Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1888-03-17
SENATOR INGALLS, SPEECH.

SENATOR INGALLS, SPEECH
Tho Kansas Senator's scathing Reply "a
Senator Vest and Other Opponents a. n.
Pension Bill
WASHINGTON, March THE Senate ve..
terday resumed consideration, as unfinished
business, the bill granting pensions to er-
soldiers and sailors, incapacitated from
the performance of manual labor and
providing for pensions to dependent rela-
tives Of deceased soldiers and sailors tha
question being on the amendment offered
by Mr. Wilson, of lows, to insert the words
ssfrom the infrmit:e Of age"
Mr.. Ingalls,, the Presiding Officer, having
called Mr.. Platt to the chair, proceeded to
address the Senate, the galleries being
crowded to their full capacity. He said he
had been surprised, one day last week.
on returning to the chamber after
brief absence, that the Senator
from Missouri Vest had referred to
him in terms not complimentary in de-
bate in which he had taken no part and had
coupled with the personal remarks an init
nation that the people Of the District of
patriotism, and that the veterans of the Re
public were mob Of sordid plunderers.
As to himself, he would say that the nomi-
nation and election Of Grover Cleveland
had made the pretensions OF any American
citizen to- the Presidency respectable.
There was no man in this country whose
ignorance was SO profound, whose obscur-
ity so impenetrable, whose antecedents so
6n6 hoth he - ~1,$%
pire to the Presidential nomination by the
Democratic party. He regretted that the
Senator from Missouri was not in his seat
to-day. He should not initiate that Senator's
bad example and would confne himself, so
far as he was concerned, to that Senator's
autobiography. That Senator was born in
State that had not seceded-the State Of
Kentucky had represented in the
Confederate Congress the State of Mis-
souri,, State which had not seeded. 1t
would be gratifying to a historian to find
out how he had been admitted TO represent
State which had never seeded. But
that was matter Of ancient history. The
Senator from Kentucky (Blackburn)
also referred sneeringly to the SUI
per-loyalty of the soldiers OF the
Union. He did not challenge the
honor or courage of these Senators IN
their devotion to the South and to the
Southern Confederacy. They could not be
suspected of insincerity. They had gone
into the Confederacy because they wanted
to 60, because they believed that slavery
was better than freedom and secession
better than union. It was curious that
Confederates from Union States were a
little more pronounced and little more
aggressive and little more violent in the
denuncations of the North than Confeder-
ates that had seeded.
Mr.. ingalls, said that he did not know
where the Senator from Missouri had got
the figure from which he stated that but
5000 of Lees army had surrendered at
Appomattox. If that Senator had plucked
few OF the plumes from the dazzling tail
Of his imagination and had stuck them into
the wings of his judgment he would have
flown more accurate flight Instead OF
5000 men, with muskets, who were in the
final crash and collision Of the war, there
had been 1891 men. The Senator's
mathematics were certainly giddy. But one
parallel was to be found to the extraordi-
nary inaccuracy of that statement, and
that was the same Senator's statement
that, of the 2, 3O0, 900 soldiers of the Union
army, more than one-half had applied for
pensions. Such speeches as those of the
Senators from Missouri and Kentucky
were intended to catch the Confederate
vote, and they would catch 1t. They were
"center shots" striking the bu1l's-eye every
time aud s'r;nging the bell" He wanted
the Senators on the Democratic side of the
chamber to understand that their disguise
for opposing pension bills was SO exceed
ingly thin that nobody was deceived by it.
1t was not question OF cost. The South
did not love the Union army; neither did
the Democratic party.
Mr.. Morgan reminded Mr.. Ingalls, that
the Democratic party had nominated and
sustained Federal officer, General Han
cock, for the Presidency.
Eyes," said Mr.. ingalls,, SIT did support
General Hancock, and it also supported
Horace Greeley-attemptlng to fool the
North. It also nominated and supported
that other ally Of the Confederacy, George
B. Mcclellan. Such pretensions are alto
gether too diaphanous. They require to
have the drapery removed for inspection.
Why was it that when an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States,
who, by one of the strange caprices of
history, now sat in judgment upon
those great Constitutional amendments
that were adopted against his protest
and effor.s-why was 1t that when
he arose IN the Senate and said he
would resent as personal affair any impu-
tation upon the honor or the integrity or
patriotism of Jefferson. Davis, when he said
he had no doubt that Jefferson Davis would
occupy niche in history by the side OF
George Washington, why was it that no
Senator on the Democratic side-North or
to repudiate and disavow it?
And yet the moment any honorable Senator
on the Republican side or any editor of any
Northern paper or any organ OF the G. A.
R. talked about the Union armies, the
grandeur Of the ach evements, the obliga-
lions Of the Nation, they were taunted with
waving the ensanguined undergarment,
raking up the ashes Of sectional strife, APP
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