The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-08-09
THECAMP Align.
Great Speech of Senator Voorhees,
at Terre Haute-Opening
the Ball.
He Utterly Demolishes the Repub-
lican Positions Its Crime
Against Laborlng Men.

INDIANAPoLIS, august 4.-Ihe following
is synopsis of Senat or Voorhees, speech
tonight at Terra Haute in opening the
cam paign:
81 propose to show that the history of
the republican party on the subject of
taxation is the history of premeditated
crime against the laboring people of the
United States. Every movement in
the machinery Of the govern
ment set in motion by the
republican leaders aud managers has
been to swell and bloat the gains of the
rich and to increase the burdens of the
poor; to deprive labor of its honest re-
ward; and to reduce the industrial Glasses
on the farms, in the workshops and in the
mines to the estate and condition of serfs,
paying tribute to their rapaciuus masters
The republican conspiracy to fasten the
fangs of the money power in the strug-
| Cling body of American labor, and to en-
able the gigantic usury and legalized rob-
berry to suck the blood of every. Ameri-
can industry, took its fist great step
when, in au horizing legal tender our
rency, in 1862, the greenback, the immor-
tai and glorious greenback, was discrimi-
mated against and degraded in the money
markets of the world by being non receiv-
able for duties on imports, and for interest
on the bonded debt of the United States.
In all the annals of nations no financial
measure was ever more willfully wicked in
conception and design nor more far
reaching, oppressive and destructive to
the rights of labor in its results tn an
this.
The senator declared this act euabled:
"The bullionists of Wall street to realize
profit in naked speculation with the
bonds and currency of the nation of
nearly 81 ,000,000,000 rhe laboring peo-
pie have been too patient, too forbearing.
do not believe any other people on the
globe would have submitted, unless re-
strained by force, to the monstrous act of
congress of March, 1869. BY one dishonest
stroke of dishonest pen, guided and held
by the dishonest leaders of a great party,
the debt, which labor has to pay, was
swollen % per cent. The great bulk
of our bonds, the five twentIes, were pay
able in greenbacks, and the authors of the
act of March, 1869 knew it was false
when they declared that these we're pay
able in coin"
The speaker then quoted at length from
the speech of Senator Beck on this sub
iect. He also quoted letter written by
John Sherman in 1868 and resurrected by
Mr.. Beck, wherein Sherman said:
81 think the bordholder violates his
promise when he refuses to take the same
kind of money he paid for his bonds"
"Why," asked the speaker, "should not
the greenback, with its glorious history,
and with all the crimes committed and
attempted against it by the leaders Of the
republican party, come to the front at
this time and at all times when the labor
ing classes are under consideration
Branded at its birth as bastard
in the field of currency; persistt ntly
stigmatized and carricatured as the rag
baby born in fondling hospital;
without known parentage; for years de.
nounced as dishonest money, fraud upon
the business and commercial world, yet it
stands to day in every state in the union
with its head as high and its purchasing
power as great as the brightest gold that
ever flashed from the depths of earth. /
IS true the republican candidate for presi'
dent suggested in 1878 that an idiot asy-
lum ought to be erected for believers in
the greenback. For you, my ole
greenback friends, and for me
do now, and 1 take my place alongside OF
you under General Harrison's sweeping
intolerant, brutal criticism and denuncia-
ton. 1 did so ten years ago, when he
poured out his scornful wrath upon u.s.
and 1 was we'll content with the result
He canvassed the state in 1873 as the
candidate of his party for the senate, as l
did as the candidate of mine, and the
people of Indiana decided by more than
10000 majority, on popular vote for
members of the Legislature, that he was
nearer financial idiot than l was aud
that 1 should go to Washington and leave
him at home"
Senator Voorhees, then entered upon
the tariff issue and recounted the history
of modern tariff legislation. mo relief,
the speaker declared, "was afforded to
labor by resorting to a domestic excise
system. On the contrary this system was
made the pretext for still further en-
croachments on the part of monopoly and
greed against the rights of those who toll
Two acts of the congress of 1862 and 1864
by which protective duties were made to
ascend to a Pixies Peak attitude, were
demanded on the express ground that the
manufacturers should be compensated fol
the amount of their internal tax"
On this point the speaker quoted ex'
tensively from Senators Morrill,, Allison
and others on the creating of an internal
factory tax, which was repealed in 1863
The speaker declared that the extreme
duties on imports, laid in 1862 and 1854
expressly to compensate for the payment
of that very tax, still remain in full forc'
and effect. For nineteen years the re
publican party has caused the people to
pay the manufacturer at least $780, 100000
a year in consideration of the tax paid BY
the manufacturer to the government, no
a dollar of which tax, during that time, wa
paid. Nearly 81 ,000, 100000 have thus beel
wrenched from toiling masses. Tn
money kings have thus far resisted ever.
effort to reduce the mountainous tarif
I duties by which they have drained tn
earnings of the people. Bonds ant
coupons, bank stocks and railroad profit
were made exempt from the tax-gatherers
J demand, while the tax on your shirt ant
your wife's calico dress and flannel petit
coat remained the same, or were In
creased"
Senator Voorhees, then discussed a
length the labor question and sur
plus declared the labor IN