Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-07-21
VETERAN CONGRESSMAN AS TEN.
PoRARY CHAIRMAN OF CON.
yENTIoN SPEAKS,
DISCUSSES THE TARIFF
He Argues That the Party to be Trust
ed is the One Which Has ALWAYS
Been Successful In Administering
the Affairs of the Government.

Des Moines, July 20. -(Special)
That the political party which has
stood for policies that have shown
themselves to be right is the one to
which the voters of the nation should
pin their faith at this time is the pith
OF the address made this morning by
Hon. w. P. Hepburn representative in
congress from the eighth district and
temporary chairman Of today's repub-
lican state convention. Colonel Hep
burn Is a veteran in congress and his
services as congressman have endear-
ed him to the people of his district and
the entire state. His wisdom in ma
tional affairs is unquestioned and his
judgment may well be considered as
good to follow His address was full
OF good, wholesome statements found.
ed on facts that cannot be refuted and
his exposition of the policies of the
republican party sounds the keynote
for the republican campaign this year.
MT. Hepburn's address in full follows;
The fifty years of life of the republi.
can party have been period OF con-
stant action. While the political prin-
ciples OF the party have always been
in consonence with the highest
standard of morals and political ethics
yet 1T has always been doing things.
The incidents contemporaneous with
its birth were stirring and exciting in
their character. The contest over the
admission of California, over the
fugitive slave law, and kindred labor
questions, with the disunion senti-
ment made SO prominent in the
thirty-first congress, together with
the declarations made by both Of the
political parties in their conventions
of 1852, that the slave question was
settled forever, made the year 1854,
that saw the passage of the Kansas
Nebraska bill, the repeal Of the com
promise measure of 1920, the utter dis
regard of the pledges in the plat
forms of 1862, period of unusual
political significance and excitement.
1t was in this year that the republic
an party was formed, based upon the
pledge that there should be no more
slave states; that the strength and
power of the government should no
longer be used by the slave owner to
secure additional area or power for
human slavery. The party kept the
PlSu9O. lOll LulS llultt IuG SDlTlI ,OI
secession and rebellion grew. The
republican party, as all men now
agree, took the right view of these
subjects. 1t declared that ours was a
nation with power to preserve itself.
The republican party preserved the
nation. 1t determined upon the abo-
lition of slavery. 1t abolished slavery.
1t determined upon such a reconstruc-
tion of the states as would preserve
the power of the government in the
hands of loyal men. The states were
so reconstructed. 1t determined that
the right of suffrage was an essential
to the self-protection of the freedmen.
1t gave them the ballot. It deter
mined that the public domain could
best be used as the homes Of patriotic
citizens, and it passed the homestead
law.
In 1868 the democratic party an.
nounced that very large proportion
of the funded debt of the United
States might and should be paid in
greenbacks. In other words, that
debt having a fixed date Of payment
and bearing a specific rate of interest
could be honestly extinguished by the
compulsory eXchange, Tor the evidence
of that debt, of another promise to
pay, made by the same party, without
interest or a specific time of payment.
The democratic party made the cam,
paign of 1868 upon this platform of
reputation and dishonor. 1t was sue.
cessfully resisted by the republican
party Five years later the republican
party perpetrated the crime Of
1873" How few there are today
ashamed of this crime" but how
many there are ashamed of the false.
hoods and false pretenses with which
they have surrounded and beclouded
the transaction. That year the coun.
try suffered from the panic of '73, q