Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-12-20

that is damned truel'' Nor was it writ
ten that President Cleveland would
not be permitted to review us i'll ma
tionaf encampment at st. Louis and
Columbus last year and this yeal.
Nor was it written that Grant, Hayes,
Logan, Garfield and Harrison should
receive practically the solid Grand
Army vote, but they got it all the same.
Now few axioms: We are forbidden
to discuss politics in the post room.
What we do i'll there is q profound
secret which neither nor any other
member of the Grand Army may re-
veal. But what we say and do outside
the post room is public property, known
and read of all men, and it is concern
ing that alone all these letters Of mine
are written, without concealment OF
falsi6cation.
Our reunions are republican mass
meetings in very thin disguise. The
great national encampments at San
Francisco, St. Louis and especially at
Columbus, the last three great gather
ings of the order, outwardly, and when
not In secret conclave, were republican
mass-meetings, rendering ovations to
the republicans alone. Not one ex-
ception.
There the democrats took back seats.
And were there no democrats
there?' sneeringly asked my critics.
Yes, lots of them, but in the minority,
in subordinate offices, or in no Office at
all generally, like bound boys at the
hnsking," like angles visits, few and
and far between ''Lookers-on in
Venice,'' as it were. They didn't
count. They in themselves like
cyphers, counting nothing. and only
adding to the aggregate assemblage by
reason of their subordinate position
with reference to the republican figures,
that did count. If I had thought
otherwise I should never have been
there. II had thought these were
democratic mass-meetings should
have certainly felt mean to be caught
dead III that vicinity! No. sir, they
We're. and were well understood and
shrewdly managed to be republican
mass-meetings in larger, truer sense
than any meeting ever addressed else
where by Senator Blaine Or Senator
Sherman or any other mere civilian.
There Lo gan posed for the presidency.
! There Alger also, at another time,
posed for the like honor. There Fora
ker raised his lightning rod, and there
the electric sparks struck the rods Of
Grant, Hayes. Garfield and Harrison;
for my chorus still IS, as it has been in
every republican victory since the war,
the Grand Army of the Republic did it.
The principal republican politicians
and Congressman have always been the
controlling factors of the Grand Army
of the Republic. Who dare deny that?
It would take columns Of your paper to
merely give their names. In the present
Congress the leading republicans there
have been the chief delegates and offic-
ers in the state and national encamp-
/
public. Humphrey of Kansas, Foraker
of Ohio, Fifer of Illinois, were recently
made governors by the Grand Army of
the Republic. No politics there, ell?
Well, that's my politics.
I saw Joe Fifer nominated at Spring
field, Ills, OH May 2, 1888 by the boys
with the bronze buttons. No politics
there suppose?
One of the funniest replies that l
have received since / opened this ball is
contained in the letter from blessed
old iackass out in Maine. 1t reads this
way:
Private, if you mean that the sol
diers are nearly all republicans, and
nearly all vote the same way they shoot
I agree with you. But if you mean that
the Grand Army of the Republic is
republican machine, worked only for
and by the republican party, you are
damned liar!''
To this pious person and others of
like confusion of brain. / simply reply.
that I mean what 1 say. say what 1
mean, take nothing back, and leave
nothing to explain. I am entrenched
with all the weapons of defence on the
side of the position have taken. What
is the difference between the soldiers
generally as Il class or i'll mass, under
the leadership of other soldiers, sus-
tanning the republican party, and voting
of the Republic doing the same thing.
is what perplexeS me- 1t is the differ