Money

named ought to be the dollar he receives at the end of the month. must be very cheap before it can be picked up in the streets, so cheap that it will hardly be worth stooping for. Short of that you can get it only by giving something for it, labor or property. If you get in exchange full value in cheap money you have more nominal money, but are you any richer than if you had got full value in good money? The probability is that the next day you will be poorer for the tendency of cheap money is to cheapen.

"It is undoubtedly true that the legal tender quality and the quality of being receivable for customs and internal taxes would give some value to anything, however worthless in itself, but not a certain or fixed value. The quality of being legal tender, aided by the promise on its face to pay, could not keep the greenback at par. Nothing but convertibility into coin can do that for any paper

money.

"The Republican party has given to the laboring man a free homestead on the public lands. It has emancipated four millions of laborers from slavery, and brought by the same charter free labor itself to an honor it could not attain while companioned with slavery. In our State platform several other reforms within the scope of State legislation are proposed, to all of which I give my hearty approval. Among them is a homestead law, which shall secure against sale or execution for debt the home of the distressed debtor, and preserve to his family a roof-tree when the storm of adversity breaks upon them. Another direction in which practical relief may be given to large classes of laboring men is in the laws securing and enforcing the prompt payment of wages. In the case of debts owing by railroad corporations, the courts have, in the exercise of their equity power, without legislation, given a preference over mortgage bonds to labor claims accrued within six months before the appointment of a receiver. The equity of a laborer where wages have been unjustly withheld for seven months is certainly not weakened by his added month of waiting. There seems to be no good reason why there should not be given, by proper legislation, to the employees of all corporations and manufacturing companies, a first lien for wages due. Such a law might not be operative to the full against existing mortgages, but it would be as to all future liens. Holders of mortgage securities would then have an interest to see that wages were paid, while they could protect themselves against the mismanagement of those who controlled the enterprise by making the non-payment of these labor liens a cause of forfeiture in the mortgage, entitling the mortgagee to foreclose. If any railroad or other business

enterprise cannot earn enough to pay the labor that operates it and the interest on its bonds,' no right-minded man can hesitate to say which ought to be paid first. The men who have invested money in the enterprise, or loaned money on its securities, ought to have the right to stop the business when net earnings fail, but they cannot honestly appropriate the earnings of the engineer, or brakeman or laborer. When a court, on the motion of the bondholders, seizes a railroad and operates it by a receiver, the chancellor will yield nothing for interest on the bonds till he has paid the men who operate the road.

Why

should there be another rule for a railroad president? But not only should payment be made secure, but promptness should be enforced. Great wrong is often done by delay though ultimate payment may be certain. The laborer is forced to buy on credit at enhanced prices, or to sell his claim at a heavy discount. This, I believe, could be remedied by legislation prohibiting, under proper penalties, the diversion of earnings to other purposes until the labor roll is receipted. To such reforms-and these specifications do not at all exhaust the list the Republican party is pledged. The practical knowledge the labor

ing man has of the evils under which he suffers should be re-enforced by the wisest thought of those who are learned in political economy and the law. Every aid which public sentiment and the law can give-without trenching upon constitutional restrictions or the rights of others-waits only for a kindly call. But it will not answer to the summons of hate and violence.

"It seems to me, and to this I ask the serious thought of all classes, that the pressing wants of the times are: First, that lawlessness, communism in all its forms, threats, and class hatreds shall be put away forever. If the need of this is more urgent to one class than another it is to the honest laboring man who is out of work. Threats and fears can drive money out of active employment into double-barred safes and into four per cent bonds-only security and confidence can call it back to its natural partnership and labor. Second, that we put our currency on an honest basis-where those who buy and sell and those who work know when they contract what the dollar of payment is to be. Third, that we lift up our eyes toward the hills, and recognize the faint but sure signs of morning.

"Nothing is more fatal to the interest of labor than anarchy. A condition of society in which law is supreme is for the poor man the only tolerable one. The law re-enforces his weakness and makes him the peer of the strongest. It is his tower. If he forsakes or destroys it his folly or his fury delivers him a prey to the strong. In this land of universal suffrage, if he will be wise and moderate, no right legislation can tarry long. That which is just will not be denied. But fury and threats and force will not persuade. They provoke their like, and in this clash and strife all must suffer. One of the most distressing and alarming features of our time is the growing hostility between capital and labor. Those who should be friends have been drawing apart and glaring fiercely at each other. There is no real or necessary antagonism. Capital and labor must unite in every enterprise; the partnership ought to be a fair one, and the partners friendly. The demagogue is a potent factor of evil in the settlement of the labor question. His object is to use the laborer to advance a political ambition. He flatters him with professions of ardent friendship; beguiles him into turning the stone for his ax grinding, and when the edge is on sends him away without wages. If laboring men would appoint committees to inquire into the personal history of these self-appointed champions they would not unlikely find that the noisiest of them do not pay their tailor or shoemaker. Their mission is to array one class against another-to foment strife,

and to live themselves without work. They talk largely of the producers, but never produce anything themselves except a riot, and then they are not at the front. Their doctrine is that every man who hires labor is an oppressor and a tyrant. That the first duty of every man who works is to hate the man whe gives him work. The fruit of this sort of teaching is unrest and fear. The true workingmen should shake off these vipers into the fire; place themselves and all their protective organizations on the platform of the law, and while demanding their legal rights to the full proclaim their equal deference to the rights of others. From this platform their cry for help and sympathy will find the public ear. Let them think and work toward specific and legitimate reforms, for within the limits of constitutional restriction there is no legislation that will be denied them."

In 1879 General Harrison was appointed by President Hayes on the "Mississippi River Commission," under an act of Congress authorizing him to select a committee to investigate the subject of improving the river and reclaiming the alluvial lands, and, with Captain Gads, also on the committee, devoted much attention to the proposition. It may be mentioned in this connection that during this year President Hayes and Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, en tour of the Western States, visited Indianapolis and were entertained in his home by General Harrison.

VI.

Harrison a Delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1880-Urged to be a Candidate-Favors Garfield-Elected United States Senator-Garfield wants to make him Secretary of State -Declines-Garfield's Comment-The Chinese Question-Speech at Indianapolis-The Pension Claims-Soldiers must be Remembered and their Services Rewarded-Civil ServiceProhibition Great Campaign Speech in Iowa - The Tariff-Free Trade as regards the Laboring Man-In full Sympathy with the Laboring Man.

N 1880 General Harrison was a delegate to the National Convention at Chicago and chairman of the delegation from his State. He was strongly urged by many friends, both at home and in Chicago, to allow his name to be presented to the Convention, but he refused, Garfield receiving the nomination largely through his advocacy, though at the outset there was a strong demonstration for Blaine.

General Harrison took an active part in the campaign. He accompanied General Garfield on a tour which included New York.

In January, 1881, General Harrison was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Joseph E. McDonald (Dem.). When the contest for the Senatorship opened late in December, 1880, there were three leading candidates besides General Harrison. They were Will Cumback, Godlove S. Orth and Walter Q. Gresham. Judge Gresham was the first to withdraw; Orth virtually retired soon after, but did not withdraw his name. On January 10, 1881, Cumback withdrew from the canvass, having convinced himself that a majority of the Republicans in the Legislature favored the nomination of General Harrison and would vote for him in caucus. In announcing his decision to General Harrison he wrote as follows: "Believing it possible for a disappointed candidate to render to a successful rival sincere and hearty congratulations, I know you will accept mine." General Harrison received the caucus nomination, and on Janu