SPEECHES 
 
 PUBLIC CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks 
 
 M 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE 
 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
•H& 
 
 Copyright, 1896, 
 By Cornelius Gardiner. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 [^ 
 
 Page 
 
 Biography 3 
 
 Speeches in the Connecticut Legislature . . 15 
 
 In favor of the Bill abolishing Capital Punishment 17 
 
 In favor of the Woman Suffrage Bill 29 
 
 In favor of the Bill for a Constitutional Convention 37 
 
 In regard to the East Hartford Bridge 49 
 
 In favor of Retrenchment of Public Expenses . . 56 
 In favor of the Bill relieving the New York, New 
 Haven, and Hartford Railroad from Double 
 
 Taxation 66 
 
 On presenting a Resolution appointing a Commis- 
 sion on the Revision of the Constitution . . 73 
 On the Resolution creating a Commission on the 
 
 Revision of the Constitution 75 
 
 On the Plurality Amendment 83 
 
 On the Building and Control of the Hartford Bridge 87 
 On the Resolution concerning Debenture Certifi- 
 cates of the New York, New Haven, and Hart- 
 ford Railroad Company 100 
 
 On the Connecticut River Navigation 112 
 
 On the Age of Consent, and Committee Report . 120 
 V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 On the A. P. A. Resolution 124 
 
 On a Question of Privilege 127 
 
 On the Death of Frederick Douglas 129 
 
 On the Meriden Dime Savings-Bank Charter . . 131 
 
 Last Speech in the Assembly 132 
 
 Miscellaneous Addresses 135 
 
 Reply to General Joseph R. Hawley .... 137 
 
 To the Tax Commission of Connecticut .... 189 
 
 On the Irish Land League 196 
 
 A Tribute to Lincoln 225 
 
 In Memory of Horace Greeley 229 
 
 In Memory of E. K. Foster 231 
 
 Introducing James F. Babcock 232 
 
 Remarks made at the Firemen's Dinner .... 235 
 
 A Tribute to Tolland 237 
 
 Opening the Connecticut Campaign 240 
 
 To the Humane Institutions Committee .... 243 
 
 To the Reform School Committee 247 
 
 In Memory of Judge Waldo 250 
 
 Correspondence . 253 
 
 The City of Meriden 255 
 
 Explaining Removal from the City Attorneyship . 257 
 
 The Stafford Disaster 262 
 
 The Johnson Trial 265 
 
 A Southern Trip 270 
 
 A Condensed History of Bermuda 277 
 
 Proposed Reduction of Interest . 281 
 
 Opposing Jury Trials 290 
 
 vi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 A Tax- Payer on Consolidation 293 
 
 New Haven County Commissioners 295 
 
 Shall Supreme Court Judges be excused from Cir- 
 cuit Duty ? 299 
 
 Brown University Prizes 303 
 
 Gift to Meriden High School Fund 305 
 
 The Ratcliffe Hicks Prizes in the Connecticut 
 
 Agricultural College 307 
 
 Statue to Frederick S. Brown 310 
 
 Thanks of the Congregational Ecclesiastical Soci- 
 ety of Tolland 315 
 
 County Reform 316 
 
 Retrenchment 320 
 
 The Bridgeport Railroad Problem 321 
 
 Letter to Governor CofiSn 325 
 
 Thanks from the Hartford Equal Rights Club . . 328 
 
 Interviews 329 
 
 An Opinion on Congress 331 
 
 A Tribute to New Orleans 338 
 
 A Tariff Commission 343 
 
 Letter declining to be a Candidate for Governor . 348 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
/ have been requested to compile and have printed 
 the speeches and public papers of Ratcliffe Hicks for 
 distribution among his immediate friends. They 
 may not be unintei-esting to the general public, and 
 I feel sure that there are some -who will be pleased 
 to have in this permanent form the public utter- 
 ances of Mr. Hicks on matters of general interest 
 to the people of the State of Connecticut. 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 RATCLIFFE HICKS was born in the pic- 
 turesque town of Tolland, Conn., Oct. 3, 
 1843. He is to-day the chief representative of 
 a line of ancestors dating back in this country to 
 1644, and in England till it loses itself in the 
 misty ages of the past. Since the arrival of his 
 first American ancestor, Thomas Hicks, who sailed 
 from London in 1644, and settled in Scituate, 
 Mass., the family has been closely identified with 
 the progress of America. Its members have 
 achieved distinction in all walks of life. They 
 have won success on the seas and on the land, 
 in private pursuits and in public, in trade and in 
 the professions. For the past century and a half 
 the family has made its home in historic Con- 
 necticut. Its name has an honored place in the 
 annals of that State, and to the treasury of the 
 noble efforts of his forefathers, Ratcliffe Hicks, 
 the subject of this sketch, has added the wealth of 
 his own endeavors. 
 
 In these days when so much is made of one's 
 Revolutionary ancestors, it may be proper to state 
 that his great-grandmother was left a widow, at the 
 3 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 time of the Revolutionary War. Her husband 
 was a prominent physician of Tolland. Being left 
 with two sons and three daughters, she took up 
 the practice of medicine, and travelled daily for 
 miles on horseback in keeping up the business 
 established by her husband. She sent her two 
 sons to Yale College. One of them afterwards be- 
 came an eminent physician, and was the first pres- 
 ident of the well-known New England Society of 
 New York City. The other son was the grand- 
 father on his mother's side of Mr. Hicks. He was 
 long a leading lawyer of Tolland, and represented 
 it many times in the General Assembly. In the 
 Legislature of 1866 he was a member of the com- 
 mittee on the eight-hour law, and drew the report 
 of the minority. The law passed one house, but 
 was defeated in the other branch. 
 
 The life of Ratcliffe Hicks is typically American. 
 It demonstrates again the possibilities which lie in 
 store for every American youth endowed with hon- 
 esty, energetic persistency, and courage. It is a 
 lesson which tells of the opportunities fringing the 
 path of every young man in the land and awaiting 
 his embrace. It is additional proof of the oft- 
 repeated but frequently disbelieved assertion that 
 the chances for honorable achievement and dis- 
 tinguished success are as great in this day of lively 
 competition as in the much-talked-of good old 
 times ; for Ratcliffe Hicks, despite the long list of 
 his accomplishments, is still a young man com- 
 4 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 pared with others who have done as much. He 
 has apparently many years of life in store for him 
 in which to enjoy the rich fruits whicli he has 
 gathered from his labors. 
 
 Ratclifife Hicks was named in honor of his 
 grandfather, who won a splendid reputation as one 
 of New England's bravest, most daring, and ablest 
 sea-captains. His voyages had taken him to every 
 navigable part of the globe. His life was most 
 tempestuous, but successful, and he left behind 
 him a name which his grandson has ever cherished 
 with ardent love and infinite respect. The father 
 of the present Ratcliffe Hicks was a prominent 
 merchant in Providence, R. I., and afterwards 
 in New York City. The son, of whom it is my 
 pleasure to write, has won fame and fortune as a 
 lawyer, a manufacturer, a man of business, and a 
 legislator. The early part of his Hfe was spent in 
 an unceasing effort for success. He was at that 
 time, as now, an omnivorous and careful reader. 
 The law, the sciences, and the best and choicest 
 literature of all ages were to him, and are now, 
 what many forms of amusement are to other 
 young men. 
 
 It was young Hicks's firm intention to get a 
 university training. With that end in view, after 
 elementary studies at home, he entered Monson 
 Academy, where he prepared himself for Brown 
 University. He became a member of the fresh- 
 man class of that college in iS6o, and graduated 
 5 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 with high honors four years later, with the degree 
 of A. B. Throughout his school and college days 
 he gave particular attention to public speaking, and 
 won many a triumph as a debater and young ora- 
 tor of much promise. He was one of the founders 
 of the Delta Upsilon Chapter at Brown, and has 
 always been a generous contributor to the Chapter. 
 He took high rank in his class, and was one of 
 the orators at the Commencement. 
 
 He began life, after graduating, as a school- 
 teacher in the town of his birth. He devoted his 
 leisure hours to studying law in Judge Loren P. 
 Waldo's office. He kept this up for two years, and 
 was then admitted to the Connecticut bar. Im- 
 mediately after his admission to the bar, he became 
 associated in partnership with United States Sena- 
 tor Piatt, of Meriden. This partnership continued 
 for three years. The following ten years he con- 
 tinued the practice of his profession alone, the last 
 three in Hartford. 
 
 His success as a lawyer was remarkable for one 
 so young. He soon became known throughout 
 the length and breadth of his State, and also in 
 the adjoining States, as a lawyer of great oratorical 
 powers, of painstaking disposition, and of rare good 
 judgment. Business flowed in upon him as swiftly 
 as he could dispose of it. The rapidity of that 
 flow will perhaps be more fully appreciated when 
 it is known that it netted him an average income 
 of over $10,000 a year. He was engaged in many 
 6 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 of the most important cases tried before the New 
 England tribunal. Probably the most noted of his 
 cases was the famous Sprague litigation in Rhode 
 Island. For his services in that suit he received a 
 fee of $10,000. His activity in the litigation of 
 Connecticut will be readily understood from the 
 statement that his name is in every volume of the 
 Connecticut Reports from 1866 to 1879. In two 
 of the other famous cases which he won, the fol- 
 lowing principles were established : — 
 
 That no one can recall a gift, and that where 
 a person has deposited money in a savings-bank, 
 although retaining the bank-book in his posses- 
 sion, it is still a gift which he cannot recall. 
 
 That intoxication is a defence to be used in 
 'Connecticut in cases of murder where the intent 
 is a feature of the crime. 
 
 Between the years 1869 and 1874 Mr. Hicks 
 was City Attorney of Meriden, and from 1873 to 
 1876 he was Attorney for the County of New 
 Haven. In those two public offices he made an 
 excellent reputation for the vigorous and skilful 
 manner in which he handled the public business. 
 They were not, however, the first pubUc offices he 
 held, as in 1866 he had the distinction of being 
 elected a member of the Connecticut Legislature. 
 He was the youngest member of the Legislature at 
 that time. He attracted considerable attention by 
 his enthusiastic work tempered by a maturity of 
 judgment seldom seen in one so young. In 1S93 
 7 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 he was elected to the Legislature again, and did 
 most important work as a member of several of 
 the chief committees of that body. He made 
 speeches during his second term as a legislator, 
 with a brilliancy of diction and a vigor of expres- 
 sion which brought him commendation and con- 
 gratulation from all parts of the State. His 
 admirers were not confined to the ranks of the 
 Democracy, of which he has ever been a most 
 loyal member. Republicans by the score were 
 numbered among those who paid tribute in the 
 shape of sincere expressions of thanks for his ser- 
 vices to the State. As a sample of his style of 
 oratory, the following paragraphs of his speech on 
 constitutional reform are excellent : — 
 
 " I have one appeal to make to the members of this 
 House. To most of them it does not make a penny's 
 difference who carries this State politically two years 
 hence. The sun will shine, the grass will grow, and 
 business go on the same, whichever political party 
 triumphs. This country is lost and saved regularly 
 every four years. Let us do right. Let us make a 
 record which we can live by and die by, — a record 
 which merits the approval of our own consciences and 
 of the intelligent future historian who will some day 
 write up the record of this General Assembly. No 
 political party has triumphed permanently in this 
 country. The party which is down to-day is up to- 
 morrow. The political caldron of American politics 
 is like the ebb and flow of the ocean ; but it is al- 
 ways safe to do right, and then, whether success or 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 defeat await you, you have the approval of your con- 
 science. And in the end history will vindicate your 
 action." 
 
 He closed vi^ith the following ringing words : — 
 
 " I shall vote for this bill, not because I think it 
 will benefit the Democratic party, — I do not think 
 that either pohtical party will reap any permanent 
 political advantage from a constitutional convention, — 
 but I shall vote for this bill because it is right. This 
 question rises above all party politics. The State is 
 greater than any political party. Our children and 
 our children's children have an abiding interest in our 
 action to-day. I prefer to stand where the old Roman 
 stood, and to do right though the heavens fall." 
 
 During the session of 1891 Mr. Hicks was 
 chairman of the House Committee on Woman's 
 Suffrage, and reported a bill giving women the 
 right to vote on all school matters. He supported 
 the report by a speech, and the bill passed the 
 House almost unanimously. It became a law, and 
 made Connecticut the first State in New England 
 to give women the right to vote on school matters. 
 He introduced also an amendment to the Consti- 
 tution giving all towns of over five thousand inhab- 
 itants, an extra representative in the Assembly for 
 every 5,000 additional inhabitants. The proposi- 
 tion was received with a great deal of approval, 
 and is probably the best solution that can be made 
 of the present unfortunate condition of affairs in 
 
 9 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Connecticut, — the small towns' jealousy of the 
 large cities. 
 
 During the session of 1895 Mr. Hicks took a 
 more active part, as will be seen from an examina- 
 tion of the doings of the General Assembly, and 
 probably accomplished as much, if not more, than 
 any man in the Assembly. 
 
 He introduced a bill providing for a State Chem- 
 ist and the examination of all articles of food, 
 which resulted in the adoption of a new and very 
 valuable law ; and the first report was recently 
 made by the State Chemist, showing nearly a 
 thousand articles adulterated and sold publicly in 
 Connecticut in the way of food and drink. He 
 got a law enacted providing for the care and 
 custody of bequests in connection with the ceme- 
 teries ; also a law in regard to the licenses of 
 pawnbrokers, compelling them, under heavy penal- 
 ties, to report weekly to the police all goods re- 
 ceived in pawn, thereby breaking up all fences or 
 means of shielding robberies or thefts. 
 
 He introduced a bill providing for the employ- 
 ment of a clerk of bills with additional duties and 
 powers, and taking the appointment out of politics. 
 This law will be very valuable hereafter in pre- 
 venting hasty, unwise, or crude legislation. He 
 introduced a resolution in regard to the support 
 and maintenance of the East Hartford bridge, 
 which led to the longest and most memorable in- 
 vestigation ever held before any committee in 
 10 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 Connecticut, and resulted in the repeal of the law, 
 relieving the State of Connecticut from the burden 
 of half a million dollars on this one bridge, and 
 from all attempts hereafter to place similar bridges 
 upon the State Treasury, thus saving the State of 
 Connecticut a million dollars at a low estimate. 
 The bridge was put back upon the towns in the 
 vicinity from which it had been taken by the pre- 
 vious Assembly, by legislation which it was charged 
 was secured largely by bribery. He also introduced 
 a resolution calling for an investigation of the 
 expenses of the State, A special committee was 
 appointed to investigate the matter, and after a 
 long hearing they made a most voluminous report, 
 sustaining all of Mr. Hicks's claims; and their 
 report, if it had been adopted, would have saved 
 the State of Connecticut anywhere from one to 
 two thousand dollars annually. The Legislature, 
 which was overwhelmingly Republican, voted down 
 the recommendations of the committee, and got 
 out of the matter by referring them to the next 
 General Assembly, 
 
 He introduced also a bill taking away the abso- 
 lute control of the School Fund by the School 
 Fund Commissioner, as there has been gross mis- 
 management of the fund at times, and placing the 
 control of the loan in the hands of a Board consist- 
 ing of the School Fund Commissioner, the Treasurer 
 of the State, and the Comptroller. This matter 
 was warmly discussed, and bitterly opposed by the 
 II 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 School Fund Office before the Legislature; so it 
 was, for the time being, defeated. 
 
 Among other measures he introduced the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 An amendment to the Constitution providing 
 that no member of the General Assembly shall 
 be eligible to any office requiring confirmation or 
 election by one or both branches of the Legislature. 
 That would have put a stop to the scandalous con- 
 test among members for offices. 
 
 An amendment providing that no bill appro- 
 priating public money should be passed until it 
 had been printed and on the desks of the members 
 for three session days, thus preventing the hasty 
 passage of appropriations when the members were 
 largely absent or at the closing hours of the ses- 
 sion. 
 
 An amendment providing that no more spe- 
 cial charters should be granted, but that all such 
 companies should be organized under a general 
 law, thus relieving the legislators of a vast amount 
 of business which is only a detriment to the public 
 interests, and doing away also with the necessity 
 of a large lobby, which these private charters al- 
 ways create. 
 
 It was hardly to be expected that these amend- 
 ments would at once be adopted, but in time they 
 are sure to be incorporated in the Constitution, 
 because they are right. 
 
 For his services in the Legislature, his party 
 
 12 
 
BIOGRAPHY 
 
 desired to reward him with the nomination for 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Connecticut. It seemed 
 as if his nomination were certain. Some of the 
 papers of the State went so far as to say : — 
 
 " For second place on the ticket, it is given out, as 
 if by authority, that Ratchffe Hicks will be the man. 
 He is a lawyer of recognized ability and a Democrat 
 of the old school. He has the advantage of being 
 thoroughly known throughout the State, which is 
 more than can be said of some of the men who have 
 been mentioned for the place." 
 
 The Congregational Church in Tolland, which 
 was built some years ago and for which his grand- 
 father contributed liberally, Mr. Hicks, in con- 
 nection with others, has lately found great pleasure 
 in restoring and modernizing. 
 
 He has established annual prizes for public speak- 
 ing at the college where he was educated (Brown 
 University), at the Storrs Agricultural College, in 
 Mansfield, Tolland County, and at the High School 
 in Meriden. 
 
 In 1882 Mr. Hicks became connected with the 
 Canfield Rubber Company of Bridgeport. He was 
 elected its president, and has since then devoted 
 his talents as an executive to the management of 
 the concern. When he became associated with it, 
 its capital stock was but $10,000. To-day it has a 
 capital stock of $250,000, a surplus of as much 
 more, while its sales aggregate annually $1,000,000. 
 The success of the company under his direction 
 13 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 has been often spoken of as one of the most 
 remarkable achievements in the manufacturing 
 history of New England. It has made a substan- 
 tial fortune for Mr. Hicks and its other prominent 
 stockholders, and has furnished a comfortable liveli- 
 hood to a large number of operatives. 
 
 Cornelius Gardiner. 
 
 14 
 
SPEECHES IN THE CONNECTICUT 
 LEGISLATURE 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered March i6, 1893, in favor of the Bill 
 abolishing Capital Punishment. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 I AM opposed to the majority report of your 
 honorable Committee on the Judiciary, and in 
 favor of the minority report, in the matter of abol- 
 ishing capital punishment ; and with no little hesi- 
 tancy I will explain briefly my reasons. 
 
 I think, sir, the title of this bill should be 
 amended, or there should be a preamble put into 
 it something like this : That all men, rich and 
 poor, white and black, native-born and alien. 
 Christian and Jew, are entitled to the same rights, 
 and shall suffer the same punishments under the 
 laws of this ancient and Christian Commonwealth. 
 
 You have never executed in this State a man 
 worth $10,000, and never can, no matter what 
 kind of a murder he commits. No man who has 
 $10,000 and upwards in the bank can be ex- 
 ecuted in this State or in any other State in this 
 Union. You execute only some poor, unfortunate 
 2 17 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Italian, negro, or Irishman without friends and 
 without money. 
 
 The man who killed Jim Fisk walks every day 
 up and down Broadway, or lolls in his carriage in 
 Central Park. If he had been some poor Italian, 
 negro, or Irishman, that man (his name is on 
 every one's lips) would have paid the penalty of the 
 law; but he is, instead, a living witness of the 
 power of money in your boasted courts of justice. 
 No criminal who has money enough to hire such 
 eloquent and eminent lawyers as the late Samuel 
 F. Jones or the late George D. Watrous or the 
 late Charles Chapman, can ever be hung in Con- 
 necticut. There are too many tricks in the trade, 
 too many devices, too many loopholes, too many 
 defences, too many excuses, and too much influ- 
 ence on judge and jury. 
 
 Thank God, they have never in one hundred 
 years hung but one man in that hillside county of 
 Tolland which I have in part the honor to repre- 
 sent on the floor of this House, and that was such 
 a disgusting spectacle that they will not hang 
 another man in one hundred years more. He 
 was a poor, simple-minded Indian, who went to 
 one of your licensed taverns, kept by a good 
 Christian Yankee, and bought that infernal stuff 
 which transforms men into brutes, fires the passions, 
 and robs them of their reason and self-control. 
 He went home in that maudlin condition, and killed 
 the only friend he had on earth, the woman he 
 i8 
 
ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 loved as he loved his own life. He was poor and 
 penniless, and had to die on the gibbet. The 
 Indian died ; but the world moves on, and a little 
 later (less than the span of a human Hfe) the 
 Supreme Court of this State pronounced such 
 hanging judicial murder, as wanting in malice 
 aforethought and premeditation, — the necessary 
 elements in all murders of the first degree. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, if you had some positive, 
 never-failing, all-wise method of administering pun- 
 ishment, so that, like the apothecaries' scales, it 
 weighed out equal and exact justice to all men, 
 there might be some reason in your law. But 
 when you stop to consider the poor, imperfect, 
 faulty instrument which society has erected under 
 the name of a court of justice, then the instincts 
 of every honest man revolt against this law. 
 
 How many innocent men have been executed? 
 Not all the blood of all the Pharaohs can wipe out 
 the crime of the judicial murder of one innocent 
 man. Within the past week we read in all the 
 papers the dying confession of a murder of a for- 
 ester, in England, for which another man was 
 executed twenty-five years ago. 
 
 In ancient Greece lawyers were all paid by the 
 State, and every person could select his own 
 lawyer, the most powerful and the most learned in 
 the land, and that lawyer was obliged to try the 
 case without tee or reward. The poor man had, in 
 their courts of justice, the same advantage as the 
 19 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 millionaire. In this enlightened country it is the 
 theory or practice of our government, that the 
 poor man has no vested rights except the hope of 
 that better land, heaven. Nine-tenths of the men 
 who have been hung have died for the want of the 
 best lawyer. A mortifying shame ! It is the cus- 
 tom of your courts, if a criminal is penniless, to 
 assign to him some young lawyer who may experi- 
 ment with the case, and if the patient dies the 
 lawyer lives and learns. I plead for the same laws 
 and the same penalties for the Vanderbilt and the 
 wandering beggar in the street. Some day it will 
 be so. 
 
 It was my fortune, or misfortune, to defend a 
 poor criminal, a friendless Swede, some years ago 
 in this State. The case was tried before the Hon. 
 L. S. Foster, — a man who stood high in the counsels 
 of the nation, and ranked as a foremost lawyer in 
 the land. He laid down the law to the jury; 
 they convicted the man ; he sentenced him to be 
 hung as you would a mad dog to be shot. With- 
 out compensation I took the case to the Supreme 
 Court of this State, to the very court of which Mr. 
 Foster was himself a member ; and his associates 
 informed him that the law which he laid down 
 was neither the law of this State nor of any 
 State in the Union, and so the man escaped the 
 gallows. 
 
 A few years ago a good citizen of this State went 
 to a very prominent lawyer, who ranks to-day 
 
 20 
 
ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 among the foremost, having declined the proffered 
 nomination of Chief-Justice of this State, and who 
 enjoys a national reputation, and he said, " I want 
 to invest ^10,000 in a certain business, but I don't 
 want to become a partner and risk any more 
 money." The lawyer advised him that he was 
 perfectly safe. He paid the lawyer for his ser- 
 vices, and some few months after that a judg- 
 ment was rendered against him for ^50,000, and 
 he walked out of court a penniless beggar. It 
 is said that the court has been leaning the other 
 way since they gave that decision, and that if the 
 case were to be tried again, they would decide 
 differently. 
 
 A few years ago the judges of "the Supreme 
 CovLici o{ Errors" — I have sometimes thought it 
 was well named — of this State met in consultation, 
 and the judge who was allotted to write the opinion 
 brought out his decision and read it as bravely as 
 a troubadour. One member of the bench said, 
 "Did we vote to decide this case that way? " and 
 they all said, " Oh, yes ! " He said, " No ; look at 
 your notes," and they found he was right ; so the 
 same man came to the next meeting with his 
 opinion all written for the other side. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, are you going to compel a 
 fellow-man to intnist the most valuable possession 
 he holds — his life, so much more valuable, so 
 much greater than all earthly possessions and 
 contracts and affairs — to the final decision and 
 21 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 arbitrament of this weak, faulty, erring creature we 
 so often miscall a court of justice, and who so often 
 is a travesty on justice? I answer, "No." No 
 one has a higher respect for an honest and learned 
 judge than myself, but they are all human and 
 liable to err. 
 
 In fifty years no man has been hung in Rhode 
 Island, but life and property are safer than in Con- 
 necticut. In nearly fifty years (I think it is) they 
 have hung no man in Maine, but life and property 
 are safe there. I might say the same of Michigan. 
 I might say the same of that great country of Bel- 
 gium across the blue ocean, with its thirty millions 
 of people. Why, in all France, with its forty mil- 
 lions of people, they execute only two or three men 
 a year, and they will soon abandon the practice 
 altogether. 
 
 In no other country are life and property held 
 at so little value as in the United States, and all 
 your executions go for nothing. Nowhere does 
 lawlessness triumph as in America, and nowhere 
 are so many men executed as here. You used 
 formerly to hang men for arson, rape, and burglary 
 and for nearly two hundred different offences. 
 Does any man claim that the change in the law 
 has increased those crimes? Remember that it is 
 the certainty and not the severity of punishment 
 that prevents crime. The fear of hanging never 
 did, and never will prevent a single murder. All 
 murderers are controlled by one of two motives, — 
 
 22 
 
ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 either they act in passion and don't care what be- 
 comes of themselves, or they expect to hide their 
 crime and escape punishment. 
 
 We are known as the hanging nation of the 
 world. We stand at the head of the list, and, 
 as believers in capital punishment, are only sur- 
 passed by the pig-tailed citizens of the Celestial 
 Empire, the benighted followers of the world- 
 renowned heathen teacher, Confucius. 
 
 The unchristian, degrading spectacle of keep- 
 ing a human being in suspense for one round year, 
 and then filling him with whiskey and slowly drag- 
 ging him to the gallows, more dead than alive, is 
 no consolation to the dead, but only a torture to 
 the living. The Indian is more merciful than the 
 Christian, for he inflicts his punishment with in- 
 stant death. 
 
 There is no civilized country except the United 
 States where they hang negroes to lamp-posts, 
 and bum Catholic orphan asylums, and torture 
 the negroes with red-hot irons, and break into jails 
 and murder the inmates, and then make a hero 
 of the leader of the riot, and name a beautiful park 
 in his honor, as they did in New Orleans some two 
 years ago. 
 
 Oh, shame ! That the sublime doctrines of the 
 Christian religion should be so perverted by blind 
 and misleading teachers as to picket the world with 
 scaffolds. " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth," is a fitting motto to be engraved on the 
 23 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 tombstone of a red-painted Indian devil ; but it 
 has no place in the accepted tenets of any truly 
 natural or revealed religion. 
 
 One word more, and I have done. A human 
 life is the creation of an infinite invisible God, and 
 He alone who created it has the right to terminate 
 it. A father has no right to kill his child ; and 
 society has no right to kill one of its members. 
 The argument which gives society that right is just 
 the same argument which the North American 
 Indian uses when he tomahawks a white man, 
 because he is intruding on the Indian's land, de- 
 stroying his game and his means of living. It is 
 sometimes miscalled the law of self-preservation. 
 The Hottentot has just as good a right to use that 
 argument when he kills a white missionary whom 
 he finds piercing the jungles of Africa, and inter- 
 fering with his hunting-grounds and his God- 
 given rights to existence and to a livelihood. 
 Away with all these childish arguments, whether 
 they come from the mouth of the Christian legis- 
 lator, the savage Indian, or the nude, man-eating 
 Hottentot. 
 
 Remember, when you cannot create a human 
 life you have no right to take it away. The good 
 Lord our Master never taught the doctrine that 
 would warrant the execution of one poor criminal. 
 Remember that one of the most celebrated English 
 preachers of this century has boldly proclaimed 
 the doctrine, and supported it by powerful argu- 
 24 
 
ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 ments, that all criminals are partially insane, and 
 that all sin is the result of partial ignorance. 
 
 To the friends of this humane movement I have 
 only words of cheer. Be ye not discouraged. 
 Remember that the world moves, that this is an 
 age of progress, and that, whether we will or no, in 
 God's good time all the wrongs and errors of so- 
 ciety will be righted. 
 
 And of you, the opponents of this coming re- 
 form, I beg, not to try to mete out to every man 
 his full and complete punishment in this world, 
 but leave something to the final disposition of a 
 good, kind God, that rules the universe, the loving 
 arbiter and final judge of all men ; who knows the 
 secret motives of their hearts, and all the trials and 
 temptations which beset poor, erring mortals in 
 their pilgrimage through this tempest-tossed earth. 
 
 Christopher Columbus the explorer, George 
 Washington the patriot, Abraham Lincoln the lib- 
 erator, William E. Gladstone the statesman, have 
 taught the world that it cannot live on precedents 
 or bygone history or in the caves of the dismal 
 past. They have challenged the attention of civil- 
 ized men everywhere to the dawning light of some- 
 thing more glorious and far better, — the immortal 
 future, so full of promise for the bettering of the 
 human race. 
 
 The inspiration of the hour prompts me to close 
 with the beautiful lines of the greatest and sweetest 
 of living English poets, — 
 25 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 •* Since tale was kept of human hopes and fears, 
 Since first, through mists of eld, we mark Man 
 
 climb 
 From flint and bronze to arts and aims sublime, 
 Subduing earth and stripping from the sea, 
 By lordlier might, its power and mystery ; 
 And gaining, race by race, with painful strife, 
 Slow steps to Law, and sweeter modes of life." 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 /ie/'/y to a Critic. 
 
 New York, May 26, 1893. 
 
 Dear S., — I have received your letter, also the 
 letter which you enclosed from a distinguished 
 member of Congress from Massachusetts, criticising 
 my little speech. 
 
