Benjamin Harrison as a Lawyer and an Orator. perhaps, like the oratory of so many of the Senators, it was so buried in the Congres sional Record that it was not resurrected from that tomb of oblivion. In the latter part of 1887 and the early part of 1888, Mr. Harrison was regarded as a probable candidate for the Presidency. He was invited to make a number of speeches before political clubs, and among the clubs lie addressed were the Michigan Club of Detroit, and the Marquette Club of Chicago. The speeches he delivered before these two clubs are models of political oratory; both the speeches teem with denunciation of frauds upon the ballot. After his nomination many delegations of citizens visited him. Following the example of Mr. Garfield, and in a measure that of Mr. Blaine, General Harrison began a series of short addresses that extended through the entire campaign, and numbered ninety-four in all. Not once did he trip; and many of his sentences were rallying cries for his party. To a delegation from California, he said: "I feel sure too, my fellow citizens, that we have joined now a contest of great principles, and that the armies which are to fight out this great contest before the American people will encamp upon the high plains of principle, and not in the low swamps of personal defa mation or detraction." To his own neigh bors, who assembled to congratulate him upon his nomination: "Kings sometimes bestow decorations upon those whom they desire to honor, but that man is most highly decorated who has the affectionate regard of his neighbors and friends.'" Speaking of the disbanding of the army at the close of the Civil War: "And so that great army, that had rallied for the defense and preservation of the country, was disbanded without tumult or riot or any public disturbance. It had covered the country with the mantle of its protection when it needed it, as the snows of spring cover the early vegetation; and when the warm sun of peace shone upon it, it disappeared as the snow sinks into the earth.
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to refresh and vivify the summer growth." Speaking before the Republican State Con vention at Indianapolis of the death of Gen eral Sheridan: "To-day we mourn our hero dead. You call him then a favorite child of victory, and such he was. He was one of those great commanders, who upon the field of battle towered a very god of war. He was one of those earnest fighters for his country, who did not at the end of his first day's fight contemplate rest and recuperation for his own command. He rested and re freshed his command with the wine of vic tory, and found recuperation in the disper sion of the enemy that confronted him. This gallant son of Ireland and America has writ ten a chapter in the art of war that will not fail to instruct and develop, when the exi gencies may come again, others, who shall repeat in defense of our flag his glorious achievements." To a delegation of railway employes: "Heroism has been found at the throttle and brake, as well as upon the battlefield, and as well worthy of song and marble. The train man, crushed" between the platforms, who used his last breath, not for prayer or mes sages of love, but to say to the panic-stricken gathered around him, 'Put out the red light for the other train,' inscribed his name very high on the shaft where the names of the faithful and brave are written." To a delegation of coal-miners: "I do not now care to deal with statistics. One fact is enough for me. The tide of immigration from all European countries has been and is toward our shores. The gates of Castle Garden swing inward; they do not swing outward to any American labor seeking a better country than this. Speaking to a delegation of veterans on the War of the Rebellion: "It seemed as if the frown of God was on our cause. It was then, in the hour of stress, that you pledged your hearts and lives to the country, in the sober realization that the war was a desper ate one in which thousands were to die. We
