Arizona republican., 1896-01-15

dent Cleveland have made in order to please Englishmen and anglo -maniacs? Naughter and applause). Should he have placed his hand on his mouth and his mouth in the dust" and assured Her Majesty's government that the Monroe doctrine was a Saurian of the Palezoic age of American politics and quite unfit to live if Her Majesty's gov ernment desired it to die? Oaughter). Why if Grover Cleveland had been weak enough to surrender our coun try's rights and interests in such dis honor and shame he would have been impeached before the last sentence in his message had died away, and every Democratic vote would have been re- corded among the yeas. (Great cheer ing).
 How can any intelligent, fair-mind- ed person who is cognizant of the facts, believe that the manly assertion of the American position by President Cleve land was a wanton and wicked attempt to bring about war between the two nations? An attempt inspired only by self-seeking and low political cunning? As weM claim that our declaration of independence was the offspring of a pot-house caucus-a cunning trick de- signed to aid the reelection of Thomas Jefferson to the continental congress. (Applause). How mistaken are the English newspapers in their estimate of us. They seem to believe that Uncle Sam is correctly represented in the prehistoric British drama, as a per son with abbreviated pantaloons and elongated hat, who is inspired mainly by a lust of dollars, and moved mostly by morbid desire to violate the eleventh commandment Naughter). How imperfectly they know us. True. we are eager seekers of wealth, but Tennyson could never have said of us as he did of his own countrymen that ''the jingle of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels" (Cheers). Englishmen do not seem to compre- hend that such a dispatch as that of Lord Salisbury was calculated to shiv- tel into nothingness the tissue paper barriers that divide Republicans and Democrats, and they seem oblivious of the fact that today in support of the Monroe doctrine every American capi-
 
 every American tramp seek the near est recruiting station. Great ap- plause).
 If there shall be war then not with the United States of America will the responsibility rest. Arbitration is peace and England declined it. A re- fusal to arbitrate is menace of war and England has made it. If war shall come it will be by England's procure ment-She can shake no gory locks at us." (Applause).
 What would be the effect of such a war as to commerce?" is the topic as- signed me for tonight. In attempting to answer this question suffer me to make brief reference to the past. Prior to the war of the rebellion scarcely any freight was carried on the ocean ex- cept in wooden sailing ships. We pos sessed timeber forests convenient to our harbors, and the necessities of the California and Australian trade had induced the construction of fleets of clippers, so that in 1860 our merohan- tile marine almost equaMed in tonage that of Great Britain and exceIled it in the size and speed of our vessels.
 As soon as belligerent rights were ac- corded the Confederate states, iron steamers were built in England with the money of British merchants and being manned (principally with British seamen) were sent forth with Confed- crate flags flying from their peaks to destroy American commerce. Two of these ships-the Alabama and Shenan- doah- successfully eiuded the Federal cruisers and in short time our ocean commerce was no more. Even if Eng land could have anticipated the Ala bama claims and the Alabama award, she could, as a business transaction, have afforded to pay-as she did sub sequently pay-the full value of the ships and cargoes destroyed. For it was not tangible property alone that ascended to the clouds in the smoke and flame of burning vessels. The rates of insurance on American bot toms and on goods transported therein the ability to compete with British shfpoWners- good will of the c9rrS ing trade of the world-aM went up in the columns of flame and while $15,- GOO, ,000 worth of visible property were thus destroyed, the news of it's destruc- tion transferred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of freight to English vessels, condemned American mer- ohantmen to rot at the wharves, and wrested from us the best part of a commerce which then stretched its sceptre over every sea.
 I have always believed that it would have been wiser statesmanship never to have presented the Alabama claims, or at least not to have pressed them after England's first refusal to pay. I recall with some personal satisfaction a speech which I made in the lower house of congress upon this subject twenty-siX years ago, and I take the liberty to quote briefly from it now. I said then: