Year: 1876

man I care but little what anybody else
says.


Now, Morton lives out here in the
State of Indiana, and I would not say
that he would state anything that he
did not think was true. Oh, no.
(Laughter.) It is not necessary for
me to say that to you. (Renewed
laughter.) And then the truth is, that
always along in the month of August,
just before the Presidential election,
politicians of the "bloody shirt" or
der get like rattlesnakes and mad dogs.
They say and do things they do not
understand themselves. Morton, out
here in the State of Indiana, says Til
den was Secessionist and the people
of New York State, by majority of
fifty thousand, say it is not 50. 1 am
willing to leave it to you which you will
believe.


Then let us go step farther. What
has Governor Tilden done that en-
titles him to our confidence? I have
his record here. I haze the New York
Times here-a leading Republican
newspaper-that six or seven years
ago announced to the world that the
city and State of New York were more
indebted to Samuel J. Tilden than to
any man in existence for the destruc-
ton of VIM. M. Tweed and his great
ring of robbers. That was the estima-
ton he was held in Republican circle,
before he was nominated by the Demo-
cratic party. The truth is that Tilden
did not merely go and hunt up some
body to charge Tweed with fraud and
gigantic plunder, and then come in as
a lawyer and prosecute him, as we law
yers generaly do. He took higher
responsibility He filed his own indi-
vidual affidavit, signed Samuel J. Til
den, and sworn to by himself, charg-
ing Tweed with enormous peculation,
fraud and gigantic larcenies. On that
affidavit he was arrested, and the ball
was set in motion that never stopped
until Tweed and his followers either
languishedin prisons under conviction,
or pined in foreign lands not daring to
come home.


Those are the solemn facts before
God. He burst that ring into thou
sand fragments. A man of iron nerve
and great capacity is Samuel j. Tilden,
a man whose heart will never seduce
his brain from the path of sternest rec
titude in administering this govern
ment. There will be no personal gov
ernment, as there has been under
Grant. It will be hard, unrelenting
government on the side of reformation
and against rascals. He never stayed
his hand until he purified and reformed
the government of the State of New
York, and with that great record be-
hind him, the people of New York, de-
string other reforms, made him their
Governor by this enormous majority Of
which I have spoken, and in less than
two years after he was inaugurated
Governor, what do you behold? He
took New York from Republican hands
with burden of sixteen millions of
annual taxation. In less than two
years he has reduced that taxation
eight millions, in round terms. Has
he not right to the title of Reformer
-'he man, who, upon his own person.
al affidavit, broke the Tweed Ring and
made successful war upon the Canal
Ring of New York, until it's plunder-
ers are likewise in prison or fugitives
from justice?


1 can trust him and so can you. I
can vote for him and so can you. Mr..
Tilden was not my original choice. I
longed to see citizen of this State
nominated for the Presidency; but the
manner in which Indiana was treated
at St, Louis leaves no sting behind, no
sense of personal defeat, and if Samuel
J. Tilden shall be inaugurated Presi-
dent of the United States, the term Re-
form" will not be an idle word. The
man who reformed the city of New
York, and reformed taxation from six
teen millions to eight millions in the
State of New York, and reformed the
Canal Ring until the predatory bands
are scattered to the four winds, is the
very man whose iron hand we want to
hammer at the closed doors of corrup-
ton in those departments at Wash
ington and make them give up their
secrets, and drive out from their dens
and hiding-places the plunderers of the
people. 1 have hope that this will be.
l see the dawn of better day.