 I notice, with sorrow, that for want of a better 
 argument, he quotes a text from Scripture which 
 he thinks carries out his idea, to wit : " Whoso 
 sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be 
 shed." For eighteen hundred years every heresy 
 or fanaticism, religious, moral, social, or political, 
 has tried to bolster up its cause by some perverted 
 text from the Bible ; and every despot to-day, from 
 the Czar of Russia to the head of the Mormon 
 Church, has got some quotation from the Bible to 
 ding in your ears ; and I for one, am tired of it. 
 26 
 
ABOLISHING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 If this little text can be perverted or strained to 
 the interpretation that this member of Congress 
 puts upon it, it means also that if a man in a fight 
 puts another man's eye out, the court shall order 
 the sheriff to put his eye out ; or if he bites a 
 man's nose off, the court shall order his nose to 
 be bitten off; or, if he knocks out a man's tooth, 
 the Court shall order his tooth to be knocked out. 
 
 When we were in good old Brown, we learned 
 from Wheatley that there was no argument so effec- 
 tive at times as the " Reductio ad absurdum," and 
 nothing shows the absurdity of your friend's argu- 
 ment so much as to apply it literally to eveiy-day 
 life. Besides, our good Lord and Master never 
 taught any such abominable doctrine, and no 
 verse in the New Testament can be found to prove 
 it to have the divine warrant. 
 
 Your distinguished friend says that Harris was 
 executed, and that he had plenty of money, and 
 that is an argument against my position. My 
 answer is simply this : Harris died because he was 
 poor and penniless and did not have the best 
 lawyer. His case was badly managed from the 
 very start to the finish. With Bourke Cochran for 
 his lawyer, Harris would to-day be walking the 
 streets of New York as free a man as I am. 
 
 In that enlightened and Christian civilization 
 
 which we may expect five hundred years from now, 
 
 we will look for better men ; but to-day nothing 
 
 draws a crowd in America like a dog-fight or a 
 
 27 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 prize-fight ; in Spain, whose people we are so highly 
 honoring this year, nothing draws a crowd like a 
 bull-fight ; and among Africans, our first cousins, 
 nothing draws so great a crowd as to kill, roast, 
 and eat a white missionary. 
 
 We live in hopes of better times, and you and I 
 will do our little share toward hastening them on. 
 For the present we prefer not to be counted with 
 the " madding crowd." 
 
 Without impugning the motives of those persons 
 who seem to chew their morsel of content over the 
 ghastly sacrifice of a human life, we will still believe 
 there is something good in every man, and that the 
 worst use you can make of a man is to hang him 
 on the gallows. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 28 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered May ii, 1893, in favor of the Woman 
 Suffrage Bill, giving women the right to vote at 
 School Elections. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives: 
 
 Your committee on Woman Suffrage, to whom 
 were referred many bills relating to that subject, 
 have given this question a patient hearing, and, as 
 a result of their deliberations, have reported with 
 practical unanimity the bill now pending before 
 this House. 
 
 This is a question which, like the ghost in 
 Shakspeare's great play, will not down; and if 
 you do not settle it right to-day, it will come here 
 to vex every succeeding session of the General 
 Assembly of Connecticut until it has been settled, 
 and settled right. 
 
 I invoke your serious attention to the Httle I 
 have to say in favor of the pending bill. 
 
 Since the commencement of recorded time, 
 there has been no period of fifty years in the 
 history of the world so fruitful of good to the 
 human race as the last fifty years. 
 29 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 I have not the time to portray, and you have 
 not the patience to listen to me while I recite, 
 one-half that has been done in fifty years — in art, 
 in science, in spreading human comfort, in the de- 
 veloping of government, and in establishing the 
 rights and redressing the wrongs of the governed 
 — in all parts of the civilized world. 
 
 No class in the community has welcomed this 
 progress with greater zeal, no class thanks Heaven 
 with a prouder heart, and no class has reaped 
 greater benefits from all this wonderful progress 
 than the women of this land, — our mothers, our 
 wives, our sisters, and our daughters. But the tale 
 is only half told, the book is only half open, the 
 human race — of mankind and of womankind — is 
 still in its infancy. Are we to stop where we are? 
 Are we to make no more progress? Are we to 
 offer the blessings of a free government to all the 
 poor and degraded and ignorant of the Old 
 World, and to refuse it to our own kith and kin? 
 Are not the women of Connecticut as fit to vote, as 
 intelligent, as much interested in the fair fame of 
 Connecticut as the emigrant who lands at Castle 
 Garden — that Babel of languages and storehouse 
 for paupers — or as the ignorant and homeless 
 negro of the South? 
 
 The whole theory of our government is that it 
 
 depends upon the consent of the governed, and 
 
 that every person — white or black, native or foreign 
 
 born, Jew or Gentile — who has lived to the age of 
 
 30 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
 
 twenty-one years and who can comply with certain 
 educational requirements, shall have a voice in 
 this government. Why limit it to males? Why 
 give women no voice in the government under 
 which they exist, or in the laws you ask them to 
 obey, or in the taxes you compel them to pay, 
 or in the control and education of their own 
 children ? 
 
 Either the theory of a Republican government 
 is wrong, and we should abandon it and establish 
 some other form of government not depend- 
 ing upon the consent of the governed, or we 
 should be just, and carry out our principles to 
 the end. 
 
 I am frank to say, I believe in this system of a 
 Republican government. I believe in the rule of 
 the people, and I believe a Republican system is 
 the grandest achievement of the ages. 
 
 I welcome the foreigner, fleeing from the des- 
 potic military governments of the Old World. I 
 welcome everybody to a lot and share in the 
 benign benefits of a free government. There is 
 room enough in this great Republic for people 
 of all climes and both sexes, and I hope to live 
 to see the day when every loyal subject, male and 
 female, shall have a voice in the affairs of the 
 nation. 
 
 This bill recommended by your committee is so 
 small and so little a concession, that we beheved 
 it would pass this Legislature unanimously. 
 31 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Women are now, by law in this State, eligible to 
 act as members of boards of school visitors, and on 
 school committees. Why not go one step further ? 
 If they are competent to act in these positions, why 
 are they not competent to say who shall fill these 
 places ? 
 
 Women act to-day with men in the management 
 of churches, hospitals, Sunday-schools, asylums, 
 and they are filling all sorts of responsible posi- 
 tions in the educational, commercial, and govern- 
 mental affairs of the world. They are everywhere 
 to be found challenging the respect and admiration 
 of their fellow-men, from the Queen of England, 
 who has for fifty years ruled with consummate 
 ability the proudest and most powerful nation ex- 
 isting to-day, down to the quiet woman who travels 
 along the humblest walks of daily toil. Their 
 abilities are being tested on all the battle-fields of 
 life, and the results of their industry and talents are 
 among the marvels of the times. Over the centre 
 arch of the Brooklyn Bridge should stand the figure 
 of that woman to whose mighty genius it owes its 
 completion, — the grandest triumph of fifty cen- 
 turies in civil engineering. 
 
 But why should I tarry in this matter? Con- 
 necticut, slow and conservative as she has always 
 been, is still lagging in the onward march of 
 progress. It took her fifty years to learn the 
 lesson that Thomas Jefferson taught, the separa- 
 tion of Church and State, and it took her seventy- 
 32 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
 
 five years to learn that a property qualification is 
 not in harmony with a fi'ee government. 
 
 To-day, school suffrage, under various con- 
 ditions, is allowed to women in the following 
 States — I beg of you to listen while I read 
 the list : Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, 
 Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massa- 
 chusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New 
 Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Texas, 
 Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. In Arkan- 
 sas and Missouri women may vote (by not sign- 
 ing or refusing to sign) on liquor licenses. In 
 Kansas women may vote in municipal elections. 
 About 60,000 women voted in 1891, and over 
 100,000 in 1893, and tolled the knell of crankism 
 in that State. In New York women may vote at 
 school elections and on questions of water-works, 
 paving, grading, draining, street lighting, and minor 
 local improvements. In Pennsylvania women 
 vote on local improvements by signing or refusing 
 to sign petitions therefor. 
 
 Thomas W. Palmer, to whose ability as much as 
 to that of any other living man to-day we owe the 
 unparalleled success of the Columbian Exposition, 
 spoke some years ago in the United States Senate 
 as follows : — 
 
 " They cite the physical superiority of man, but offer 
 no amendment to increase the voting power of a Sulli- 
 van or a Heenan, or to disfranchise the halt, the 
 blind, or the sick. They object that many women do 
 3 33 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 not desire the suffrage, and that some would not exer- 
 cise it. It is probably true, as often claimed, that 
 many slaves did not desire emancipation in 1863, 3-"^ 
 there are men in most communities who do not 
 vote, but we hear of no freedman to-day who asks 
 re-enslavement, and no proposition is offered to dis- 
 enfranchise all men because some neglect their 
 duty. 
 
 " They regard the manly head of the family as its 
 only proper representative, but would not exclude the 
 adult bachelor sons. They urge disability to perform 
 military service as fatal to full citizenship, but would 
 hardly consent to resign their own rights because they 
 have passed the age of conscription, or question those 
 of Quakers, who will not fight, or of professional men 
 and civic officials, who, like mothers, are regarded as 
 of more use to the State at home. They are dismayed 
 by a vision of women in attendance at caucuses at late 
 hours of the night; but, doubtless, enjoy their presence 
 at routs, balls, and entertainments until the early 
 dawn. 
 
 " I share no fear of the degradation of women by 
 the ballot. I believe rather that it will elevate men. 
 I believe the tone of our politics will be higher, that 
 our caucuses will be jealously guarded, and our con- 
 ventions more orderly and decorous. I believe the 
 polls will be freed from the vulgarity and coarseness 
 which now too often surround them, and that the poll- 
 ing booths, instead of being in the least attractive 
 parts of a ward or town, will be in the most attractive ; 
 Instead of being in stables and gin-mills, will be in 
 private houses and counting-rooms. I believe the 
 character of candidates will be more closely scruti- 
 nized, and that better officers will be chosen to make 
 
 34 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
 
 and administer the laws. I believe that the casting of 
 the ballot will be invested with a seriousness — I had 
 almost said a sanctity — second only to a religious 
 observance." 
 
 The great Liberal party of England, under the 
 leadership of that man who will go down to history 
 as the most profound statesman of the nineteenth 
 century, William E. Gladstone, has brought for- 
 ward in the British Parliament, within the past 
 eight weeks, a bill which gives to the women of the 
 three kingdoms a full and complete voice in the 
 management of all local affairs. 
 
 From the rich mine of English jurisprudence 
 our fathers gathered the principles of our Consti- 
 tution; and ever since, in subsequent legislation, 
 these two great kindred nations have together 
 girdled the world with the principles of personal 
 liberty, and the rights of the individual man and 
 the individual woman. Shall we now part com- 
 pany with our Queen sister in the race for human 
 progress and the development of mankind? I 
 say no. 
 
 In closing, I have but this to say. I appeal to 
 every member of this House. Who taught you the 
 alphabet ? To whose kind and constant instructions, 
 more than all else in the world, do you owe the 
 foundation and possibly the completion of your 
 education? Who followed you with anxious and 
 loving heart that you might be educated and fitted 
 to go out and fight the battles of life and be a man 
 35 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 among men? And who is doing this same work 
 for your children to-day but a woman? 
 
 Give the women what nature fitted them for, 
 and what should be theirs by every law, human or 
 divine, — a voice in the control and management of 
 your schools and in the education of their children, 
 and you will never regret it. 
 
 36 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered June 22, 1893, in favor of the Bill for a 
 CoJistitutional Convention. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 I SHALL not attempt to weary this House to-day 
 with a long list of statistics to prove the injustice of 
 the Constitution under which we are living. You 
 are all familiar with those facts. I shall simply at- 
 tempt to put the arguments in favor of a Constitu- 
 tional Convention, upon such broad and generous 
 principles as will appeal to the intelligence and con- 
 science of every member of this General Assembly, 
 be he Republican or be he Democrat. 
 
 This question is no party question. It is simply 
 a question between five hundred foolish men who 
 think they see a political advantage to themselves 
 in keeping matters as they are now, and eight 
 hundred thousand people who are ready and 
 willing to see the fair thing done. 
 
 The Puritan created his State after he had first 
 established his Church, and every man who par- 
 took of the communion had an equal voice in all 
 political matters. As time went on, the Puritan, 
 37 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Otherwise known as the Congregational, church 
 created towns of nearly equal inhabitants and ter- 
 ritory, for the better management of the little local 
 town affairs, — the poor, the roads, the schools ; 
 but above all, for the support of the Congregational 
 church and the dispensing of religious benefits. 
 These little towns were simply missionary outposts. 
 In order that there may be no misunderstanding 
 about this matter, let me read from the most 
 learned historian who has ever attempted to write 
 the early history of New England : — 
 
 "The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay settlements 
 were founded by Congregational pilgrims in 1620 and 
 1628, and others, a few years afterwards, in Massachu- 
 setts and Connecticut. Congregationalism gave New 
 England the distinctive character it bears in history, 
 and, in return, the development of the New England 
 churches and the teaching of their pastors gave the 
 State Congregationalism as its form. From the ear- 
 liest settlement of New England there was a definite 
 but peculiar relation between the churches and the 
 State. It was neither that in which the State rules the 
 Church, nor that in which the Church rules the State, 
 but rather a peculiar blending of the two. Townships 
 were incorporated with a view to ability to maintain a 
 settled ministry, and to the convenience of the people 
 in attending public worship. Provision was made by 
 law for the support of the pastors and for all necessary 
 church expenses." 
 
 The Congregational church — the first, the great- 
 est, and the truest Democracy known in all history 
 38 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 for more than three thousand years, yea, since the 
 early days of Roman and Grecian history, before 
 those ancient people became powerful, corrupt, and 
 monarchical — never dreamed that these little 
 territorial boundaries would be the basis of over- 
 throwing the very principles upon which the 
 Puritan built his Congregational church, — the 
 equality of man in every religious or political 
 organization. 
 
 He would have no elders, no bishops, no pres- 
 bytery, no superior class, no overruling authority, 
 but he trusted everything to the individual man, 
 and the humblest layman was as powerful as the 
 most learned and eloquent preacher, and every 
 little church, however humble, was a republic in 
 itself. 
 
 The Puritan fled from the land where the few 
 governed the many, and where all the honors of 
 Church and State were monopolized by the few, 
 to establish on these western shores a pure 
 Democracy. 
 
 As time went on, great inequalities have arisen 
 in the distribution of population and wealth, until 
 we are called upon to take up the cause the Puri- 
 tan batded so nobly for, and won, nearly three 
 centuries ago. 
 
 Now, the very theory and foundation of this 
 ancient Commonwealth were the equality of man in 
 making laws, in bearing arms, and in everything that 
 pertained to the management of political affairs. 
 39 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Davenport, Hooker, and those heroes who laid 
 the foundations of this favored Commonwealth, 
 never dreamed that the day would come when 
 four hundred and thirty-one inhabitants in the 
 town of Union would have an equal voice with 
 eighty-six thousand inhabitants in the town of New 
 Haven, in making laws, in spending money, and in 
 governing the State. If that doctrine had been 
 proclaimed three hundred years ago, you would 
 have no Commonwealth of Connecticut to-day, but 
 every town would have remained an independency. 
 Those old Puritans would have torn King Charles's 
 Charter into a thousand fragments if it had con- 
 tained any such vicious doctrine, for they were men 
 cast in a heroic mould, and made no compromises 
 with their intelligence or their conscience. 
 
