy mayor,
who hopes vainly to figure successfully in
the coming Massachusetts campaign, to
draw them out, they were unable to attract
hardly more than 1900 people inside the
walls Of City Hall. The meeting was to have
begun al 7.30, but, singularly enough, at 7.3O
there was scarcely an audience, and no
speakers, SO that there was an impromptu
postponement until eight o'clock. But at
last the meeting began. Mr. Larrabee called
it to order and presented the Hon. John w.
Deering as chairman. Mr.. Deering, in be-
ginning, thanked his audience for the honor
conferred, and then, proceeding, said with
reference to the people, that they desire e.
political change in their State officials, ard,
if we do not elect Hon. VIM. L. Putnam on
Monday next, we shall at least reduce the
plurality of our opponents. believe thRt
the times are rife for such change, and that
If we do our duty, and if we go to the polls
en- masse, that you will seat Mr.. Putnam in
the governors chair. Farther on in his re-
marks, Mr.. Deering, in speaking of Presi-
dent Cleveland said: ''And l stand here,
ladies and gentlemen, to assert that Grover
Cleveland is the peer of any of those emil
nent and illustrious Presidents that have sat
in the executive chair at Washington" Mr..
Deering was unbounded in his praise of Mr..
Putnam, comparing him with the President
and stating that they mad many qualities in
common.
The speaker of the evening. Mr.. Russell,
was then introduced. Mr.. Russell is
young, smooth-faced gentleman of extremely
boyish appearance, but with a strong, rich
voice; and right here it might be remarked
that Mr.. RusselPs speech throughout bore
strikingly strong resemblance in plan and
ideas to that delivered by Mr.. Patterson, of
Colorado, few evenings since. Speaking
of the Republican party, his words were: 81
say that that party was born for great and
glorious mission, and it accomplished that
mission, not as party, but, as have said,
by the union of all parties. 1t was born for
that mission only, and when that mission
was accomplished, it had no fixed star to
guide it." Mr.. Russell called to mind the So
called party desertion OF Greedy, Chase,
Sumner and Others in 1872, and then in re-
gard to the election of Mr.. Hayes, in
1876 said: 'Then came the fraud of
'76 when this party tried to per-
petrate upon this people the greatest
political fraud THAT ever was known in its
history. Then they drove out from their
ranks the party of Prohibitionists who did
not believe that the Republican party had
strength enough left to accomplish any more
reform" Again, with the reference to the
campaign of 1884, Mr.. Russell claimed that
the party had nominated the man who rep
resented in politics what honest men abhor;
land the people rose in their might" he
said, 'and hurled that party from power,and
believe. forever"
Finally the tariff question itself was
reached, and the speaker gave as an illustra:
tion of the hypocrisy, deceit and false
alarm" which had characterized the entire
campaign, the assertion that the Republican
absolute free trade upon their political oppo-
nents, and, as If this assertion needed fur
Their support, he proceeded to quote from
President Cleyeland's message and from the
Mills bill the utterances of each to the effect
that it was only a reduction of the tariff that
was desired, and that upon the necessities
OF life. He maintained that the Republican
party had changed its base, and quoted
from Sherman, Arthur, Folger, Mccullough
and others. in an endeavor to demonstrate
that these party leaders had held to doc
trine precisely in the line of the present
Democratic policy. Mr.. Russell made di-
rect tand urgent appeal to the young labor-
ing men of his audience in these words:
suppose you set out to marry and
desire to build house. see
the obstacle that you meet with.
In the first place, the cost of the house,
whether you build it or lease it, is vastly in
creased by the tax on all the material that
enters into it; the iron. copper, lumber, in
fact, every article that enters into the con-
structien OF that house is raised in price by
the tariff You find that every article with
which you furnish the house is raised IN price
by this taxation, and, not only that, but later
on you will find that every suit of clothes you
buy, for your children is raised in price two
or three dollars, and is the result of this un-
necessary taxation. You find that almost
every necessary of life Is raised in price, and
then you find that it is hard at the end of the
year to make the two ends meet The amount
that every laboring man pays additional on
account OF the tariff is equal at least to the
wages he would earn one day of each week:
and, If he could get rid of this, he could make
as much in working five days Of the week as
he can today in working six,
AT the close of Mr.. RusselPs remarks, a
considerable number of the audience took
the opportunity to get away from the all-per-
suasive Democratic eloquence, and although
Mr.. McGillicuddy, the renowned Lewiston
politician, had a smaller audience to talk to,
still 1t must be conceded that he aroused
more enthusiasm and provoked more laugh
ter In the first five minutes than the hon0ra-
pie gentleman from Massachusetts, did in his
laD0red etfuSiOn of an hour and half