The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-09-19
REPUBLICAN, TRRIFF RGFORHNERS.
lie r o you sgongtao exon nroor9

our shores or to share our citizenship. In
deed, the necessity of some inspection and
limitation is obvious. We should resolutely
refuse to permit foreign governments to send
their paupers and criminals to our ports. We
also clearly under duty TO defend our civ
ilizatiOn by excluding alien races whose ulti-
mate assimilation with our people is neither
possible nor desirable The family has been
the nucleus of our best immigration, and the
home the most potent assimilatiGg force in our
civilization.
The objections to Chinese immigration are
distinctive and conclusive, and are now so gen.
orally accepted as such that the question has
passed entirely beyond the stage OF argument.
The laws relating to this subject would, if L
should be charged with their enforcement, be
faithfully executed. Such amendments or fur
Their legislation as may be necessary and proper to
prevent evasions of the laws and to stop further
Chinese immigration would also meet my APP
proval. The expression of the convention upon
this subject is in entire harmony with my
views.
Our civil compact is government by ma
jorities; and the law loses its sanction and the
magistrate our respect when this compact is
broken. The evil results of election frauds do
not expend themselves upon the voters who
robbed of their rightful influence in public af-
fairs. The individual, or community, or party,
that practices or connives at election frauds,
has suffered irreparable injury and will sooner
or later realize that to exchange the Amer
lean system of majority rule for minority
control is not only unlawful and unpatriohc,
but very unsafe for those who promote it. The
disfranchisement of single legal electOr by
fraud or intimidation is crime too grave TO be
regarded lightly. The right of every qualified
elector to cast one free ballot and to have it
honestly counted must not be questioned.
Every constitutional power should be used to
make this right secure and to punish frauds
upon the ballot
Our colored people do not ask special legis-
lation in their interest, but only to be made Sc
cure in the common rights of American citi-
zenship. They will, however, naturally mis-
trust the sincerity of those party leaders who
appeal TO their race for support only in those
localities where the suffrage is free and election
results doubtful, and compass their disfran-
chisement where their votes would be controll-
ing and their choice cannot be cocrced.
The nation, not less than the states, is de-
pendent for prosperity and security upon the
intelligence and morality of the people. This
common interest very early suggested national
aid in the establishment and endowment of
schools and colleges in the new states. There
is, / believe, present exigency that calls for
still more liberal and direct appropriations
in aid of common school education in the
states.
The territorial form of government is a tenn
porary expedient not permanent civil condi-
ton. 1t is adapted to the exigency that sug-
gested it, but becomes inadequate, and even
oppressive, when applied 10 fixed and populous
communities. Several territories are well able
to bear the burdens and discharge the duties of
free commonwealth in the American Union.
To exclude them is TO deny the just rights of
their people, and may well excite their indIg-
nant protest. No question of the political
preference OF the people of territory should
close against them the hospitable door which
has opened to two-thirds of the existing
states. But admission should be resolutely
refused TO any territory. a majority of whose
people cherish institutions that are repugnant
to our civilization or inconsistent with repub-
liean form of government.
The declaration of the convention against
call combinations of capital, organized in trusts
| or otherwise, to control arbitrarily the condi-
ton of trade among our citizens" is in har-
mony with the views entertained and publicly
| expressed by me long before the assembling of
the convention. Ordinarily, capital shares the
| losses of idleness with labor; but under the
operation Of the trust, in some of its forms, the
wage-worker alone suffers loss while the idle cap
| ital receives the dividends from a trust fund.
| Producers who refuse to join the combination
| are destroyed, and competition an element
/ of prices is eliminated. 1t eanno. be doubted
that the legislative autho rity should and will
| find method of dealing fairly and effectively
with these and other abuses connected with
| this subject.
! Ii can hardly be necessary for me TO say that
| am heartily in sympathy with the declaration
| of the convention upon the subject of pensions
/ to our soldiers and sailors. What they gave
and what they suffered | had some opportunity
to observe and, in small measure, to expert
ence They gave ungrudgingly; it was not a
/ trade, but an offering. The measure was heaped
/ up running over. What they achieved, only a
/ distant generation can adequately tell. With
| out attempting 10 discuss particular PROPOSE.