Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-10-18
ale Releftor.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER IS, 1885.
ANTHnNY'S ARGUMENT.
The Rousing Republican Rally-A
Stirring Speech by Col. D. r.
Hnthnnv


Anthony.
Everybody was surprised at the mag
nitude and enthusiasm of the Republl-
can club meeting Saturday night. Ar
mory hall. which will accommodate
three or four hundred persons, had
been engaged for the occasion. The
club has 100 torches. They were all in
line at quarter past seven, and three
or four hundred more Republicans on
the ground asking for more torches to
carry, but there were none to be had
in the city.
The procession started on Cedar and
followed the line of march as previously
outlined in the REFLECTOR. All along
the route the streets were lined with
multitudes of men, women and children
who manifested their sympathy for the
cause of Republicanism by waving Of
flags, clapping of han6s and deafening
cheers. When the procession returned
to Armory hall it was evident that not
one-half the crowd that wished to hear
the speaking could get into the hall,
and the committee procured the Bone
brake opera house, which was filled as
soon as the doors we're opened.
Col. D. R. Anthony made the adj
dress Of the evening. He spoke for
two hours and quarter and held the
earnest attention of his audience from
start to finish. Col. Anthony is not an
orator, but he is profound thinker
and an eminently good talker. While
we do not propose to attempt a synopsis
of his speech, we cannot refrain from
calling attention to one or two of the
salient points made by the speaker.
He said that Grover Cleveland was
not sincere in the free-trade message
which he sent to Congress last January,
and to prove the insincerity of the
President, he showed by statements
made by Cleveland's intimate friends
at Buffalo, that prior to Mr.. Cleveland IS
elect on in 1884 he was one of the
most outspoken and avowed protec-
tionists in the country; that neither
the first message which Cleveland sent
to Congress in 1885, nor the second
message which he submitted in 1856,
had Mr.. Cleveland said one word about
the tariff being an ubiquitous and
vicious" theory, and created for the
sole purpose of ''robbing" the people:
that Mr.. Cleveland's idea that the
protective tariff sis robbery" resulted
entirely from his ambitious desire to
succeed himself as president, and in
order to obtain the 1S3 votes of the
solid South. without which all hope of
reelection must be abandoned. he
stultifies every former conviction, turns
complete somersault on the tariff and
at the behest of Carlisle, Watterson,
Mills, Vest & Co., launched forth that
ffee-trade message which inaugurstes
a''fight to the eItermination'' of all
protected industries of the country.
Col. Anthony dwelt upon the Sec
tional nature of the Mills bill, and
showed that while it reduced duties on
sugar and rice-prime necessaries of
life, but southern product-less than
20 per cent, it reduces duties on all
other necessariss of life which are pro-
duced in the northern States, from 40
to so per cent, and in many instances
admits the northern product free.
The Mills bill reduces to an injurious
extent or removes altogether the duties
on American manufactures of the an
nual value of $1,000, OOO, 900, less than
per cent. of which are produced in the
southern States which dominate the
Democratic majority in Congress,
The ridiculous attitude in which Mr..
Cleveland's statement that "the price
eff an imported article is enhanced to
the amount of the duty imposed" was
very cleverly handled by the speaker.