CHICAGO SPEECH.
* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll spoke last night at the
Exposition Building to the largest audience ever drawn by
one man In Chicago. From 6.30 o'clock the sidewalks fronting
along the building were jammed. At every entrance there were
hundreds, and half-an-hour later thousands were clamoring
for admittance. So great was the pressure the doors were
finally closed, and the entrances at either end cautiously
opened to admit the select who knew enough to apply In those
directions. Occasionally a rush was made for the main door,
and as the crowd came up against the huge barricade they
were swept back only for another effort. Wabash Avenue,
Monroe, Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren Streets were jammed
with ladies and gentlemen who swept into Michigan Avenue and
swelled the sea that surged around the building.
At 7.30 the doors were flung open and the people rushed in.
Seating accommodations supposed to be adequate to all
demands, had been provided, but in an Instant they were
filled, the aisles were jammed and around the sides of the
building poured a steady stream of humanity, Intent only
upon some coign of vantage, some place, where they could see
and where they could hear. Prom the fountain, beyond which
the building lay in shadow to the northern end, was a
swaying, surging mass of people.
Such another attendance of ladies has never been known at a
political meeting in Chicago. They came by the hundreds, and
the speaker looked down from his perch upon thousands of
fair upturned faces, stamped with the most intense interest
in his remarks.
The galleries were packed. The frame of the huge elevator
creaked, groaned, and swayed with the crowd roosting upon
it. The trusses bore their living weight. The gallery
railings bent and cracked. The roof was crowded, and the sky
lights teemed with heads. Here and there an adventurous
youth crept out on the girders and braces. Towards the
northern end of the building, on the west side, is a smaller
gallery, dark, and not particularly strong-looking. It was
fairly packed—packed like a sardine-box—with men and boys.
Up in the organ-loft around the sides of the organ,
everywhere that a human being could sit, stand or hang, was
pre-empted and filled.
It was a magnificent, outpouring, at east 50,000 In number,
a compliment alike to the principle it represented, and the
orator.—Chicago Tribune., October 21st, 1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
LADIES and Gentlemen:—Democrats and Republicans have a common interest in the United States. We have a common interest in the preservation of good order. We have a common interest in the preservation of a common country. And I appeal to all, Democrats and Republicans, to endeavor to make a conscientious choice; to endeavor to select as President and Vice-President of the United States the men and the parties, which, in your judgment, will best preserve this nation, and preserve all that is dear to us either as Republicans or Democrats.
The Democratic party comes before you and asks that you will give this Government into its hands; and you have a right to investigate as to the reputation and character of the Democratic organization. The Democratic party says, "Let bygones be bygones." I never knew a man who did a decent action that wanted it forgotten. I never knew a man who did some great and shining act of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion who did not wish that act remembered. Not only so, but he expected his loving children would chisel the remembrance of it upon the marble that marked his last resting place. But whenever a man does an infamous thing; whenever a man commits some crime; whenever a man does that which mantles the cheeks of his children with shame; he is the man that says, "Let bygones be bygones." The Democratic party admits that it has a record, but it says that any man that will look into it, any man that will tell it, is not a gentleman. I do not know whether, according to the Democratic standard, I am a gentleman or not; but I do say that in a certain sense I am one of the historians of the Democratic party.
I do not know that it is true that a man cannot give this record and be a gentleman, but I admit that a gentleman hates to read this record; a gentleman hates to give this record to the world; but I do it, not because I like to do it, but because I believe the best interests of this country demand that there shall be a history given of the Democratic party.
In the first place, I claim that the Democratic party embraces within its filthy arms the worst elements in American society. I claim that every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years has been and is a Democrat; every man in the Dominion of Canada that hates the great Republic, would like to see Tilden and Hendricks successful. Every titled thief in Great Britain would like to see Tilden and Hendricks the next President and Vice-President of the United States.
I say more; every State that seceded from this Union was a Democratic State. Every man who hated to see bloodhounds cease to be the instrumentalities of a free government—every one was a Democrat. In short, every enemy that this Government has had for twenty years, every enemy that liberty and progress has had in the United States for twenty years, every hater of our flag, every despiser of our Nation, every man who has been a disgrace to the great Republic for twenty years, has been a Democrat. I do not say that they are all that way; but nearly all who are that way are Democrats.
The Democratic party is a political tramp with a yellow passport. This political tramp begs food and he carries in his pocket old dirty scraps of paper as a kind of certificate of character. On one of these papers he will show you the ordinance of 1789; on another one of those papers he will have a part of the Fugitive Slave Law; on another one some of the black laws that used to disgrace Illinois; on another Governor Tilden's Letter to Kent; on another a certificate signed by Lyman Trumbull that the Republican party is not fit to associate with—that certificate will be endorsed by Governor John M. Palmer and my friend Judge Doolittle. He will also have in his pocket an old wood-cut, somewhat torn, representing Abraham Lincoln falling upon the neck of S. Corning Judd, and thanking him for saving the Union as Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Liberty. This political tramp will also have a letter dated Boston, Mass., saying: "I hereby certify that for fifty years I have regarded the bearer as a thief and robber, but I now look upon him as a reformer. Signed, Charles Francis Adams." Following this tramp will be a bloodhound; and when he asks for food, the bloodhound will crouch for employment on his haunches, and the drool of anticipation will run from his loose and hanging lips. Study the expression of that dog.