Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1888-03-16


When falls the little tear.
little hand so fragile.
All through the night to hold,
Two little feet SO tender
To tuck in from the cold.
Two eyes to watch the sunbeam
That with the shadows plays
darling little baby
To kiss and love always.
POLITICS IN THE SENATE.
The galleries of the United States
| Senate were crowded last Wednesday
when Mr.. Ingalls,, the presiding officer,
called Mr. Platt TO the chair and took
the floor to speak on the bill granting
pensions to dependent soldiers. Mr.
ingalls, said that considerations of de-
corum and propriety, excessive, per
haps. and somewhat over-strained,
had deferred him from participation
in debate thus far at this session of
the Senate, his impression being that
perhaps order could be more imparti
ally maintained, the rules better en-
forced, by abstinence on the part of
the presiding officer from controver-
sizes on the floor. He was surprised,
therefore, one day last week, upon re-
turning to the chamber after a brief
absence, to learn that the Senator
from Missouri (Mr. VesD had taken
occasion, when he was not present, to
allude to him in terms the reverse, to
say the least, of complimentary in a
discussion in which he had taken no
part, and including not him alone,
but in his combined and concentrated
and coagulated cynicism the inhabi-
tants of the District of Columbia and all
comrades of the Grand Army of the
Republic, intimating that they were
incapable of disinterested patriotism,
and that the surviving veterans ofthe
Union army were mob of sordid mer-
cenaries, organized for plunder, and
for sale to the highest political bid
der The personal allusion to him
self he would pass by with the single
observation that the nomination and
election of Grover Cleveland had made
the pretensions of any American citi-
zen to the Presidency respectable
There was no man in this country
whose ignorance was so profound,
whose obscurity so impenetrable,
whose antecedentss so degraded, that he
had not the right to aspire to the
presidential nomination by the Demo
cratic party. He regretted that the
Senator from Missouri was not pres
InasmuchH Ia as that EaftFS Senator Taff had seen
fit to criticise with indignity and to
asperse with personal allusions col
league upon this floor who was not
present, he should not initiate that
bad example, but should confine HIM
self. as far as that Senator was con
cerned. to what has been disclosed in
his autobiography.
After alluding to the fact that Mr..
Vest, of Missouri, and Mr.. Blackburn,
of Kentucky, represent States that
had not seeded from the Union, Mr..
Ingalls, continued: mo phantom of
State sovereignty lured them as it did
so many others into that terrible ca
tastrophe. They went because they
wanted TO go; because they believed
that secession was better than union;
because they believed that slavery
was better than liberty; because they
believed the stars and the bars. were
more worthy of a patriots allegiance
than the stars and stripes; because
they believed Jefferson Davis was
more worthy of respect than Abra-
ham Lincoln. They went South; they
allied their fortunes with the Confed-
eracy because they preferre to do so,
and their sincerity could not be sus-
pected."
Mr. Ingalls, quoted from the speech
of the Senator from Missouri the
statement that when Gen. Lee sur
rendered at AppomattoX there were
but eight thousand muskets. IF, said
he. parenthetically, the Senator
from Missouri had been there, there
would have been eight thousand and
one, but eight thousand muskets of
that splendid army which fought the
world in arms and had been battered
and beaten back by overwhelming
numbers for four years; that the Fed
eral soldiers were asking for pensions,
but these gallant survivors OF the
Confederate armies had asked for
none, and, God be thanked, would
take none" The computation Of the
Senator from Missouri must certainly
have been made with his fancy. 1t
dizzied the arithmetic of the imagina-
ton TO understand upon what system
of statistics he had compounded the
incredible statement. If the Senator
would pluck few Of the plumes from
the dazzling tail of his imagination
and stick them into the wings Of his
judgment he would fly bolder and
more correct and accurate flight. The
official report showed that from the
29th day of March, 1865, to April 8
there were captured of General Lees
army 40, 495 men in arms, and on that
fatal day for the Confederacy, when
God fail TO bless their cause, as the
Senator from Missouri said he hoped,
there were taken 27,416 men in addi-
ton. making a total, instead of 5000