 I ask the opponents of this bill : What do you 
 propose to do with this question ? Do you propose 
 to fight the inevitable, to oppose the spirit of 
 the age, to contend like the Tories of England 
 against an outraged people, to trample upon the 
 doctrines proclaimed in the cabin of the May- 
 flower, and which have made the name of the 
 Puritan immortal in history? 
 
 All arguments drawn from the formation of the 
 national government are not in this question. It 
 is a compromise. It is based upon no just prin- 
 ciples, and is the one weak thing in your govern- 
 ment, that may — that will, some day — wreck it, 
 if it be not changed. 
 
 40 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 That the rotten mining-camp of Nevada with 
 its sixty thousand inhabitants has an equal voice in 
 the Senate of the United States with the great 
 Empire State of New York with its five millions of 
 inhabitants and its untold aggregate of wealth and 
 of commercial importance, almost makes the bronze 
 statue of the Goddess of Freedom which crowns the 
 dome of the Capitol at Washington weep ; yea, it 
 makes respectable the most tyrannical monarchy on 
 the face of the earth to-day ; for all this is done in 
 America, hypocritically, under the name of Liberty, 
 Equality, and Freedom. 
 
 This is a question purely and simply for the 
 State of Connecticut, for Rhode Island, for Massa- 
 chusetts, for Virginia, for South Carolina, for Cali- 
 fornia : Shall not the people have an equal voice 
 in the management of their State affairs, — no 
 representatives from rotten boroughs, no shoestring 
 districts, but representatives elected by equal pop- 
 ulation and contiguous territory ? Any other claim 
 is the merest twaddle, and any other position is 
 the repudiation of the principles upon which your 
 government is founded. It cannot stand the test 
 of reason, or the approval of the good men of all 
 parties. 
 
 Some selfish political plotters are all the time 
 appealing to the small towns to beware of the 
 growing power of the cities, yet they are not able 
 to point to a single instance since the formation of 
 the State when the cities have tried to legislate 
 41 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 against the interests of the small towns. The in- 
 terests of the towns of Hartford and New Haven 
 are identical with those of Union and Prospect, and 
 the legislation of the State affects each alike ; the 
 laws that are good for one are good for the other. 
 
 Other claims are the specious arguments of 
 demagogues ; they have no warrant in fact. 
 
 In every State in the Union, except Connecti- 
 cut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, the idea 
 of town representatives has been long since 
 abandoned, and the members of the House of 
 Representatives are elected by districts of equal 
 population and adjacent territory, and these same 
 demagogues who are opposed to this change will 
 be the most blatant of reformers if the Democrats 
 should happen to get permanent control in these 
 three States. Consistency is a jewel of which they 
 know nothing, and statesmanship they reduce to 
 political trickery. 
 
 Now, I am not strenuous about this convention 
 bill. I have read and re-read the arguments of 
 Hon. Henry C. Robinson. The first time I read 
 them I admired their beautiful diction, and the 
 second time, their powerful logic. The constitu- 
 tion of this State is practically correct, except so 
 far as it relates to the election of State officers, 
 and the election and composition of the Senate 
 and the House of Representatives. But if you 
 put me in the alternative of nothing or a constitu- 
 tional convention, I shall vote for a constitutional 
 42 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 convention ; and so I hope, and so I believe, will a 
 large majority of this House. 
 
 A single word more, and I have done : The 
 political advantages to be gained or lost by an 
 amendment to the Constitution of this State are 
 not of a feather's weight. Connecticut has been a 
 close State, politically, for one hundred years, and 
 will continue to be close for one hundred years 
 longer. No man can prophesy two years ahead 
 what will be the political complexion of this State. 
 The result of the election (I own it with shame) 
 is determined frequently, as every sensible man 
 knows, by the size of the bank account of the 
 several State committees. 
 
 Nothing has done so much to make this State 
 corrupt as those small towns where a few hundred 
 dollars determines the election of a United States 
 senator or the State officers, and the control of 
 the political patronage of the State. 
 
 I have one appeal to make to the members of 
 this House. To most of the members it does not 
 make a straw's difference who carries this State 
 politically two years from now. The sun will shine, 
 the grass will grow, and business will go on the 
 same whichever political party triumphs. This 
 country is lost and saved regularly every four 
 years. Let us do right, let us make a record that 
 we can live by and die by, that merits the ap- 
 proval of our own consciences, and of the intelli- 
 gent future historian who will some day write up 
 43 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the record of this General Assembly. No party 
 has permanently triumphed politically in this coun- 
 try. The party that is down to-day is up to-mor- 
 row. The political caldron of American politics is 
 like the ebb and the flow of the ocean ; but there 
 is one thing it is always safe to do, and then, 
 whether success or defeat awaits you, you have the 
 consciousness of having done the right thing, and 
 in the end history will vindicate your action. 
 
 The best men of both parties are practically 
 agreed in this matter, and there can be but one 
 issue to this contest. "The mills of God grind 
 slowly, yet they grind exceeding small." 
 
 No man and no combination of men is power- 
 ful enough to lead successfully any political party 
 against this mighty reform movement. The intel- 
 ligent young Republican voters in the great cities 
 of New Haven, Hartford, Meriden, New Britain, 
 Bridgeport, Middletown, Waterbury, Rockville, 
 New London, feel the injustice of this present sys- 
 tem as much, if not more, than the Democratic 
 party, for it disfranchises them for a lifetime from 
 any part or voice in the management of the State 
 affairs. I know full well that if this General As- . 
 sembly fails in its duty, another General Assembly 
 will assemble in these courtly legislative halls, on 
 January, 1895, which will do the people's bidding, 
 and right the crying shame of the hour. 
 
 At the opening session of this General Assembly 
 I introduced a constitutional amendment that 
 44 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 secured to every town one representative, and 
 an additional representative for every five thousand 
 inhabitants, beheving this would be a great im- 
 provement on the present system. You have 
 rejected that proposition. We asked for " bread " 
 and you have given us a " stone." 
 
 A few men would rather throw this Constitu- 
 tion and the whole system of our government into 
 the maelstrom of political warfare, than yield to 
 the demands of the majority of the people of this 
 State. This is a strange position. It has only one 
 parallel, — the man who hoped to go through the 
 whirlpool of Niagara in a barrel. But he was 
 smart enough to send his dog in the barrel first ; 
 and so you send your plurality amendment through 
 ahead, hoping thereby to quiet the demands of an 
 incensed people for a constitutional revision. 
 
 The burning question of our State to-day is not 
 the rights of the colored man, or the repeal of the 
 Sherman Act or of the McKinley Bill, but it is 
 whether Republican principles shall triumph, or 
 whether two hundred American citizens in New 
 Haven shall not have any more political power 
 than one citizen in Union, While we live under 
 a government that is Republican and Democratic 
 in principles, it is practically the most abomi- 
 nable oligarchy in existence to-day the wide world 
 over ; and while we profess Republican principles, 
 we are the biggest political hypocrites recorded in 
 history, 
 
 45 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Democrats and Republicans alike are respon- 
 sible for the present state of affairs. There have 
 been times when the Democrats have had full 
 authority in the General Assembly and could have 
 righted these wrongs, but we have been cursed, as 
 you have been, with a lot of men with about as 
 much political sagacity as a mule. They did not 
 dare to do right for fear it would hurt the party. 
 Most of these men, thank God, are in heaven 
 to-day ; the rest are still occasionally seen in 
 Democratic conventions. 
 
 If you can succeed much longer in defeating 
 this honest uprising of the people, if the majority 
 are not to rule in this State, then I await with 
 pleasure the hour when, under the leadership of 
 another Parnell, the thwarted and checkmated 
 majority shall stop the whole wheels of legislation, 
 and paralyze the public business, as happened in 
 England, when the proud English nation stood at 
 bay, and were obliged to give an unwilling ear to 
 the wrongs of Ireland. 
 
 This will be my final message to the General 
 Assembly of 1893, for never again do I intend to 
 intrude upon your deliberations, and I want to 
 thank you, one and all, for the kindness you have 
 extended to me. 
 
 To my Democratic friends who expect to reap 
 some political advantages from this proposed con- 
 stitutional convention, and to my Republican 
 friends, who fear disaster to their party from such a 
 46 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
 
 convention, — to one and all I say, I beg of you to 
 remember that while " man proposes, God dis- 
 poses." It is as true of nations as of individuals, 
 that 
 
 " There 's a divinity that shapes our ends. 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 All history, ancient and modern, is studded and 
 blazoned with events showing the short-sightedness 
 of the vast majority of political schemes and 
 actions ; for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred 
 the evil that was foretold never really happened, 
 and the good that was expected was never fully 
 realized. 
 
 When the French arms went down on that fated 
 battlefield of Sedan in the Franco-German War, 
 and apparently the Germans triumphed, it was, in 
 fact, the greatest victory ever won by Frenchmen. 
 It was the death-knell to Napoleonism. Over its 
 ashes the French people have been enabled to 
 erect a republic ; and never were they so strong, 
 so prosperous, and so much a menace to Germany 
 as they are to-day. 
 
 What the Frenchmen could not do, Bismarck 
 and King William, in the hands of an overruling 
 Providence, did for them. 
 
 The Republican party contended for negro suf- 
 frage, and won, and without it they would not be in 
 supreme control in the national government to-day. 
 Neither do all the foreigners remember when they 
 47 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 cast their ballots how the Democratic party fought 
 and went through the slough of political despon- 
 dency in its struggle against Knownothingism. The 
 greatest victory won by the South in that awful 
 war of the Rebellion, and the greatest blessing 
 ever conferred on them was when they surrendered 
 at Appomattox, and returned to help rule the 
 government they had once hoped to destroy. 
 
 The Republican party carried through trium- 
 phantly the McKinley bill; but the manufacturer 
 forgot his benefactor, and the Republican party 
 passed into a minority. 
 
 I shall vote for this bill, not because I think it 
 will benefit the Democratic party, for I do not 
 think either political party will reap any permanent 
 political advantages from a constitutional conven- 
 tion, but I shall vote for this bill because it is 
 right. 
 
 This question rises above all party politics. The 
 State is greater than any political party. Your 
 children and your children's children have an 
 abiding interest in your action to-day. 
 
 I prefer to stand where the old Roman stood, 
 and " to do right, though the heavens fall." 
 
 48 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered January i6, 1895, ^n regard to the 
 East Hartford Bridge. 
 
 I TOOK the liberty to introduce this resolution 
 on the opening day of this session of the General 
 Assembly. 
 
 The guns were then just announcing the inaugu- 
 ration of the present distinguished Governor ''of 
 this State, and I have since regretted my intrusion 
 upon the happy hours of that, to many of you 
 festive day. ' 
 
 But the boom of that cannon is now slowly 
 reverberating and dying out down among the hills 
 of Middlesex County, and it is time that we enter 
 upon the serious business of this session ; and I 
 know of no business more serious than the matter 
 embraced in this resolution. 
 
 It is not the object of this resolution to investi- 
 gate any scandal connected with the passage of 
 the law under discussion. 
 
 That was the business of the Legislature of 
 
 1893; and when Luzon B. Morris declined to call 
 
 that General Assembly together, the acts of its 
 
 members passed beyond the paJe of legislative 
 
 4 49 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 investigation, and are only amenable to tlie bar 
 of criminal justice and to the forum of public 
 opinion. 
 
 To Luzon B. Morris fell an opportunity which 
 falls to but few men in this world ; for by one 
 stroke of the pen he could have summoned the 
 Legislature of 1893, and in one day they would 
 have wiped out this law. They would have blotted 
 from history, and largely from memory, the awful 
 scandal that surrounds the passage of this law, and 
 they would have saved the State of Connecticut 
 several hundred thousand dollars, and, in the end, 
 perhaps several millions. 
 
 But that day has gone. That golden oppor- 
 tunity has slipped away, and we have only to do 
 with the present. 
 
 Now I ask your attention to the law itself. A 
 more crude, incomplete, and unsatisfactory law 
 can nowhere be found in legislative annals. 
 
 Here are two men, under no bonds, under 
 no obligation to make any report to the Gen- 
 eral Assembly or any one of their doings, with 
 unlimited power (as they say) to expend the 
 money of the State to any amount they may see 
 fit. 
 
 Such powers, I venture to say, were never before 
 conferred upon two men by any legislative body 
 in the great sisterhood of States. If they can 
 build an iron bridge, they can build a stone 
 bridge; if they can build a bridge with a forty- 
 50 
 
THE EAST HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 foot driveway, they can build one with a hundred- 
 foot driveway ; if they can spend three hundred 
 thousand dollars, they can spend a million dollars, 
 and nobody can ask them, "Why do you thus?" 
 Again, there is no limit in this bill to the amount 
 they shall charge for their services, either past, 
 present, or future, and they can draw from the 
 treasury of the State ^500 or ^5,000 a year, as 
 they see fit. 
 
 Now, I am not here to dispute their right to do 
 anything. Everybody in Connecticut, however, 
 outside of some insane asylum, did suppose that, 
 before they attempted such a large expenditure of 
 the public money, they would come to the Legis- 
 lature and state the facts about the bridge, and 
 show their plans and ask for an appropriation. 
 
 But, for once, the people got left. It is said that 
 the two have obtained the opinion of some law- 
 yer indorsing their right to go on and build this 
 bridge. If they have paid anything for an opinion 
 on their powers and rights under that law, I can 
 only say, in the words of an old adage, " the fool 
 and his money are soon parted." 
 
 If there is any doubt about the construction of 
 a law, there is only one opinion worth having, and 
 that is the opinion of the Supreme Court. All 
 other opinions are only guesswork, leaps in the 
 dark ; and the more of them you have the less you 
 know. 
 
 Some years ago five men, the flowers of the bar 
 51 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 of Connecticut, gave a written opinion about an 
 Act of the General Assembly of Connecticut, and 
 the Supreme Court said to the unfortunate litigant, 
 " You paid your money for nothing, and the opin- 
 ion they gave is not worth the paper it is written 
 on." Even to-day the bar of Connecticut looks 
 to those same lawyers as oracles of law, just as a 
 Mussulman looks to Mecca for his religion. 
 
 If it is the settled policy of the State to build 
 this bridge at East Hartford, how are you going 
 to refuse the member from Enfield when he asks 
 for a bridge for Enfield, and the same for the 
 member from Windsor Locks, and the member 
 from Middletown, and the member from Haddam, 
 and the member from Saybrook ? And when you 
 have gotten all these bridges built, how can you 
 refuse to build bridges over the Housatonic, the 
 Naugatuck, the Thames; and where is this thing 
 to end? Instead of spending $300,000, you will, 
 in the end, spend somewhere from five to ten 
 million dollars. I think it would be wise to go to 
 the people of this State, the fountain of all author- 
 ity, and learn their wishes, and for that reason I 
 have introduced a constitutional amendment rela- 
 tive to the care and maintenance of bridges over 
 navigable streams ; and if the people wish to 
 assume this extraordinary burden, and revolu- 
 tionize the whole course of legislation in this State 
 for two hundred years, let them say so. 
 
