Remember that we are relying on you. There is no stronger tie between the prairies of Illinois and the pines of Maine—between the Western States and New England, than James G. Blaine.
We are relying on Maine for from twelve to fifteen thousand on the 12th of September, and Indiana will answer with from fifteen to twenty thousand, and hearing these two votes the Nation in November will declare for Hayes and Wheeler.*
* This being a newspaper report, and never revised by the
author, is of necessity incomplete, but the publisher feels
that it should not be lost
COOPER UNION SPEECH, NEW YORK.
*Col. Robert G. Ingersoll of Illinois last night, at Cooper
Union, spoke on the political issues of the day, at unusual
length, to the largest and most enthusiastic audience which,
during the last ten years, any single speaker has attracted.
His address was in his happiest epigrammatic style, and was
interrupted every few moments either by the most uproarious
laughter or enthusiastic cheering. It is no exaggeration to
say that the meeting was the largest Cooper Institute has
seen since the war. Not merely the main hall was filled, but
the wide corridor in Third Avenue, the entrance hall in
Eighth Street, and every Committee-room to which his voice
could reach, though the speaker was unseen, were crowded—in
fact, literally packed. Half an hour before the hour named
for the organization of the meeting, admission to the body
of the hall was almost impossible; and selected officers,
and the speaker of the evening himself had to beg their way
to the platform. The latter was as painfully crowded with
invited guests as the body of the hall; and ingress was
impossible after the speaker began, and egress was almost as
difficult owing to the pressure in the committee-room
through which the platform is approached.
Not only in numbers alone, but in the prominence of the
persons present, was the meeting impressive. Besides the
usual large quota of active politicians always seen at such
meetings, there were seen numbers of leading merchants,
financiers, and lawyers of New York, prominent officials not
only of the City but the State and National Government.
The speech was nearly two hours In length, but as the
interruptions were frequent, indeed almost continuous, it
seemed very short, and when Mr. Ingersoll concluded his fire
of epigrams, there were loud calls and appeals to him to go
on. There were suggestions by some of the managers, of other
speakers who might follow him, but the presiding officer
wisely decided to submit no other speaker to the too severe
test of speaking on the same occasion with Mr. Ingersoll.
Chauncey M. Depew, on leaving the hall, remarked that it was
the greatest speech he ever heard, and numbers of old
campaigners were equally enthusiastic. At its conclusion,
the reception which Mr. Ingersoll held on the platform
lasted over half-an-hour, and when finally Commissioner
Wheeler piloted him through the crowd to his coach, three or
four hundred of the audience followed and gave him lusty
cheers as he drove off.—New York Tribune, September
11,1876.
HAYES CAMPAIGN. 1876.
I AM just on my way home from the grand old State of Maine, and there has followed me a telegraphic dispatch which I will read to you. If it were not good, you may swear I would not read it: "Every Congressional district, every county in Maine, Republican by a large majority. The victory is overwhelming, and the majority will exceed 15,000." That dispatch is signed by that knight-errant of political chivalry, James G. Blaine.
I suppose we are all stockholders in the great corporation known as the United States of America, and as such stockholders we have a right to vote the way we think will best subserve our own interests. Each one has certain stock in this Government, whether he is rich, or whether he is poor, and the poor man has the same interest in the United States of America that the richest man in it has. It is our duty, conscientiously and honestly, to hear the argument upon both sides of the political question, and then go and vote conscientiously for the side that we believe will best preserve our interest in the United States of America. Two great parties are before you now asking your support—the Democratic party and the Republican party. One wishes to be kept in power, the other wishes to have a chance once more at the Treasury of the United States. The Democratic party is probably the hungriest organization that ever wandered over the desert of political disaster in the history of the world. There never was, in all probability, a political stomach so thoroughly empty, or an appetite so outrageously keen as the one possessed by the Democratic party. The Democratic party has been howling like a pack of wolves looking in with hungry and staring eyes at the windows of the National Capitol, and scratching at the doors of the White House. They have been engaged in these elegant pursuits for sixteen long, weary years. Occasionally they have retired to some convenient eminence and lugubriously howled about the Constitution. The Democratic party comes and asks for your vote, not on account of anything it has done, not on account of anything it has accomplished, but on account of what it promises to do; the Democratic party can make just as good a promise as any other party in the world, and it will come farther from fulfilling it than any other party on this globe. The Republican party having held this Government for sixteen years, proposes to hold it for four years more. The Republican party comes to you with its record open, and asks every man, woman and child in this broad country to read its every word. And I say to you, that there is not a line, a paragraph, or a page of that record that is not only an honor to the Republican party, but to the human race. On every page of that record is written some great and glorious action, done either for the liberty of man, or the preservation of our common country. We ask every body to read its every word. The Democratic party comes before you with its record closed, recording every blot and blur, and stain and treason, and slander and malignity, and asks you not to read a single word, but to be kind enough to take its infamous promises for the future.