Speech #500158175

Mr. Chairman. has posed as the advocate and the champion of the rights of the laboring men of this country. In every speech that was made by the leader of the party on the other side and by every man who followed in his wake. it was charged that the mission of the Republican party today. slavery having been abolished. was to emancipate the laboring men of this country from that slavery which they predicted would necessarily result if the Democratic view upon the tariff question should obtain. and the pauper labor of Europe come in competition with the laborers of this country. Last night I received a letter from a representative Knight of Labor in the city of Galveston. in which he stated that the reason why so many of the Knights of Labor who had heretofore aligned themselves with the Democratic party had voted against its nominees in the last election was that it had been started from Washington that the Democratic party was the enemy of the laboring man. and that the R epublican party was his friend. lIe cited instances. He called attention to the fact that the Democratic leaders had refused to allow certain bills to come up in which the laboring man of this country was interested. and that the reply to the question why it had been done was that the Democratic party was the enemy of the laboring man and the Republican party wap.his friend.