 How are you going to pay for the East Hartford 
 52 
 
THE EAST HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 Bridge and any other bridges you may build? 
 Are you going to restore the State tax and com- 
 pel the farmers over in Tolland, Windham, and 
 Litchfield counties, and other portions of the State, 
 to pay the savings of a whole year — ^lo, $20, 
 ^40, $100 — for a bridge that they will not even 
 once see, perhaps, in all their lives, and that is of 
 no more use to them than the celebrated Bridge 
 of Sighs in mediseval Venice? If not, are you 
 going to lay this burden on the railroads, the life 
 insurance companies, and the savings-banks of 
 Connecticut ? If you are, a hundred such bills as 
 my friend Mr. Judson has introduced will be use- 
 less to protect you from the hordes that will pour 
 into this Capitol building. Every member will 
 need a Catling gun and a corps of trained physi- 
 cians to resist the onslaught, and keep himself in 
 fighting trim. 
 
 What are you going to do, if you are determined 
 to build these bridges? 
 
 I see but two things to do. Appoint a commis- 
 sion and assess the expenses of building these 
 bridges partly on the town benefited and, possibly, 
 partly on the State of Connecticut. Or issue a 
 low three per cent bond and charge enough toll 
 to parties using these bridges to pay the interest 
 and the actual expenses, as is done at the Brook- 
 lyn Bridge. 
 
 Now, I appeal to every member of this House to 
 do his own thinking, and, if he does not know how 
 53 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 to vote, to go home and ask his constituents how 
 they want him to vote. 
 
 One of the most distinguished, most reputable, 
 and most popular citizens of the city of Hartford 
 has said to me within forty-eight hours that he 
 hoped this horrid, barn-like architectural blot 
 would never span the Connecticut River ; and he 
 said that if it were left to the citizens of Hartford, 
 they would cheerfully contribute towards the con- 
 struction of a bridge over this popular driveway 
 without crucifying the gocd taste of every citizen 
 of this world-renowned, aesthetic city of Hartford. 
 And he said, furthermore, that the building of this 
 bridge is not the work of the citizens of Hartford ; 
 for they realize that if this becomes the settled 
 policy of the State, they will eventually pay into the 
 treasury of the State in taxes far more than enough 
 to build three such bridges. 
 
 And now, Mr. Speaker, I realize too well how 
 weak and powerless I am in this General Assembly 
 in all matters that have any political bearing; but, 
 sir, this is a question which rises above all party 
 lines, and concerns all alike. I am not here to 
 antagonize the interests of any section of the State, 
 but I am here to do my sworn duty to all the 
 people of the State of Connecticut. 
 
 Permit me, sir, to add that I have determined 
 to do all that lies within my feeble power to re- 
 move the opprobrium and censure that have at- 
 tached lately to the legislation of this State ; and 
 54 
 
THE EAST HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 to do more, — to assist you, and the party you so 
 honorably represent, to add a golden page to the 
 history of the good old State of Connecticut. 
 
 And to you, sir, and the party to which you be- 
 long, will attach the greater part of the honor and 
 the glory of such wise and beneficent legislation. 
 
 I want such legislation that when, at the closing 
 hours of this General Assembly, we leave these 
 legislative halls, we can leave them amid the 
 plaudits of nearly a million grateful people. 
 
 55 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered March 6, 1895, in Favor of Retrench- 
 ment of Public Expenses. 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 When every successful business man, and even 
 every prosperous manufacturing company in Con- 
 necticut to-day, is obliged to examine carefully 
 into his or its expenses, reduce salaries and wages 
 where practicable, and exercise the greatest econ- 
 omy to meet the demoralized condition of the 
 business interests of this country, it would seem 
 proper that all the officers of the State of Connec- 
 ticut also should exercise similar economy in the 
 expenditure of the State money, and that this 
 General Assembly should take some action to 
 bring about the desired result. If there is any 
 member of this General Assembly who has acquired 
 a fortune, he has only acquired it by fnigality and 
 industry. It is not what a man or a State spends, 
 but what it saves, that makes both of them rich. 
 Let us introduce into affairs of the State of Con- 
 necticut some of the ordinary rules that govern 
 successful private concerns. 
 56 
 
RETRENCHMENT OF PUBLIC EXPENSES 
 
 We are confronted with a dilemma ; for, accord- 
 ing to the reports of the Treasurer and making 
 a comparison with the usual expenses of the State, 
 we find that the State of Connecticut is daily run- 
 ning behind considerable over ^700, and if there 
 cannot be a saving or a retrenchment in public 
 expenditures, then, necessarily, we must have an 
 increase of taxation. 
 
 You will find, upon examination, that the annual 
 expenses of the State of Connecticut have in- 
 creased in the last eight years over $600,000, and 
 without having been contracted for or devoted to 
 any extraordinary work. Is it not time to cry halt 
 and pay as we go ? 
 
 The to\vns and cities in the State of Connecticut 
 owe now about $20,000,000, and they are gradu- 
 ally increasing that indebtedness yearly instead of 
 reducing it, so that it takes a miUion dollars an- 
 nually out of the pockets of the tax-payers of the 
 State of Connecticut to pay simply the interest on 
 what these towns and cities owe. This is $400,000 
 more than we pay for the entire support of the 
 unfortunate poor and indigent of the State, 
 and nearly as much as all our public schools cost 
 us. 
 
 It is $10 to every man with a family of six, or, 
 to state it another way, $6 to every voter ; and as 
 in many cases people pay no taxes, the burden 
 only becomes more onerous upon those who do 
 pay them. 
 
 57 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 In the last twenty years there has grown up 
 in this State a system of largesses which has ahnost 
 become a law, and also there has been created a 
 large number of commissions or boards with almost 
 unlimited powers in the expenditure of the public 
 money. 
 
 Their names are legion, and their demands for 
 additional money grow alarmingly with every pass- 
 ing year. They are the Shylocks of the State ; 
 and the highest qualification of a member of the 
 General Assembly is that he can say no to these 
 insatiate demands for public funds, and stick to it. 
 There is no one to call them to an account, there 
 is no one to question their expenditures, and the 
 only question they ever seem to ask is, " How 
 much will the people stand?" 
 
 Governors, treasurers, comptrollers come and 
 go, and, with one or two rare exceptions, they 
 never seem to worry themselves about the expen- 
 diture of the public money, or about the interests 
 of the tax-payers of the State. 
 
 I hold in my hand a letter from a former treas- 
 urer of this State, a Republican in politics, and a 
 financier of great ability, who has written to me 
 urging the importance of contracting the expendi- 
 tures of the State of Connecticut. 
 
 I do not know that anything can be accomplished 
 
 by this resolution, but it will do no harm to try it. 
 
 I believe there can be easily discovered an annual 
 
 saving of from fifty to one hundred thousand dol- 
 
 58 
 
RETRENCHMENT OF PUBLIC EXPENSES 
 
 lars. I have not time to allude to many of the 
 extravagances of the State, but will refer to a few 
 as a sample of what I mean. Some of them I do 
 not care to allude to, for fear of stirring up a 
 hornet's nest. 
 
 There are some expenditures in the last report of 
 the Comptroller which seem perfectly outrageous. 
 You will find that it cost over ^30,000 to pay the 
 running expenses of the Senate in 1893, — this is, 
 in addition to their salaries and railroad fares, 
 over $1,000 for every member; while the running 
 expenses of the House of Representatives, with 
 two hundred and sixty-odd members, and tran- 
 sacting more than three-fourths of the legislative 
 business of the State, cost only $28,000. If it is 
 said that the Senate of 1893 was Democratic, my 
 answer is that they were only following in the foot- 
 steps of their predecessors ; and I will also add that 
 in my opinion they poorly represented and poorly 
 repaid the party that was kind enough to put them 
 there. 
 
 You will find by reading the Comptroller's re- 
 port, that it cost over $20,000 to print the Hotch- 
 kiss report of the labor bureau of this State, while 
 you will find that to print the report of the Bank 
 Commissioner it cost about $3,500. It is safe to 
 say that $15,000 of the public money might just as 
 well have been spent in fireworks as in printing 
 that report. With this money you could have 
 built three or four neat, pretty country churches or 
 59 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 chapels, and consecrated them to the worship and 
 service of God. 
 
 You will find that the printing bills of the State 
 have doubled and trebled and quadrupled in 
 eight years, and much of the matter printed is of 
 no more value than the autumn leaves that carpet 
 your foi'ests. There is the same marvellous ratio 
 of increase in the expenditure of some of the 
 boards or commissioners of the State without any 
 adequate remuneration, while the wealth and pop- 
 ulation have only shown a slight increase. In 
 thirty-odd years the expenses of the State have 
 grown to be eight times as great as in i860. 
 Have the property and income of the farmers, the 
 professional, the business men, the tax-payers, 
 grown eight times as great as in i860? 
 
 Listen to this statement and you will need no 
 more convincing proof of the truth of what I am 
 saying : — 
 
 Total Expenses of Connecticut. 
 
 i860 $217,149.45 
 
 1870 820,430.48 
 
 1886 1,308,859.11 
 
 1894 1,918,677.55 
 
 Judicial Expenses. 
 
 i860 $85,764.56 
 
 1870 212,378.25 
 
 1880 256,598.93 
 
 1894 382,691.44 
 
 60 
 
RETRENCHMENT OF PUBLIC EXPENSES 
 
 Military Expenses. 
 
 i860 $21,619.86 
 
 1870 97,000.00 
 
 1880 113,097.49 
 
 1894 190,411.94 
 
 Grand list of i860 $254,742,695 
 
 Grand list of 1893 416,323,252 
 
 See how, while the grand list of the State has 
 only doubled in thirty years, you are expending 
 eight times as much as you were thirty years ago, 
 — more than ten dollars to every voter, while 
 formerly you spent only two dollars to a voter. 
 
 You will find, on examining the report of the 
 comptroller, that the salaries, fees, and perquisites 
 of some of the officials of this State are something 
 fabulous. One man, occupying not a very high 
 order of office, is said to have an annual income 
 of over $15,000; and many men in the last few 
 years, in this State, have been receiving annually 
 thousands of dollars from the State treasury for 
 services of a very ordinary kind. 
 
 A few years ago, the greatest philanthropist and 
 public benefactor that the State of Connecticut 
 has ever produced was at a gathering of business 
 associates at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York 
 City, at a conference in which he was to invest 
 several hundred thousand dollars in developing 
 the manufacturing interests of Connecticut; and 
 after the conference he went out into Broadway, 
 61 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 and walking down the street, he said to my infor- 
 mant that he thought he would buy a pear. He 
 stopped, and asked the price, and they told him 
 it was ten cents. He said it was too much, and 
 went without his pear. That man gave a million 
 dollars away, while living, for the education and 
 improvement of the unfortunate colored people of 
 the South. It is an old Scotch proverb that " the 
 spendthrift is never a generous man." 
 
 Now, the State of Connecticut is a rich State. 
 It is perfectly willing to pay for everything it has, 
 and for all the services it receives, all that they are 
 worth, and expects to pay a little more ; but the 
 State of Connecticut can ill afford to pay two or 
 three times more than the services or the thing is 
 worth. There are legitimate expenses of the 
 State, and to those I do not object ; but there are 
 illegitimate expenses, and they should all be 
 stopped. There are some expenditures of the 
 State that are absolutely wicked and are only one 
 door from pure robbery, and in any private com- 
 pany would result in the immediate discharge of 
 the responsible employee. There are, generally, 
 no bigger and more wanton spendthrifts than the 
 public servants who handle the people's money. 
 Men are here crying for appropriations as if 
 money ran down hill in this State. There is no 
 better place to commence to practise frugality and 
 economy than beneath this gilded dome. 
 
 There are thousands of men out of employment 
 62 
 
RETRENCHMENT OF PUBLIC EXPENSES 
 
 in Connecticut to-day. Our industries are strug- 
 gling against a sluggish and an adverse market, and 
 against a competition such as they have never 
 known before. The United States has lost its hold 
 on the markets of the world in the two great staples, 
 cotton and wheat, that made us rich and brought 
 the hoarded gold of Europe to our shores, and the 
 South and West are on the verge of bankruptcy. 
 We are one great family of States, and Connec- 
 ticut must suffer with the rest. We are fast 
 becoming, as a nation and a State, involved in 
 indebtedness, and will soon be the greatest inter- 
 est-paying and debt-owing nation in the world. 
 
 It is estimated that it takes two hundred million 
 dollars in gold, annually, to pay the interest and 
 the dividends on what we owe to the capitalists of 
 Europe, and this represents so much taken from 
 the pockets of the already over-loaded tax-payers 
 of America. 
 
 All that Grover Cleveland and a hundred Con- 
 gresses can do, cannot give us back the markets 
 of the world. Frugality and industry are the only 
 sure roads to national and State prosperity. 
 
 Before we lay a State tax, let us remember that 
 every dollar that the great majority of the tax- 
 payers in Connecticut pay is so much, not less of 
 luxuries, but of the ordinary comforts of life to 
 himself and his family. Do not forget it. Over 
 on these hillside farms it now takes the economies 
 of a whole year to pay their taxes and the interest 
 63 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 on their mortgages, and some men would still add 
 to their burdens. 
 
 A one-mill tax would raise ^416,000, which 
 would, at the rate we are going, just about pay the 
 yearly deficiencies of the State treasury, but would 
 not pay for the East Hartford Bridge, and other 
 appropriations voted in 1893 but not yet paid. 
 This means $50,000 annually to Hartford, $54,000 
 to New Haven, $54,000 to Bridgeport, $13,000 to 
 Meriden, $12,000 to Waterbury, $14,000 to Nor- 
 wich, $9,000 to New London, $9,000 to Middle- 
 town, and it also means to Tolland County $8,000, 
 to Windham County $18,000, to Litchfield County 
 $28,000, to Middlesex County $19,000, to Fair- 
 field County $100,000, to New London County 
 $37,000, to New Haven County $106,000, to 
 Hartford County $97,000 ; and this, gentlemen, is 
 in addition to all the other taxes that your con- 
 stituents are paying. 
 
 Remember that this does not pay up the defi- 
 ciency of nearly half a million dollars for the past 
 two years, as the receipts fell that amount below 
 the expenditures. 
 
 We shall hardly be true to the recognized and 
 well-estabhshed reputation of the people of Con- 
 necticut for thrift and intelligence if we do not do 
 something to bring order out of financial chaos, to 
 bring the expenses of the State within its income, 
 and to relieve the tax-payers of Connecticut, in 
 these hard times, from any more extraordinary 
 64 
 
RETRENCHMENT OF PUBLIC EXPENSES 
 
 burdens. I should not have risen to say one word 
 if I did not know that I voiced the sentiments of 
 every banker, of every manufacturer, of every 
 merchant, and of every tax-payer in this State. 
 
