Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-02-15
CLEVELAND'S LOST HALO /!
DEPEW HAS A FEW WORDS TO SAY
ABOUT 1T IN A LINCOLN GRAFTON.

Vermont Republican Clubs CeIe-
brate the Birthday Anniversary OF
the Martyred President with Mark
ed Patriotism
A large attendance was the character
istic of the first annual banquet of the
Repubican clubs of Vermont at Burling-
ton, Tuesday. President Foster intro
duced DR.. Chauncey NJ. Depew of New
York City and the orator of the day was
received with tumultuous applause. He
showed his deep study of LincOlns char
acter in brilliant speech. One of it's
gems was this:
"There never was such a President
never such ruler as Abraham Lincoln.
He did not represent hereditary privil-
eyes, for he came from the planest of the
plain people; he did not represent hered-
ity, for he had none; he did not repre-
sent the colleges or the universities, for
he knew them not; he did not represent
capital and great accumulations, for he
had neither; but he did represent the
toiler upon the farm, in the workshop,
upon the highway, in the factory, any
where, everywhere where honest men
and honest women were striving to bet
ter their conditions and to illustrate the
dignity of labor and the nobility of Amer
lean citizenship. Without this touch
with the plain people his ability, his gen.
ius, would have made him distrusted,
for it may be taken as almost an axiom
that there is no career for great genius
by popular vote. He knew the country,
the limitations of his power, how far and
how fast the Administration could go in
the great struggle, better than the Cabi-
net or Congress, or journalists or advis-
ers."
The word sketch of Lin oln, his pur-
poses, his career, and the lessons of
them, led the speaker to make parallel
of the recent industrial crisis and to these
reflections:
'Mr. Lincoln might have lived and
added to his greatness by speedier set
tlement of the issues which arose out of
the Civil War. Mr.. Cleveland was Presi-
dent for four years without power, and
had he never been reelected, with a
Democratic party On his hands, he might,
with the halo which was thrown around
him, have gone down to posterity as one
of the great Presidents of the country.
But Cleveland was reelected and did
have the Democratic party on his hands,
and what might have been is not, aud
Cleveland is not regarded as one of the
great Presidents of the country.
1--WE have won our victory. 1t is the
victory of returning common sense, the
victory of experience over hope. We are
not yet out of the woods. The Republi-
can party can only hold the country
where it is and prevent further damage
until it assumes the responsibility of
power. The difficulty with the Democ-
racy is not only of inexperience, but of
incompetence. The evolution of the stu
dent is first his devotion to phrases, and
the more vague they may be the more
wise they seem, and from the phrase he
comes 70 theory The theory makes him
a skeptic in religion and a Mugwump in
politics.
"Then he either settles down to the
stern realities of life and successful solu-
tions of his problems, or he becomes
bankrupt in business and in faith. The
Democratic party captured the country
by the phrases free raw Materials the
tariff is tax the markets of the world
We have lost the markets of the world,
we have little left to tax, and our raw
materials and manufactured articles and
labor are all free, because there are so
few purchasers or employers. We are
governed by the party which gave us the
German tariff, which has left insolvent
only the business upon which Republi-
can protection is continued, the party
which reversed the good old policy that
you should pay your debts with money
which you earned, and adopted the new
one of paying them with borrowed
money. Macawber is its financial au-
thority."
P ~esident Foster introduced Gen. j.
G. Mccullough as busy man who had
travelled 300 miles in order to speak to
the audience assembled.
Gen. Mccullough was extremely happy
in his response. He said he disliked to
controvert any statement made by the
president. but it was not fact that he
had come 300 miles to speak. On the
contrary he did not know that he was to
speak until newspaper man told him
of the fact during the morning. He ad-
vised his hearers not to come within the