SPEECH Of Ratcliffe Hicks in reply to Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, delivered at Meriden, October 2, 1880. I HOLD in my hand a Republican paper which contains the speech that Hon. Joseph R. Hawley is delivering in the various towns in this State in the pending canvass. The Republican party in Connecticut is proud of Joseph R. Hawley, and justly so, I think; for to my thinking he is by far the ablest representative of that party in the State. In times past General Hawley has done some things which endear him to all intelligent voters. During the administration of Ulysses Grant, when crime held high carnival in Washington, he dared to stand up, alone and unfriended, on the floor of the American Congress, sacrificing every personal and political ambition and association of his life, and say, "I am coming to a time, now, when I must seriously consider whether I shall go on with some of my radical friends." Further on he said that the proposed legislation of the Republican party would end in "creating a centralized gov ernment upon the ruins of the original theory of the republic; and it might be in the end, I fear, the destruction, the final failure of this experiment of free government." After the election of 1876, Ulysses Grant, in order to effect the Presidential steal and rob the Democratic party of their victory, sent into the Southern States a large number of active and unscrupulous Republican leaders; but he did not send General Hawley, for he dared not trust him in the nasty work that was to be done. In the following year, when Mr. Hayes was confronted with two governments in Louisiana, and was desirous of knowing which he ought to recognize, he sent a commission to that State, of which General Hawley was a member. That commission, after fully investigating all the facts in the case, unanimously reported in favor of recognizing the Nichols (or the Democratic) government. Nichols was voted for at the Presidential election of 1876, and had really about seven hundred votes less than the Democratic Presidential electors. No Democrat in the land needs any further proof that the electoral vote of Louisiana was stolen from Tilden and Hendricks. During the past summer, by word of mouth and through the columns of his paper, General Hawley has resolutely contended against the nomination of the unscrupulous Blaine and the manikin Grant, always contending that it was better for the Re publican party to nominate its ablest and purest men. I shall to-night give my answer to General Hawley's address, and the intelligent voters of Connecticut shall be the jury, and decide between us. I shall say nothing here to-night that I would not say if General Hawley were sitting upon this platform. I trust that the day has not yet arrived in American politics when men cannot discuss politics and still be gentlemen. When that day does come, I want to be counted out of politics. I regard General Hawley's speech as the strongest representation that can be made of the Republican cause in this canvass, and therefore it is that I invite your serious attention to what I have to say. General Hawley commences his address by claiming "that the Republican party has reduced the national debt a thousand millions of dollars." In that he is mistaken. The national debt in 1865 was $2,680,647,869, and in 1879 it was $2,245,495,072,- making a reduction of $435,151,797. But General Hawley forgot to state that the people have paid in the last fifteen years in taxes to the national government the fabulous sum of $5,170,332,042; and for all this immense contribution by the people there is nothing practically to show for it except this reduction in the national debt of about $400,000,000. You have paid enough in taxes in the last fifteen |