I do not think any sensible man believes. In some of the States, and in the Senate of the United States, the Democratic party to-day controls the patronage. Need I say that in the appointments made there we find no suggestion of civil service reform.

"No Democratic candidate for the Presidency could rally his party if he were to proclaim as the rule of his administration that public office should not be a reward of party zeal. The fate of this reform is in our hands. Democrats have masqueraded as civil service reformers in their conventions, but they drop the mask now that their hands are extended to clutch the booty. The only hope for the permanency of this reform is that it shall in the future go under the friendly hands and nurture of a Republican administration until it has become a rooted and substantial thing. We may then expect that the Democratic party will again praise its comeliness."

VII.

Address to his Colored Fellow Townsmen-Civil Rights-Changes wrought by the War-Delegateat-Large to the Chicago Convention in 1884 - Gives a Hearty Support to Blaine-Ratification Meeting at Indianapolis-Speech on Blaine The Isthmus Canal-Foreign PolicyThe Navy-Ratio between Gold and Silver-Speech at Danville, Ind.-Trusts and Combines -Subsidies for American Steamships.

ENATOR HARRISON made it a rule never to neglect his senatorial duties, and although at this time in great demand as a speaker at political meetings was compelled to decline many invitations from his party friends in all parts of the country. He was always called upon to make a speech whenever he returned home, and many of his greatest speeches were delivered to his fellow townsmen.

At a meeting of colored citizens at Indianapolis, October 23, 1883, convened to protest against the Civil Rights Act, he spoke as follows on the subject:

"Mr. Chairman and fellow citizens, ladies and gentlemen: It has not been true during all the period of my residence in Indiana that you have been my fellow citizens. It is true, however, to-night. When, in 1854, I came to Indiana to reside, the Constitution then in force in this State and the laws of the United States, as explained in the Dred Scott decision, did not recognize you as citizens. I stand to-night and look into the face of no man who is not my fellow citizen, endowed under the law and the Constitution with every right that I possess. I do not think there has been any revolution in history more notable or significant than the revolution which has taken place in this country since 1860, as affecting the status of the colored men and women of America. When we look back to that time before the war we see 4,000,000 of Africans who were slaves-absolutely deprived of all natural and political rights; in the eyes of the law mere things, not differing in any essential, so far as the law describes them, from a horse or a

mule-chattels, to be sold upon the auction block, to be transferred by bills of sale, to be passed, by testamentary expressions of those who owned them, to the children that came after them. I talked to one here to-night who has been the subject of those bills of sale. That was the status of the colored men in the slave States. What was it in many of the free States and here in Indiana? We had the old thirteenth article of our State Constitution, adopted in 1850, which absolutely made it illegal for a colored man to come into Indiana, which made it illegal for any man to hire a colored man who had come into the State, though he might be starving, and have a willing head to work and earn the bread he and his children needed, under the penalty of going to jail for hiring him. I recollect when that was your status here in Indiana, and there were convictions in this State against white men for hiring black men to work for them. What was your status then with reference to our public schools? You know when your children were first admitted to the schools. I doubt if there is a person here so young that they do not recollect it. You have left the infants at home to-night -the very young ones. What is your present relation to that great agency which, more than State laws or constitutional laws, is to be the agency of the elevation of the black race-the free schools? Why, all that is said in this letter that has just been read from Austin H. Brown is true as to the present condition of the schools in Indiana. You have magnificently constructed and equipped school-houses built out of the public taxes of the State of Indiana, in which your children may from day to day acquire the elements of an education which shall fit them for the right exercise of that citizenship with which they are now endowed; and in those schools you have colored men who, by their own intelligence and industry, have made themselves fit to preside over them, and dispense the discipline and instruction which pertains to them with a degree of skill and satisfaction that is a credit to your race. I noticed to-day as I walked down from my house in the morning young colored children, with their books under their arms, going to the high school, entering there with the children of the white men, rich and poor, of Indianapolis, upon equal terms, to acquire the higher branches of education. When we recall the legal restraints which less than twenty-five years ago were upon you, and the weight of prejudice which kept you down and separated you from your white fellow citizens, we look with wonder upon the condition of things to-day, and I am here to rejoice with you in it. There has never been a proposition looking to the striking off of a shackle from the black man's wrist, or from his mind, or from his personal freedom, which has not received my hearty

indorsement and my personal help-not one. I am glad to know that you are not wholly indebted to those distinguished pioneers, those intrepid men who faced this wall of prejudice in your behalf for what has been achieved, but that you yourselves have had an honorable part in breaking down those walls of opposition. It was most appropriate that the freedom of the blacks should not come until the blood of the black man had been shed on the battle-field to procure it. I have seen myself in the South a brigade of black men face the rebels. I have

seen them turn up their dusky faces to the sun as their souls were freed by death upon the battle-field in order that they might win freedom for their race.'

In June, 1884, Senator Harrison attended the Republican National Convention at Chicago, as a delegate-at-large, and was asked to enter the race, but declined, and Hon. James G. Blaine received the nomination, the third occasion of his name coming before the National Convention.

Speaking at a ratification meeting in advocacy of the Presidential nominee, Blaine, at Indianapolis, Ind., June 7, 1884, Gen. Harrison said about contract

labor :

"Mr. Blaine stands square with his party upon the proposition embodied in our platform at Chicago, that we do not want in this country imported contract labor. I believe in letting any man who wants to become a citizen come here, if he comes of his own impulse. But I do not believe, nor does he believe, nor does the Republican party believe, in imported gang labor. Contracts made in foreign lands are made at foreign prices, and the competition is unfair. Labor contracts should be individual.

Referring to the ship canal across the Isthmus he said: "Mr. Blaine, in this dispatch, boldly, yet without bluster, assumed the position for his government that in the present conditon of this country, having States upon the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf States, we had a peculiar interest in any ship canal across the Isthmus. He pointed out that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, by reason of the greater naval strength of Great Britain, which our policy did not allow us to compete with, surrendered the control of the canal practically to Great Britain in case of war between the two nations, by refusing to us the benefit of our greater strength upon the land. The narrow barrier which obstructs the passage of ships from the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean will not much longer force commerce around the Horn. When a canal is completed it will be practically a part of our coast line, and the control of it by any foreign power would put us at tremendous disadvantage in time of war, by allowing the enemy to mass her squadrons on either of our coasts at her pleasure. Only the law of superior force could compel us to submit to this disadvantage.

There

was a time in our history when we thought our public domain was inexhaustible. There was a time when our Pacific slope lay represented by weeks of travel from us, over sandy plains, in slow coaches. There was a sentiment that we might well aid in the construction of some railroads to the coast. But that work has been done, and we stand to-day in the defense of the principles enunciated at Chicago, that the land not fairly earned by these companies should be returned to the public domain, and that what is left of the public domain suitable for agricultural uses shall be saved for the actual settler, in small tracts. The public mind has been aroused by the fact that foreign capitalists, lords and nobles of the old country, have come here and acquired vast tracts of our domain; public interest and indignation have been excited, and we have said it must stop. I would not dispose of an acre of the public land otherwise than under the homestead laws.

"Some timid people fear that Mr. Blaine will involve the country in war.