The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-03-01

again. Our contention with that
same intolerance and arrogance and
unfairness and lawlessness lasted
eight long weeks-and still endures.
After the first half hour of supreme
effort and intense excitement, after
you had really become the Douglass
House." you were in the band wagon,
driving your way to a glorious inn
mortality. We of the second part
were but a yellow dog tied to the
axle of the Populist cart. The poor
privileges of bowling and pulling
back were indeed ours; but the only
result of our bowling was to fill our
threats with Populist dirt, and for all
our pulling back the cart went right
on. You were the observed of all OBJ
servers, filling proud line in the
scare heads of all the newspapers, and
canOnized in the speeches of all the
orators as the heroes in the noble war
for constitutional rights. We were
the indistinguishable and unconsid-
cred fragment of that object of all
mems objurgation and derison, the
"Pop" Senate. The vandals who
sought to place you in subsection and
to spoil your house were incontinent-
ly cast into outer darkness, and there
after there was nothing to disturb
your serenity but an occasional sound
as of wailing and crashing of teeth.
1t was our most unhappy fortune to
be compelled to remain in thepresence
of our insolent eonquerers and to
serve as their foOtstool, to be sat upon
whenever they wanted diversion or
had nothing else in particular to en-
gage their attention. For seven long
weeks you enjoyed the blessed boon
of talking without having anybody TO
"sass" back, hearing nothing after
you had spoken but that sweetest of
all music, the sound of your own
voices. During all this time we were
submerged daily by the iuundatiOn of
oratory which poured in a turgid and
ceaseless torrent from the incoherent
lips of POpulism, unrestrained and |
o, the horror of that |
W cary time! If a tried and convicted |
felon should be sentenced by one of
the inferior courts of our State to sit |
in the places which we filled and lis
ten to the things we heard, am very
sure that the great tribunal over
which the most distinguished guest
of this occasion presides with so much
dignity and honor, would set the sem
tence aside as unconstitutional, be-
cause it inflicted a cruel and unusual
punishment.
And not only were we punished
then, Mr.. Speaker, but our punish
ment still continues-for have we not
Ben Rich for our reading clerk? ''The
svil which men do lives after them"
The "Dunsmore House" is dead
lead and damned-but its chief ghost
has come back to lord 1t over the liv-
ng.
But l need not occupy more of
your time, gentlemen, in reciting the
details of our subjugation
nc enthrallment. The whole world
,nows that you were the heroes of
he most superbly contested battle !,
Or constitutional rights that the last
uarter Of the expiring century has
Witnessed. / shall rest content if l
ave demonstrated to those who have
card me tonight, that we were the il
martyrs in that same battle. And k
bile we do not dare to cherish the C
ope that pOsterity will inscribe our u
ames even with yours on the great b
,roll of the unforgOtten, may We not b
ope that we will at least be the g
rown to your Greeley? Those of you n