Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-06-09

Roscoe COnklin in presenting the name
Of Gen. Grant to the national repubh-
can convention in 1880. In view OF the
approaching convention in Minneapolis
it is interesting to recall that great
effort. Conklin said:
s'And when asked what state he halls from,
Our sole reply shall be,
He halls from Appomattox,
nd the famous apple tree.
"Obeying instructions I should never
dare to disregard rise IN behalf of the
state of New York to propose a nomina
ton with which the country and the re.
publican party can grandly win. The
election before US will be the Austerlitz
of American politics. It will decide
whether for years to come the country
will be republican or Cossack' The
need of the hour is candidate who can
carry doubtful states, north and south;
and believing that he more surely than
any other can carry New York against
any opponent. and carry not only the
north, but several states of the south,
New York is for Ulysses s. Grant.
HE alone OF living republicans has
carried New York as a presidential can
didate. Once he carried it even accord
ing to democratic count, aud twice he
carried it by the peoples vote, and he is
stronger now. The republican party
with its standard IN his hand, is stronger
now than in 1868 or 1872. Never de-
feated in war or in peace, his name is
the most illustrious borne by any living
man; his services attest his greatn ess,
and the country knows them by heart.
His fame was borne not alone of things
written and said, but of the arduous
greatness of things done, and dangers
and emergencies will search in vain in the
future, IS they have searched in vain in
the past, for any other on whom the ma.
tion leans with such confidence and trust.
Stand Nc on the highest eminence OF hu
man distinction, and having filed all
lands with renOWn - modest, firm.
simple and self poised-he has seen not
only the titled but the poor and the 10 WY
in the utmost ends of the world rise and
uncover before him. He has studied the
needs and defects of many systems of
government, and he comes back a letter
American than ever, with a wealth of
knowledge and experience added to the
hard com mOn sense " hich so conspicu-
ously distinguished him in all the fierce
light that he It upon him throughout the
most eventful, trying and perilous six
teen years of the nations history.
Never having had "a policy to en-
force against the will of the people, be
never betrayed cause or a friend, and
the people will never betrav or desert
him. Nili6ed and reviled, truthlessly
aspersed by nun berless presses, not in
other lands, but in his own, the ass ults
upon him have strengi hened aud season
ed his hold upon the public heart. The
ammunition of calumny has all been
exploded; the powder mas all been burn
ed once, It's force is spent, and General
Grants name will glitter as bright and
imperishable star in the diadem of the
republic when those who have
tried to tarnish it will have moldered
in forgotten graves and their memoir
les and epitaphs have vanished utterly
Never elated by success, never de
pressed by adversely, he has ever in
peace, as in war, shown the very genius
of common sense. The terms he pre-
scribed for Lee S surrender foreshadow-
ed the wisest principles and prophecies
OF rue reconstruction.
"Victor 10 Inc greatest of modern wars,
he quickly signalized his aversion to war
and his love of peace by an arbitration
of international disputes which stands as
the wisest and most majestic examp pie of
it's kind in the worlds diplomacy. When
initiation, at the height of it's popularity
and frenzy had swept both houses of
congress, it was the veto of Grant.
which, single and alone. overthrow ex-
pansion and cleared the way for specie
resumption. To him, immeasurably
more than to any other man, is due the
fact that every paper dollar is as good as
gold.
with BIN as our leader we shall have
no defensive campaign, no apologies Or
explanations to make. The shafts and
arrows have all been aimed at him and
lie broken and harmless at his feet,
Life, liberty and property will find safe
guard in him. When he said of the
black man in Florida, Wherever I am
they may come also, he meant that,
had he the power to help it, the poor
jewellers in the cabins of the south
should net be driven in terror from the
homes of their childhood ard the graves
Of their murdered dead. When he re-
fused to receive Denis Kearney he meant
that lawlessness and communism. al
though it should dictate laws to a whole
city, would everywhere meet a foe in
him, and popular or unpopular, he will
hew to the line of right, let the chips fly
where they may.
His integrity, his common sanse. his
courage and his uneqUaled experience
are the qualities offered to his country
The only argum Mt against accepting
them would amaze Solomon. He
thought there could be nothing new
under the sun. Having tried Grant
twice and found him faithful, we are
told we must not, even after an interval
of years, trust him again.
What qualification does not such a
fallacy involve! The American people
exclude jefferson Davis from public
trust Why? Because he was the arch
traitor and would be destroyer. And
now the same people are asked to
ostracize Grant and not trust him.
Why? Because he was the arch pre-
server of his country; because, not only
in war, but afterward, tvise as a civic
magistrate, he gave his highest, noblest
efforts to the republic Is snch absurd
ity an electioneering jugglery or hypo-
crlsy's masquerade!
There is no field of human activity
responsibility or reason in which ration,
al beings OBJECT to Grantbecause he has
been weighed in the balance and not
found wanting, and because he has had
unequaled experience, making him ex-
ceptlonally competent and fit. From
the man who shoes your horse to the
lawyer who pleads your case, the officers
who manage your railway, the doctor
into whose hands you give your life, or
the minister who seeks to save your
souls, what now do you reject because
vnn haya known him. What rnaI1ac tho