 For these reasons I have introduced this reso- 
 lution, for no more important business can come 
 before the Legislature than the pregnant and vital 
 question of economy and retrenchment in public 
 expenditures. 
 
 My great ambition is that this General Assembly 
 shall live in history as one of the wisest, most 
 honest, and economical Assemblies that have ever 
 met in this ancient Commonwealth to do the 
 people's bidding. 
 
 65 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered March 28, 1895, ^'^ Favor of the Bill 
 relieving the New York, New Haven, and 
 Hartford Railroad fro 7}i Double Taxation. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 I WISH to State briefly the reasons which will 
 control my action in this matter. The Judiciary 
 Committee are unanimously of the opinion that 
 this bill should pass, and thus release the New 
 York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Com- 
 pany from what is, indisputably, a double taxation, 
 — from paying taxes upon property that is being 
 taxed in other States. 
 
 Every newspaper in Connecticut heartily ap- 
 proves of this bill, and every citizen, every tax- 
 payer in Connecticut is in favor of it, with one 
 bare exception, — Mr. Goodwin, of East Hartford. 
 And his objection is not so much to this particular 
 bill. It is because he thinks some years ago this 
 railroad did not do exactly as he claims the law 
 requires that it should have done. 
 
 The State of Connecticut has had many faith- 
 ful and honest treasurers, and I shall presume 
 66 
 
DOUBLE TAXATION 
 
 that they have done their duty by the State of 
 Connecticut. 
 
 I shall take no part iii the long and acrimoni- 
 ous contest that has been going on for years 
 between Mr. Goodwin and the Consolidated Rail- 
 road Company. 
 
 I am here to do right as between the State of 
 Connecticut and all parties in interest. I have 
 made some investigations on my own account, and 
 I am satisfied that the Consolidated Railroad Com- 
 pany are paying more than their just proportion 
 of the taxes of this State, and I await with interest 
 any candid reply to the figures that I am about to 
 give. 
 
 I am not here to call names or to criticise any 
 man's motives, or to indulge in any personalities, 
 but I am here to argue this matter, as I propose 
 to do every other matter which comes before this 
 General Assembly, on a high and lofty plane of 
 reason and of solid facts. Every person and every 
 interest which have suffered or are suffering an 
 injury which no other court can redress, have a 
 right to appeal to this General Assembly, — the 
 court of the last appeal. 
 
 I make the total cash value of this railroad com- 
 pany to be $45,620,884.99 for the entire length 
 of 248^^0^ miles, and there are in the State of 
 Connecticut i66-f\j\ miles, making the real cash 
 value of so much of this railroad as lies within the 
 State of Connecticut to be $30,544,659.70. These 
 67 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 figures I gathered from the reports of your Rail- 
 road Commissioners, and from the reports of this 
 company to its o^\'n stockholders, and I have also 
 been aided by experts not in the employ of this 
 railroad company. The portion of railroad lying 
 in New York State costs more per mile than the 
 same number of miles in Connecticut, but I have 
 made no difference in my calculations on that 
 account. 
 
 Now, a one per cent tax on so much of this 
 property as lies within the State of Connecticut 
 would raise $305,446.50, which is the fair rate of 
 taxation of all property in Connecticut, where it is 
 assessed at its full value, as in the city of Bridge- 
 port, and many other places in the State. 
 
 Under your present system of taxing the rail- 
 roads of this State, this company pays into the 
 treasury on that same property, $535,049.85, an 
 excess of taxation above the proportion that all 
 other property pays of $229,603.25, showing that 
 this company is paying one and three-fourths per 
 cent on the full cash value of its property. In 
 ninety-nine towns out of a hundred in this State 
 the property is not assessed for more than one-half 
 to two-thirds of its full value, which makes the 
 burden which this company is carrying still more 
 onerous, paying as it is one and three-fourths per 
 cent upon the full value of the road. 
 
 This company paid for the year ending Sept. 
 20, 1894, twenty-eight per cent of the entire rev- 
 68 
 
DOUBLE TAXATION 
 
 enues of the State of Connecticut, and forty per 
 cent of the total taxes paid by corporations, includ- 
 ing insurance companies, savings-banks, express 
 companies, telephone companies, and all other 
 kinds of corporations. 
 
 The mutual insurance companies and the savings- 
 banks of the State pay from one-fourth to three- 
 fourths of one per cent. The six telegraph and 
 telephone companies and the three express com- 
 panies pay less than five per cent on their gross 
 receipts in this State, while the Consolidated Rail- 
 road Company pays more than twelve and one-half 
 per cent on its total gross receipts in Connecticut. 
 
 Again, if you look at the earnings of the different 
 railroads of the State, you will find that the Con- 
 soHdated Railroad pays more largely in proportion 
 to its earnings than any other railroad in the State. 
 This railroad for the year ending June 30, 1893, 
 earned about sixty-nine per cent of the total amount 
 earned by steam railroads, and paid about seventy- 
 four per cent of the taxes paid by these railroads 
 into the treasury. The New York and New England 
 Railroad earned twenty-four per cent and paid 
 twenty-two and one-half per cent of the taxes. 
 The New London and Northern Railroad earned 
 over two and one-half per cent and paid less than 
 two and one-half per cent of the taxes ; and the 
 Philadelphia, Reading, and New England Railroad 
 earned nearly four per cent, and paid less than 
 one per cent of the taxes. 
 69 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Now, from these figures which I give to you, I 
 make the statement, without fear of contradiction, 
 that this railroad company pays more in taxes every 
 year than any other property in this State ; far 
 more in proportion than the manufactories in 
 Bridgeport, Waterbury, Meriden, or WilUmantic 
 are paying, and far more than the property of any 
 member of this General Assembly, I care not from 
 where he comes, or what kind of business he is 
 engaged in. 
 
 It would be a sorry day if this company should 
 come here and ask that all these laws taxing rail- 
 roads should be repealed, and that they should 
 be allowed to have their property in the several 
 towns through which their lines run assessed the 
 same as your property and bear the same taxes, 
 the same as the railroads in Rhode Island are 
 taxed. 
 
 The Supreme Court, the highest tribunal of this 
 State, in an elaborate opinion written by that emi- 
 nent jurist, Elisha Carpenter, the greatest jurist and 
 perhaps the greatest man that Windham County 
 has produced in our day, and in an opinion con- 
 curred in by the Hon. Lafayette S. Foster and 
 the Hon. James Phelps, has blazed the history of 
 this State with the incontrovertible fact that this 
 railroad has always been paying more than its just 
 proportion of the taxes of the State. These are 
 their words : " We think, therefore, it is safe to 
 assume that taxation upon railroad property is 
 70 
 
DOUBLE TAXATION 
 
 considerably above the average rate of taxation 
 throughout the State." (40 Conn. 494.) And 
 the Supreme Court of this State never writes any- 
 thing in anger or in haste, but only after the most 
 mature and careful investigation, for it knows full 
 well that what it writes becomes a part of the 
 recorded history of this State, and will stand there 
 long after its present members and all of us sleep 
 beneath the sod. 
 
 If the Meriden Britannia Company, the Russell 
 and Erwin Manufacturing Company, and other 
 prosperous manufacturing companies in this State 
 were taxed the same as this railroad company is, 
 on the market value of their stock, instead of on 
 the value of their property, it would double, triple, 
 and quadruple their present taxes. 
 
 It is a good Christian motto to •'* Do unto others 
 as you would that they should do unto you ; " and 
 let us be just to this railroad that comes here 
 to-day and puts its case on its naked merit";-, and 
 refuses to spend a dollar in the lobby, or in secur- 
 ing the vote of a single member of this Legislature. 
 I cannot help thinking that the man who votes 
 against this righteous bill is sinning against light. 
 Let your judgment and conscience be your only 
 guide, and I beg of you to follow the teachings of 
 these illustrious judges, to sustain the unanimous 
 report of the Judiciary Committee, and not to 
 vote in prejudice or in ignorance. An enlight- 
 ened public sentiment will approve of your action. 
 71 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 While I am here I shall try to do my duty to 
 the State of Connecticut; but the longer I stay, 
 I can say truthfully, the more I come to prefer 
 the privacy of a life exempt from public cares and 
 annoyance, and to think as Shakespeare has so 
 aptly said, — 
 
 *' And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 72 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered January 22, 1895, on presenting a Reso- 
 lution appointing a Comtnission on the Revision 
 of the Constitution. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: 
 
 I AM not SO crazy as to expect to obtain from 
 this Legislature aught that will be of any value 
 to the unfortunate party to which I belong. I 
 know how useless it is to hope for anything from 
 a Legislature so overwhelmingly Republican and 
 in a State giving such an enormous Republican 
 majority. 
 
 We on this side of the House are like the holy 
 nuns, who, when they join their sacred order, 
 renounce all the pomp and glory of this world. 
 We know that they are not for us. 
 
 But there are many amendments to the Consti- 
 tution, upon which all good men are agreed, that 
 would tend to protect the corporate interests of 
 the State, to advance the interests of the laboring 
 masses, to facilitate the administration of justice, 
 and to promote the welfare and growth of the State 
 we all love so well. 
 
 It is eighty years since this Constitution was 
 adopted. At that time there were no railroads in 
 73 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the State, no steamboats ploughing the waters of its 
 rivers and bays, no life insurance companies, no 
 savings-banks to speak of. Meriden was a mud- 
 hole, New Britain a sterile farm. The whole char- 
 acter of the State has changed in eighty years. 
 
 I sat down to read the Constitution the other 
 day, and one-third is obsolete. We wish to make 
 the Constitution in harmony with the Constitutions 
 of our sister States and with the progressive ideas 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 A majority of this committee are among the 
 keenest and best men of the Republican party, 
 and it would seem as if they could be trusted ; but 
 beyond all that, this commission must submit their 
 views to this General Assembly, and every man 
 here has a vote and can say " yes "or " no " on 
 any and every question submitted. 
 
 I appeal to the intelligent men of this General 
 Assembly to vote for this resolution, and to vote for 
 it now, so that this commission can proceed with 
 their work, hear all parties in interest, and report 
 to this General Assembly at an early date. 
 
 Let us do something in our day and generation, 
 and not leave everything to posterity to ponder 
 over and settle. 
 
 74 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered May 21, 1895, on the Resolution cre- 
 ating a Commission on the Revision of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 I INTRODUCED, early in the session, an act pro- 
 viding for a commission to report to this General 
 Assembly amendments to the Constitution of the 
 State. I am aware that it is not a Democratic 
 measure, and that my action has not been gener- 
 ally approved by the Democratic party ; but as I 
 am not in politics for a living, I am at liberty to 
 exercise my own judgment. I am a practical man, 
 living in a practical age ; and if I cannot get all I 
 want, I am not, therefore, going to give up trying 
 to get something. 
 
 The amendments which I introduced to the Con- 
 stitution of the State during this session, and which 
 have been alluded to by the gentleman on the 
 other side, are, to my thinking, very important. 
 There is no politics in them. They are such 
 amendments as good, sound business men and 
 right thinking men of all parties can agree upon. 
 75 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 The first is one providing that no more special 
 charters shall be granted, but that all private cor- 
 porations shall be organized under a general law. 
 This is a provision in the constitutions of several 
 States, and would take away from this General 
 Assembly one-half of its business, shorten the ses- 
 sion at least one-half, and banish this great hoard 
 of lobbyists that are constantly haunting these 
 legislative halls. 
 
 The second amendment provides that no bill 
 appropriating money shall be passed until it has 
 been printed and on each member's desk at least 
 three days before its passage. This would prevent 
 the passage of a vast number of bills appropriating 
 the public money to an almost unlimited extent 
 on the last days of the session. 
 
 The third provides that no member of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly shall be eligible to any office which 
 requires an election by either branch of the House 
 during his term of office. This amendment has 
 been commended by every leading newspaper of 
 both political parties in the State, and would 
 prevent a large amount of shameful log-rolling, 
 which has been exercised in times gone by 
 to elevate men into public position to which 
 they would never have arrived, except by tak- 
 ing advantage of their position in the General 
 Assembly. 
 
 While it is true that I introduced a bill for a 
 commission, it was very differently made up from 
 76 
 
REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 the one now before the House, for that commis- 
 sion was composed of men none of whom, in my 
 humble opinion, would ever care to go to their 
 graves, and have it engraved on their tomb- 
 stones, where their children and their children's 
 children could see it : " Here lies a man who 
 dared not do right for fear it would hurt his 
 party." 
 
 If the Joint Standing Committee on Constitu- 
 tional Amendments had read their Bible more 
 faithfully instead of attending so many caucuses, 
 they would have made an entirely different report, 
 for they would have found that page and verse in 
 the Bible where it says, " And as ye would that 
 men should do to you, do ye also to them, like- 
 wise ; " and they would have found that page and 
 verse where it says, " Therefore all things whatso- 
 ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them; for this is the law and the 
 prophets." But King Caucus has once more 
 triumphed, as he has often in the past, and will 
 probably oftentimes in the future, over the blessed 
 teachings of the Bible. 
 
 By what theory, or on what claim of justice or 
 equity, this committee report a commission com- 
 posed of eighteen Democrats and thirty Republi- 
 cans is beyond my comprehension, unless it is on 
 the theory that a Democrat is of no use except to 
 pay taxes, and to shout as the procession goes by. 
 But the composition of this commission is in har- 
 77 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 mony with our present system of representation in 
 this State, — the most unrepresentative, the most 
 un-RepubUcan, and the most un-Democratic to be 
 found anywhere in the civiUzed world. 
 
 It takes fourteen hundred Democrats to elect 
 a Representative in this House, while there is 
 a Representative here for every four hundred 
 Republicans in the State. In other words, every 
 single Republican voter in this State has more 
 political influence than any three Democrats and 
 out -votes them. 
 
 It you look at the Senate, it is still worse. It 
 takes sixty-six thousand Democrats to elect one 
 Senator, while there is a Senator for every four 
 thousand Republicans in Connecticut. In other 
 words, one Republican vote weighs as much in 
 this State at the ballot-boxes as that of any fifteen 
 Democrats. 
 
 This system makes the ballot-box a fraud, and 
 the elections a cheat. 
 
 If there were a similar state of affairs in any 
 State south of Mason and Dixon's line, there is not 
 a Republican orator or a Republican newspaper 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but that would 
 denounce it as a Democratic crime and a Demo- 
 cratic shame. 
 
 Now, I shall vote for this bill with all its incon- 
 sistencies, for I believe, and it is my faith, that 
 any political party that undertakes to take an 
 unfair and an unjust advantage of its opponent, 
 78 
 
REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 in the end will suffer thereby; otherwise, life 
 would be hopeless, and the future dark. 
 
 I believe, with the same organization, and the 
 same means to work with, that this State is Demo- 
 cratic, except possibly in such a land-slide as we 
 had last fall ; and I read in a Republican news- 
 paper (I think the "Bridgeport Standard") that 
 they hoped there would never be another land- 
 slide, " for never did so much political drift-wood," 
 they said, " come to the surface in this State." 
 
