Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-04-20
GROVER CLEVELAND.

GROVER CLEVELAND
EXTRACT OF THE SPEECH OF J. CLAIR
ENCE LANE OF MARYLAND.
The following is the concluding por-
ton of the speech Of Mr.. Lane at the
great Cleveland meeting held in Balti-
more last Wednesday night
"When it is asked why should any
protesting democrat oppose the noml-
nation of Cleveland the answer is a sim
pie one. His ideal of government is
too high for the professional politician.
He is too patriotic, too conscientious,
too seif-respecting, too serious III the
great work of performing the high du-
ties imposed upon him TO abandon or
betray his great trust for selfish or part
isan uses. He will not debase the high
office of President into IL mere Office
brokerage bureau. He will not convert
the great business houses of the gov
eminent, established for the transac-
ton of the peoples affairs, into whole
sale slaughter houses, worked chiefly
for the brutal decapitation OF employees,
however efficient and faithful. He Will
not allow the civil service branch of
the government to be perverted into
huge democratic pension bureau for
the gratuitous support of every hanger
on, in disgusting Imitation OF the mon
5trous fraud which the republican PAL
ty has practiced upon the country in
squandering millions of dollars OF pub
| lie money upon an ever-increasing dead
army under the deceitful pretense of a
patriotic desire to Justly provide for
disabled soldiers To the extent of
caring for the disabled no one can OBJ
iect, but to make it an inexhaustible
machine for the manufacture of repub-
ican votes is a crying shame, for which
that party is every year losing more
votes than it manufactures. Cleveland
| is not the man under whom abuses can
begin or continue.
HE IS NO TOOL.
HE is not the plant, subservient
| tool the boss politician likes to have sit
in the chair of high authority. The
business of government is carried on
by him in a serious way for the per-
| manent as we'll as the present good of
the people. 1t is for these reasons, and
these alone, that he has the opposition
of many of the protested leaders of the
party.
masses of the people are neither bosses
nor the servile minions of bosses; and
happily for the country, the DEGREES of
the bosses are not as the DEGREES of the
Modes and the Persians, neither sub
ject to reverse nor repeal. The masses
of the people, by sort of providential
| instinct, recognize the worthy man de-
stined for their chief, and cannot be
turned aside by the deceitful tricks or
cunning wiles of those who would lure
them to their hurt. Never has a great
er exhibition of the persistent, I'M
sought devotion of the people been
| witnessed than is seen in the present
attitude of the American democrats to
Cleveland.
Instead of counting or manufactur-
| ing popularity, he seems rather to real
| ize the tremendous responsibility such
widespread confidence involves, and to
almost shrink from assuming it. Was
there ever a more remarkable instance
of man being called by the people?
I In spite OF the known and expressed
| opposition of many politicians high in
authority, in spite of the formally ex-
pressed preference of his own State for
another, to wnOm he is, it is true, as
| Hyperion to a Satyr, in spite OF the UNI
| qualified position taken by him against
a heresy which has captured the popu-
lace in many States, in spite of his
dignified inactivity in his own behalf,
the people from one end of the repub-
lie to the other are proclaiming him as
their choice regardless of leaders, re-
| gardless of machine conventions and
regardless of his opposing views on this
or that particular question. He is the
great champion of a winning issue.
They recognize him as the martyr of a
great truth; as one who, in the face OF
threatened defeat, dared to unfurl the
banner of good cause, and lead his
confiding and confident party against
the compact and organized hosts OF
protection.
THE DEFEAT OF 1888.