not sell beer enough to get rich, and took the
short way of paying his debts, this paper would announce the fact
that he had "Shermanized." [Laughter.] And if a bank was robbed,
or the cashier gobbled the money in the safe and left for parts
unknown, this able editor announced that the bank had "Shermanized."
And thus this paper contributed largely to the very result it
denounced. You understand how this thing works.

'But we have passed through this severe crisis. It has been common
in all countries and all states that carry on extensive commercial
transactions with each other. I believe that we are through with
this one; a ray of hope has dawned on us, and we are certainly
entering upon a career of prosperity. Every sign of business is
hopeful. We have paid off immense amount of our debts. We do not
owe Europe anything of consequence. We have gone through the debt
paying process. A few years ago we were running in debt at the
rate of $100,000,000 a year, but lately we have been paying off
our debt at the rate of $100,000,000 a year. From this time on we
will be more prosperous. Take heart, you men of Cincinnati; you
men who represent the great interests in this great city; you who
live in the heart of the great west, take heart in the transaction
of your business, because I believe you have reached a solid basis
upon which to conduct your business profitably, the basis of solid
coin.'"

From Cincinnati I went to Lancaster, the place of my birth, and
where my eldest sister, Mrs. Reese, resides. I need not say that
the visit was a pleasant one, for it was necessarily so. A great
many among those whom I saw had been my associates in boyhood, and,
as a matter of course, the topics of conversation were mainly of
the past. A dispatch to the Cincinnati "Gazette" of the date of
August 30, briefly describes my visit and gives the substance of
a few remarks I was called upon to make by an impromptu gathering
in the evening at the residence of my sister:

"The Lancaster band serenaded Secretary John Sherman this evening,
at the residence of his sister, Mrs. General Reese. A very large
crowd assembled on the occasion, and, in response, Senator Sherman
made one of the neatest, pleasantest, and most satisfactory little
talks heard here for many a day. Of course he began by touching
upon his early boyhood, and some of the incidents of the same spent
here in old Lancaster, the place of his nativity; told of his