 Now, the composition of this commission is not 
 remarkable so much for what it contains as for 
 what it does not contain. I do not know, person- 
 ally, many of this commission, but so far as I can 
 learn — so far as my knowledge goes — there is not 
 a single clergyman on this commission. These col- 
 onies of Hartford and New Haven were founded 
 by clergymen, and no class has done more in the 
 last two hundred and fifty years to make our his- 
 tory glorious. I appeal to the member from 
 Guilford, Rev. Mr. Range, if I am not right. 
 
 I do not find a single physician, and I know of 
 no class in the community more intelligent, more 
 liberal in their views, and better fitted to advise in 
 all matters relative to the welfare and the well- 
 being of society. I appeal to my good friend from 
 Manchester, Dr. Whiton, if I am not right. But 
 the framers of this bill will have none of you. 
 They prefer politics to statesmanship, and the 
 good men of all parties understand it. There are 
 79 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 men on that commission who sit up nights and 
 travel miles to beat the Democratic party, by fair 
 means or foul, unless they are awfully misjudged. 
 This commission, the way it is made up, is a trav- 
 esty on justice ; it is a burlesque affair. It is a 
 misnomer to call it a constitutional commission, — 
 a better name would be a "Judson's Political 
 Menagerie Combination." 
 
 I do not find a single person interested in the 
 great charities of the State, — institutions which have 
 been born since this Constitution was framed, and 
 for whose protection and maintenance certain car- 
 dinal amendments ought to be made to our present 
 Constitution. 
 
 I do not find on this commission a single farmer 
 — any man representing the great agricultural in- 
 terests, which is one-half the wealth of the State. 
 I do not find a single one of the learned professors 
 of your colleges, or any one connected with the 
 great educational or common-school systems of the 
 State. 
 
 I do not find on this commission a single man 
 who ever soils his hands with daily work. 
 
 I do not find any representatives of the great 
 working, toiling masses of this State, — the hope 
 and the pride and the salvation of Connecticut. 
 Eight-tenths of the voting population of the State 
 are entirely unrepresented in this commission. 
 
 I do not find a single representative of that 
 class of our citizens who are German born, who 
 80 
 
REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 number a hundred thousand people, and who 
 are our best and most thrifty and inteUigent 
 citizens. 
 
 I do not find in this commission a single repre- 
 sentative of that great element which is trying to 
 reform the pohtics, to enforce the administration 
 of justice, and to elevate the moral standing of 
 society. 
 
 But what I do find is this. I find scattered all 
 through that commission representatives of the 
 great corporate interests of the State ; the very 
 interests that might possibly be reached and re- 
 formed by an amendment to the Constitution, 
 and I find politics in the commission from the 
 beginning to the end. 
 
 I find some good men on this commission, but I 
 shall await with amazement the result of this Con- 
 stitutional Commission. 
 
 I had hoped that this committee on Constitu- 
 tional Amendments would have risen to the height 
 of this great occasion, and would have given us 
 a commission which would have commanded the 
 support of all the broad, generous, good-thinking 
 people of this State. 
 
 I had hoped, but I have hoped in vain, that this 
 committee would have reported a commission 
 which we could feel assured would make a report 
 that would be of great and permanent value to the 
 people of this State ; and I had hoped that the 
 joint standing committee of this General Assembly 
 6 8i 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 would have taken for its motto those well-remem- 
 bered lines of Shakespeare, — 
 
 " Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
 Thy God's, and truth's." 
 
 I am disappointed, but I submit gracefully to 
 the inevitable. 
 
 82 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered May 29, 1895, on the Plurality 
 Amendment. 
 
 Mr, Speaker : 
 
 I DID not think there would be any occasion for 
 my addressing this House again during this session, 
 and I do not now intend to make any set speech. 
 
 There are some things which you cannot discuss ; 
 there is no right or wrong to them. There is no 
 right or wrong to the Lord's Prayer, to the Sermon 
 on the Mount, to the multiplication table, or to a 
 problem in Euclid. 
 
 Some of us, when we were boys, stumbled and 
 stuttered over the Pons Asinorum, and could 
 hardly understand it ; but the problem was right 
 all the same. This Plurality Amendment may be 
 the Pons Asinorum to many Republicans, and they 
 may stumble and stutter over the solution ; but the 
 Plurality Amendment is right all the time. 
 
 I heard a member on the other side ask another 
 worthy member the other day when the Republi- 
 can party was ever committed to this amendment. 
 I reply, it was committed to it when it was born 
 into this world ; it was committed to it by every 
 83 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 victory that it has ever won, by every platform that 
 it has ever promulgated, and by every statesman 
 that it has ever produced,. — that the people shall 
 rule. It is the doctrine of every Republican State 
 in the Union ; it is the doctrine that is applied to 
 the election of every other officer in the United 
 States, and in this State, except to the State ticket. 
 
 No man can doubt how Abraham Lincoln would 
 vote if he were here to-day ; no one can doubt 
 how Ulysses S. Grant would vote if he were here. 
 These men did not hesitate to do right for fear of 
 political consequences. They mapped out a cer- 
 tain political course which they knew was right, 
 and let the consequences take care of themselves. 
 They never crooked the pregnant hinges of the 
 knee, that thrift might follow fawning. 
 
 Again, let me tell the gentleman when the Re- 
 publican party was committed to this amendment. 
 It was committed to it in the session of 1893. I 
 was talking only a day or so ago with the Hon. 
 O. R. Wood ; and never has the Republican party 
 had a more able or more conscientious leader in 
 this branch of the General Assembly in the last ten 
 years than that gentleman. He said it would be a 
 political crime for the Republican party to kill this 
 amendment. He said he stood up in the Republi- 
 can caucus in 1893, and spoke for this amendment 
 and pledged the party to it, and there were enough 
 Republicans there who notified him that if the 
 Republican party did not commit itself to this 
 84 
 
PLURALITY AMENDMENT 
 
 Plurality Amendment, they would vote with the 
 Democrats in favor of a Constitutional Convention, 
 and their votes would carry it. Then you would 
 have reaped a whirlwind. 
 
 I am astonished to hear the honorable gentle- 
 man from Norwich appeal to the members on his 
 side of the House to vote against this amendment, 
 because the Democrats are in favor of it. If it is 
 death to any public measure to have Democrats 
 favor it, then it is better that the Democrats retire 
 absolutely from this Assembly Chamber. 
 
 If such narrow, unreasonable statements (I will 
 not dignify them with the name of arguments) are 
 to influence members in their votes here, then the 
 forty-six men who are so unfortunate as to have been 
 sent here by their constituents, had better retire 
 immediately. This is the same spirit, a little more 
 modernized perhaps, but the same spirit which in- 
 spired the Catholics to burn heretics at the stake 
 many centuries ago ; that inspired the Puritans 
 when they drove Roger Williams from the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony, and that inspired the Know- 
 Nothings when they burned Roman Catholic 
 Asylums, — in other words, to hate and to vote 
 against everything that your opponent favors, and to 
 set yourself up as the paragon of political wisdom. 
 
 There is not a member in this General Assembly, 
 
 on either side of the House or in either branch, 
 
 except possibly the gentleman who graces the 
 
 Speaker's chair, who has any political future worth 
 
 85 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 worrying about. Nine-tenths of us will never be 
 here again, and nine-tenths of us never want to be 
 here again, and therefore most of us can afford to 
 do what is right. 
 
 If you wish to see how happy a man can look 
 when he is politically dead, look at me ; but I agree 
 with the member from Guilford, and we both 
 think, as Socrates taught, that if there is another 
 world, and we think there is, it is better than this ; 
 but if there is no other world, then we think still, 
 as Socrates taught, there is nothing so blessed as 
 physical or political sleep. 
 
 We want no more crowbar Governors in this 
 State. They are only an injury to the party they 
 try to serve. The last one cost the State $250,000 
 for nothing, and resulted in giving Connecticut 
 overwhelmingly to the Democrats. 
 
 I know that that same Governor is here to-day, 
 that Machiavelli of Connecticut politics, engineer- 
 ing the defeat of this amendment ; but every 
 Republican member of this General Assembly will 
 serve his party much better to ignore that man's 
 advice, to keep clear of his schemes, and to carry 
 out that verse in the Bible which, much better 
 than any other verse ever written by man, inspired 
 or uninspired, points out the wise course for every 
 person, be he politician or not, to follow in all his 
 doings ; to wit, " To do justly, love mercy, and 
 walk humbly with thy God." 
 
 86 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered May 22, 1895, on the Building and 
 Control of the Hartford Bridge. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 I STAisTD here solitary and alone. Mr. Judson 
 and myself agreed upon a report placing this 
 bridge on Hartford County, but since signing the 
 report he has concluded to support the bill as 
 adopted by the Senate. 
 
 It is urged that unless this bill is to pass this 
 House exactly as it passed the Senate, there is 
 danger that upon its return to the Senate the 
 whole measure will be defeated. That argument 
 has no weight with me. This matter is too serious, 
 and the principles we seek to establish are too 
 important, to be traded off on account of any fear 
 of what the Senate will do. 
 
 For my part I never knew what the Senate was 
 here for. They have always seemed to me largely 
 like the feather on a woman's hat, — more orna- 
 mental than useful. Individually I have a great 
 respect for them, but collectively I have no use for 
 them. 
 
 87 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 If you wish to live happily, die peacefully, and 
 have some good minister say a kind word for you 
 over your open grave when you cannot speak for 
 yourself, in my humble opinion you should vote 
 against this law proposed by the Senate, and gen- 
 erally against every law proposed by the Senate. 
 
 This bill., as it comes from the Senate, placing 
 this bridge back upon the five towns, is a most 
 wicked and unjust act, and any tax-payer in the 
 towns of East Hartford, Glastonbury, Manchester, 
 and South Windsor is almost warranted in standing 
 with his gun in his hands when the tax-collector 
 comes round to collect his portion of the tax for 
 building these bridges over the Connecticut River 
 under the provisions of this Bridge Bill. 
 
 There is not a member of this Legislature, no 
 matter from what part of the State he comes, but 
 would feel the same way if he were a resident of 
 these four towns. 
 
 There is but one good name for this bill, imper- 
 fectly drawn, inaptly expressed, unreasonable in 
 its provisions, and cruel in its exaction, — and I 
 name it " Crazy Quilt Legislation." 
 
 This bill, as it has passed the Senate, settles 
 nothing, establishes no policy, and is a model for 
 no legislation in the future. The majority of the 
 Committee have abandoned every argument that 
 they advanced, have stamped upon nearly every 
 provision of the law which they reported, and 
 have accepted this wicked substitute, born and 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 created, in my humble opinion, in the mind of 
 one man, — ex-Governor Morgan G. Bulkeley ; 
 and I trust he is proud of his work. 
 
 This question will keep coming here and haunt- 
 ing these legislative halls until you have settled 
 it right and established a policy that shall be 
 uniform and permanent throughout the entire 
 State. 
 
 The bill reported by Mr. Judson and myself is 
 the only bill that will settle this matter satisfactorily 
 to the State of Connecticut, and the only bill that 
 will forever end this controversy. It is the only 
 business plan that has ever been suggested or 
 talked about. 
 
 If you have been permitted to see the beauties 
 of this open spring by a kind Providence, or to 
 continue to enjoy the love and affection of your 
 family and friends up to the present hour; if your 
 life has been spared for any good purpose, — it is 
 that you should be here and vote to take this 
 bridge forever off the Treasury of the State of 
 Connecticut, and to vote that the State of Connec- 
 ticut shall forever go out of bridge-building. 
 
 I will not weary this House by rehearsing the 
 arguments which I advanced almost at the open- 
 ing of this General Assembly, when I took occa- 
 sion to speak on the resolution I had the honor 
 to introduce instructing the Judiciary Committee 
 to inquire and report what action if any was ne- 
 cessary to protect the interests of the State of 
 89 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Connecticut in the East Hartford Bridge matter. 
 What I said then, time and reflection have only 
 strengthened in my mind. 
 
 I thought then, but I know now, that I echo 
 the sentiments of more than ninety-five per cent 
 of all the voters of this State, of all the manufac- 
 turers, of all the business and professional men, 
 and of all the tax-payers, when I say that Connec- 
 ticut is irrevocably opposed to the building of 
 bridges over navigable streams, either here or in 
 any other portion of this State. Such a wild and 
 fanciful scheme means in the end only the bank- 
 ruptcy of your State treasury and the creation of 
 a great and powerful cabal, which, with its vast 
 expenditures of money and its numerous em- 
 ployees, will be forever a menace to the political 
 integrity of the State. 
 
 Now, therefore, there are but two questions 
 here for you to discuss and to decide to-day. 
 
 You are, one and all, directors in the great 
 corporation of this State, and you will treat this 
 matter as you would treat a similar one in any 
 private corporation to which you might or may 
 belong. I come to you, a plain business man, 
 and I talk to you as business men. Pay no atten- 
 tion to any man who attempts to make you believe 
 that the affairs of this State are to be treated in 
 any diff'erent manner or governed by any different 
 principles than those that apply to every-day busi- 
 ness life. The same moral and legal principles 
 90 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 that govern you in the management of your pri- 
 vate affairs, of the railroads, of the manufactories, 
 of the banks, and of the insurance companies in 
 which you are interested, may safely guide and 
 govern your conduct in transacting the public 
 business of the State. 
 
 Now, the two questions to be settled are 
 these : — 
 
 First — Who ought to build, manage, and con- 
 trol the three East Hartford bridges and the 
 causeways connecting therewith, for all time? 
 
 Second — What disposition, if any, is to be 
 made towards settling the contract with the Berlin 
 Iron Bridge Company? 
 
 As to who should build, maintain, and control 
 these bridges, I cannot consider any longer an 
 open question in Connecticut. The Legislature 
 of this State has imposed the bridges over the 
 Housatonic River on the counties of New Haven 
 and Fairfield ; and those counties have cheer- 
 fully acquiesced, and have already spent nearly 
 $200,000 in rebuilding and maintaining such 
 bridges, and there are others which they must build 
 in the near future. 
 
 I appeal with confidence to the member from 
 North Branford, and the member from Guilford, 
 and the member from the hills of Prospect, and to 
 all the members of New Haven and Fairfield 
 counties, — many of them residing far remote 
 from the bridges already constructed over the 
 91 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Housatonic River, and who have cheerfully been 
 paying for bridges they rarely, if ever, use, — to 
 say whether the policy that is correct in your 
 counties does not apply with equal force to all the 
 other counties of the State, including the great 
 County of Hartford? Is it not almost poetic 
 justice for you to-day to vote to apply to the 
 County of Hartford the same principles and laws 
 which they were so ready to impose upon your 
 own counties? 
 
