The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1888-03-15
SENATOR INGALLS, ANSWERS .sENA-
TOR VEST.

Hts Words Cut His Opponents Lik
Damascus Blades A RemRrkabl
Scene IN the Senate During the De
Bate.
REMARKS BY A WASHINGTON CORES
PONDENT.
Mr.. Ingalls,, for wealth of diction, TO
sarcasm, for invective, for marvelou
powers of description, for vocabulary
stocked with an array of strange. gro
tesuue and forcible words, has no pee
in American life. He drew upon all thu
resources of his vigorous and raspinl
vocabulary in delivering the extraordi.
nary philippe which was heard in thu
Senate. The attendance was a nea
compliment to Mr.. Ingalls,. No man ir
either house in Congress has received
such an ovation as was given to the
Senator from Kansas it has been ex-
peoted for a week that he would speak
and the galleries, even upon the uncer
taInty of debate, and in spite of disa
greeable weather, have been filled; but
today they were not only packed, but
the corridors leading to them were
densely crowded. About the glass doors
through which but very scanty peer
hole could be found, there gathered
long lines of men waiting and hoping to
get glimpse or catch a word of the
torrent of denunciation which could be
heard kissing and roaring below. And
the audience was not composed OF
strangers, the idle and the curious alone.
The galleries were filled with veterans
of the Grand Army, whose cause Mr..
Ingalls, was so eloquently to plead; by
scores of old soldiers who were glad to
fight their battles over again, by leaders
of society who wished to hear the man
of whom, in the giddy whirl of social
life so little is seen, and whose words
cut like Damascus blade. To the floor
the public is not admitted. but the floor
was packed almost as closely as the gal
leries. Only the members of the House,
officials of the Government and priv
llGRG'l PGloOno OulI dllCt lutIt. GN
every seat in the broad chamber was
filled, and in all of the vacant spaces in
the area back of the Senator'S desks
chairs were brought in until the cham
Der took on the appearance of an inau
guration day or some great state occa-
sion, Conspicuous among those present
coming in just before Mr.. Ingalls, began
to take up the case of the old soldiers
and defend them against the assaults of
the ex Confederates, was the General of
the Union armies, Philip H. Sheridan.
He entered by his right, he having re-
ceived the thanks of Congress. He took
seat where he could get a glimpse at
one of the orators of the Senate
who says what he means and
never has any difficulty in being under
stood.
What Mr.. Ingalls, said is told below.
He spoke almost without notes, moving
which had been cleared for him. He
seemed impelled at every step with in
dignation, which increased as he went
forward. He used a fierce invective
hnd acerbity of expression, to which he
sought to place no bounds. 1t will be
said that he endeavored to revive sec
tonal issues; that he told the story of
the bloody shirt over again; that he at
tempted at the threshold of the Presi-
dental campaign to excite the soldier
vote and pose as a Presidential candi-
date. Whatever may have been Mr..
ingalls, motive there are few men who
followed the Union flag in the last great
contest who will not be glad to read his
words, and there are few men anywhere
who hate shams and who admire cour
age who will not be glad to know that
there is one man in the United States, at
least who can stand up and strip dis.
guises from pretenders, who can expose
the mawklsh sentimentality of Henry
w. Grady, for instance. He in May, SO,
in Atlanta, delivered what Mr.. Ingalls,
characterized as an 'eulogy coming to
the frontier of sacrilege and the line of
blasphemy' on Jefferson Davis, the un-
crowned king of the lost cause, whose
presence in Atlanta on the event of a
dedication of a monument to Ben Hill
seemed to him to give the world the
best Easter that we have had since
Christ rose from the dead The same
Grady. as the apostle of the gospel of the
New South in December of the same
year, at the New England dinner in New
York, did, as MIR, Ingalls, put it, spill oil
and wine over the whole American pPo.
ple.' Mr.. Ingalls, had characterized the
assault of Senator Vest on the Grand
Army of the Republic as an exhibition
of combined, concentrated, coagulated
synlcism, Mr.. Ingalls, reply was that
and more, To the cynicism of Mr.. Vest
is to be added the fiery indignation of a
man who loved his country and who
could not sit still and receive with pa.
thence the Confederate notice that
the time had come when the Southern
men in Congress had determined to call
halt upon the granting of any further
pensions to Union soldiers.
THE SPEECH.
Mr.. ingalls, the presiding officer, hay
ing called Mr.. Platt to the chair, pro
ceeded to address the Senate, the gal
laries being crowded to their full capac-
ity. He said that considerations of de
corum and propriety. perhaps excessive
and overstrained, had deferred him thus
far from participating in the debates of
the Senate. He had therefore been sur
prised one day last week, on returning
to the chamber after brief absence, to
learn that the Senator from Missouri
Vest had referred to him in terms not
complimentary in a debate in which he
had taken no part, intimating that the
people of the District of Columbia were
incapable of disnterested patriotism, and
that the veterans of the Republic were
mob of sordid plunderers. As to himself
he would say that the nomination and
election of Grover Cleveland had made
the nomination of any American citizen
to the Presidency respectable. There
was no man so ignorant or mean that he
might not aspire to nomination to the
Presidency-by the Democratic party
Laughter and applause. He regretted
that the Senator from Missouri was moi