rats
wanted to reduce the revenue, but didn't know how. He read them
the tariff plank in the Confederate platform, and they laughed to
see how it agreed with the same plank in the Democratic platform.
From discussion of the incapacity of the Democrats to deal with
the tariff question, from their very construction of the constitution,
the Senator passed to the labor question, thence carrying the
interest of his hearers to the purpose of the Republicans to educate
the masses, and make internal improvements. His audience felt the
point well made when he declared the President allowed the internal
improvement bill to expire by a pocket veto because it contained
a $5,000 provision for the Hennepin Canal. In excellent humor the
audience heard him score the Democracy for its helplessness to meet
the currency question, and finally pass, in his peroration, to an
elaboration of George William Curtis' eulogy of the achievements
of the Republican party. He read the twelve Republican principles,
and each utterance received its applause like the readoption of a
popular creed. 'The Democrats put more jail birds in office in
their brief term than the Republicans did in the twenty-four years
of our magnificent service,' exclaimed Senator Sherman, and his
audience laughed, cheered, and applauded. Applause followed each
closing utterance as the Senator outlined the purposes of the party
for future victory, and predicted that result, the Democrats under
the Confederate flag, the Republicans under the flag of the Union."

I returned the next day to Chicago, and in the evening was tendered
a public reception in the parlors of the Grant Pacific hotel.
Although Chicago was familiar to me, yet I was unknown to the people
of Chicago. One or two thousand people shook hands with me and
with them several ladies. Among those I knew were Justice Harlan,
Robert T. Lincoln and Walker and Emmons Blaine.

Upon my return to Mansfield I soon observed, in the Democratic and
conservative papers, hostile criticism of my Springfield speech,
and especially of my arraignment of the crimes at elections in the
south, and of the marked preference by Cleveland in the appointments
to office of Confederate soldiers rather than Union soldiers. A
contrast was made between the Nashville and Springfield speeches,
and the latter was denounced as "waving the bloody shirt." Perhaps
the best answer to this is the following interview with me, about
the middle of J