 But they say that you must not apply to the 
 Connecticut River the same laws and rules which 
 you apply to all the other navigable streams of this 
 State, — an argument which, in my humble opin- 
 ion, is worthy of the genius of a modern Dombey. 
 That this sacred stream, this modern Ganges, is 
 an exception to all the other rivers of this State 
 is the merest bosh ; and the men or the clientage 
 who undertake to build an argument upon such a 
 flimsy and unsubstantial basis might just as well 
 try to climb the fleeting mountains of the fleecy 
 skies. They have not been able to produce a 
 single instance in the legislation of the past one 
 hundred years throughout the entire sisterhood of 
 States, where any State has ever attempted or 
 undertaken the building of a bridge over a navi- 
 gable stream. The proposition is so monstrous 
 and absurd that good men throughout the entire 
 confines of the Republic have frowned upon it and 
 strangled it even before its birth. If you go home 
 92 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 to-night with my friend Mr. Middleton of En- 
 field, in one step you cross into Hampden County, 
 through which this same strange river runs, and you 
 will learn how the intelHgent business men of 
 Springfield and the honest yeomanry of Hampden 
 County have bridged this river. These are the 
 facts : — 
 
 The north-end bridge at Springfield cost . $170,904 
 
 Springfield paid $145,124 
 
 West Springfield paid .... 25,780 
 
 $170,904 
 
 The south-end bridge at Springfield cost . $ii6,i8S 
 Hampden County paid . . . .$11,000 
 
 Springfield paid 75>522 
 
 Agawam paid 29,666 
 
 $ii6,iS8 
 
 The old wooden bridge cost $30,000 
 
 Hampden County paid .... $15,000 
 
 West Springfield paid 4,000 
 
 Springfield paid 10,000 
 
 Agawam paid 1,000 • 
 
 $30,000 
 
 You will see how differently from the city of 
 Hartford the city of Springfield has treated the 
 matter of this bridge which pours into its lap the 
 traffic of nearly one-half this rich and populous 
 County of Hartford. The city of Springfield alone 
 has paid, as you will notice, towards the construc- 
 tion of these bridges nearly one-quarter of a million 
 of dollars. 
 
 93 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 It is practically impossible for most adjacent 
 towns to build bridges over navigable streams, and 
 there is no better division of territory than county 
 lines. They have all the organization and all the 
 means to build and manage these bridges without 
 creating any new bureaus, commissions, or ofifices ; 
 and the argument that many of the towns reap no 
 immediate benefit from this bridge, or similar 
 bridges, would apply equally well to every court- 
 house, to every jail, and to every County Home 
 that has ever been, or will ever be, erected in this 
 State. Some towns must necessarily reap more 
 benefit than others. 
 
 The Connecticut River has made Hartford City 
 and Hartford County rich. It has for two hun- 
 dred years or more carried the produce of its 
 farms and the products of its factories to their 
 markets, and brought back in exchange the barter 
 of the world. Move this river over into Tolland 
 County and we will build this bridge for you for 
 nothing. 
 
 This whole matter has been botched from the 
 start. For ten years the stock of this Bridge Com- 
 pany sold here in Hartford for $i6o a. share. The 
 day after the award, it was worth $320 a share, 
 and fortunes were made out of it. This great 
 franchise of running cars from Hartford to East 
 Hartford, lasting perhaps for one hundred or five 
 hundred years, has been frittered away for a song. 
 I have no doubt that the New York and New 
 94 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 England Railroad would cheerfully give $100,000 
 to keep horse and electric cars off this bridge ; 
 and I have no doubt, besides, that parties can be 
 found to build this bridge free of all expense for 
 the right to run cars for ninety-nine years over it. 
 No man can calculate the value of this franchise, 
 which includes the right to carry passengers, bag- 
 gage, mails, and freight. 
 
 Look back one hundred years at Manchester, 
 Rockville, and East Hartford, and look forward 
 one hundred years when all this portion of Con- 
 necticut will be alive and teeming with prosperous 
 cities and a vast aggregate of manufacturing and 
 industrial shops. Then see how far the honor of 
 the State of Connecticut is concerned in this con- 
 tract with the Berlin Iron Bridge Company. 
 
 The main and the only real reason advanced by 
 the friends of the law of 1893 (if it has any friends) 
 
 — namely, the plighted faith and honor of the State 
 
 — is, in my opinion, utterly without foundation. 
 With every leading newspaper in Connecticut, out- 
 side the city of Hartford, calling for the repeal of 
 this law, supported by an overwhelming and almost 
 unanimous sentiment of the entire State, either the 
 moral sentiment of Connecticut has become hope- 
 lessly daft and benumbed, or there is no moral 
 turpitude or sacrifice of public honor in the repeal 
 of this law. In fact, the passage of this unfortunate 
 law in the way it was accomplished would call for 
 its repeal, even without the convincing and satis- 
 
 95 
 
RATCLTFFE HICKS 
 
 factory reasons already advanced. If there was 
 ever a law conceived in sin and born in iniquitj^, 
 this is one. When any man, or set of men, 
 have it in their power to say that for so much 
 money they will secure the passage of any law in 
 this State, — and, above all, one so momentous in 
 its consequences, — then it is time to cry a halt, 
 and to teach these men and their poor deluded 
 victims that that is no way to secure honest legis- 
 lation in this State, and that " The mills of God 
 grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small." 
 
 The honor of the State has been twice imper- 
 illed, — first by the passage of the law in 1S93, 
 and second, when the contract was let to the 
 Berlin Iron Bridge Company at a price $75,000 
 above honest competition ; and the friends of this 
 bridge, it it has any, ought to hide their faces in 
 shame instead of coming here and talking about 
 the honor of the State. A distinguished member 
 of the Hartford County Bar came before the Legis- 
 lative Committee and talked about the virgin honor 
 of the State of Connecticut. But suppose you put 
 it another way. A woman has been ruined, and 
 her honor trampled in the dust. Is she still to 
 cling to her paramour in crime, or is she to assert 
 her womanhood and denounce the villain to all the 
 world, and say, " From this day onward I am a 
 woman : there is the man who ruined me ! " 
 There is where Connecticut stands to-day. 
 
 It passes my comprehension how any praying 
 96 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 man or woman in Hartford can ever cross this 
 bridge without a shudder; how any Christian 
 minister can stand up in his pulpit in this great 
 city of Hartford, and look his congregation in the 
 face without a heavy heart, when, despite all his 
 teachings, they have given their approval to prac- 
 tices which, if continued, mean only death and 
 disgrace to American institutions. How little did 
 Thomas Hooker think, as he threaded his path 
 across the New England wilderness, fighting his 
 way against wild beasts and wilder men, to found 
 here this Hartford Colony, that the day would ever 
 come when his descendants would try to take 
 advantage of the State of Connecticut, and all its 
 good people, by means so unhallowed as those 
 employed in securing the passage of the Senate 
 bill. 
 
 But, furthermore, my bill provides for every safe- 
 guard that any business man can require ; and the 
 legal rights of this Bridge Company, if they have 
 any, are safe beyond peradventure. So do not let 
 that question worry you for a moment. As to the 
 amount you shall pay to the county of Hartford, 
 ^100,000 is better than $300,000 and a lot of 
 costly litigation; or the methods you will adopt 
 for terminating this contract with the Berlin Iron 
 Bridge Company are matters of non-essential, in 
 my mind, so long as the State gets rid of the bridge. 
 
 The difference between the bill passed by the 
 Senate and the bill I advocate is that in the Senate 
 7 97 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 bill it is provided that if the court hold the contract 
 valid, then the State is to go on and build the 
 bridge. My bill provides that if the contract is 
 valid, as we have given them notice that we do not 
 want the bridge, we simply pay what damages the 
 Berlin Bridge Company can show. 
 
 The present able and distinguished Republican 
 comptroller of this State, by and with the advice of 
 a leading member of the Hartford Bar, has already 
 repudiated this contract ; has boldly taken the 
 position that this contract with the Berlin Iron 
 Bridge Company is utterly void and worthless, is a 
 fraud on the State, and has refused to honor the 
 drafts of these Bridge Commissioners until your 
 Supreme Court shall have commanded him to the 
 contrary. He knows full well the responsibility of 
 his position, and is not afraid to await the action 
 of the next Republican State Convention, or of the 
 voters at the ballot-box, on the charge of having 
 compromised the honor of the State. Is there any 
 Republican member of this General Assembly less 
 honorable and less brave than Comptroller Meade ? 
 If these newspapers and lawyers working in the 
 interests of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company have 
 any confidence in the sanctity and validity of this 
 contract, why do they not fire their harmless paper 
 missiles at Comptroller Meade and the judges of 
 the State, instead of flooding our desks with their 
 worthless paper pellets ; or, better still, go on and 
 try their case in the court ? 
 98 
 
HARTFORD BRIDGE 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have nearly finished. When 
 we leave here on the final adjournment of this 
 General Assembly, most of us will never meet 
 again ; but as you go on your daily rounds, I beg 
 of you to remember that the member from Tolland 
 joined hands with you ; that the little County of 
 Tolland reached across the State and clasped 
 hands with the brave and good men of Litchfield 
 County and Fairfield County and New Haven 
 County, and all the counties of the State, in estab- 
 lishing a policy that shall live and bear good fruits 
 in this State long after all of us shall have been 
 called to our final accounts. 
 
 It has been said, " To have one's name written 
 on the pages of Gibbon is equal to having it 
 painted in letters of gold on the dome of St. 
 Peter's at Rome." None of us can ever have our 
 names printed on the pages of the immortal 
 Gibbon ; but we can have something much better, 
 — we can have the pleasure, while living, of seeing 
 our names recorded on the rolls of this General 
 Assembly in favor of resolutions that shall wipe 
 from public gaze the last vestige of an act that 
 smells to heaven; and the approval of our own 
 consciences and of our constituents shall be our 
 full reward. 
 
 99 iLofC. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered on Resolution concerning Debenture 
 Certificates of the New York, New Haven, 
 and Hartford Railroad Co?}ifany. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: 
 
 We are at the dividing of the ways. Every 
 member of this General Assembly must now stand 
 up and be counted. 
 
 This is to me the most unpleasant duty that I 
 have been called upon to perform during this 
 entire session of the General Assembly. The 
 officers and attorneys of the Consolidated Railroad 
 Company are my intimate friends, and I would in 
 any other matter comply with their wishes ; but in 
 this matter I differ with them so seriously, both on 
 legal and business principles, that I should be false 
 to myself if I did not oppose this resolution. 
 
 I have been told by officers of the railroad that 
 I ought to vote for this resolution on account of 
 my own interest in it; but that ought to be one 
 reason why I should vote against it. Again, I 
 would not vote for any resolution in this General 
 Assembly which did not accord with my own 
 judgment and conscience, — not even to please 
 
 lOO 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 the Almighty, much less the officers of this 
 Consolidated Railroad Company, 
 
 My objections to this resolution are as follows : — 
 I. I object to it on legal grounds. I think it is 
 in clear contravention of the Tenth Section of the 
 Constitution of the United States, " that no State 
 shall pass any law impairing the validity of con- 
 tracts." I think that the contract made by the 
 officers and directors of the Consolidated Railroad 
 with their own stockholders forbids the passage 
 of this law. These debenture bonds were issued 
 clearly on the understanding and agreement that 
 they were to bear four per cent interest until 1903, 
 and that at that time they should be exchangeable 
 for stock. It was " nominated," as Shylock said, in 
 the debenture bonds, as follows : " The holder of 
 these certificates will be entitled to exchange the 
 same on the first day of April, 1903, or within sixty 
 days thereafter, and no longer, for shares of the 
 capital stock of the company at par ; if not 
 then surrendered for exchange they will become 
 due and payable in cash on the first day of April, 
 1908." 
 
 Now, to pass any act which affects the values or 
 alters the character of those debenture bonds is, to 
 my thinking, a fraud on the stockholders and con- 
 trary to the entire agreement. The stockholders 
 took those debentures on the fair understanding 
 that they were to bear only four per cent interest 
 and be exchangeable for stock in 1903, and were 
 
 lOI 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 mighty glad to get them ; and people who have 
 bought them since have bought them on that same 
 understanding. Many millions of dollars of these 
 debentures have been sold by stockholders. Many 
 people have been obliged to sell them, and 
 they were bought by investors or speculators 
 with the above understanding. If these deben- 
 tures were to be changed in character, it is fair to 
 presume that the stockholders would not have sold 
 them, or if they had been bought by investors or 
 speculators they would have brought a much larger 
 value. They ask us to authorize them to do what 
 they admit they have not the right to do without 
 violating the agreement they made December lo, 
 1892, with their own stockholders. 
 
 Now, to pass a law adding new values to these 
 debenture bonds and giving them new privileges 
 not embraced in the original contract, and at the 
 same time sacrificing the inchoate rights of the 
 stockholders in all increase of the capital before 
 1903, is clearly a violation of the Constitution of 
 the United States ; and, in my humble opinion, 
 this act is not worth the paper it is printed 
 upon. 
 
 A stockholder who has assigned his debentures 
 has still an equitable interest in that contract that 
 it shall not be so amended as to reduce the 
 amount of stock coming to him on any increase 
 of capital prior to 1903, and a court of equity will 
 protect him ; and if he has not assigned his 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 debentures, then no one can deny his right to 
 have the contract of December lo, 1892, carried 
 out to the letter. 
 
 Let me read you just a Uttle from the " Spring- 
 field Republican " : — 
 
 "The debenture bondholders of the New Haven 
 Railroad Company have now gotten the ear of the 
 Connecticut Legislature, and the passage by the 
 Senate of a bill, to which Henry L. Goodwin calls 
 attention in another column, is the result. 
 
 " These bondholders bought their paper on the 
 express condition that their right to subscribe to the 
 stock of the company at par would not arise until 
 1903. It is proposed to give them the right now; and 
 as a consequence it is said that the bonds are quoted 
 $2 higher and the stock correspondingly lower. Of 
 course a body so far at the beck and call of special 
 interests as the Connecticut Legislature seems to 
 be could not be expected to look favorably on a bill 
 requiring tfuture issues of stock of the New Haven 
 Company to be sold at auction." 
 
 There is not a man who owns one share of the 
 stock of this railroad but can apply either to the 
 State or the United States courts for an injunction, 
 and so test the validity of this ill-conceived law ; 
 and there can be but one result to that contest. 
 Mr. H. L. Goodwin, with his little ten shares, is as 
 powerful in our courts as Morgan G. Bulkeley with 
 his millions. Ah, I think he is stronger, for the 
 despised Nazarene of East Hartford has only for 
 his guide the Constitution and the laws of the 
 103 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 land, the welfare of the State, and his own clear 
 conscience. 
 
 2. My next legal objection to this resolution is 
 that it does not provide for its acceptance by the 
 stockholders of the company. In every other 
 resolution we have passed during this session 
 amending the charter of any private corporation, 
 it has always been conditioned that it should be 
 accepted by the stockholders. In this resolution 
 such a condition does not seem even to have been 
 petitioned for, or asked for by the directors of the 
 railroad ; but certainly the stockholders ought to 
 be consulted before this act goes into effect. 
 
 I am not ready to-day to discuss the legality 
 of the act on that feature, — although it ought to 
 be law, and it certainly is justice, that no Legisla- 
 ture can pass an act amending the charter of a 
 private corporation without the consent of the cor- 
 poration. Every member of this General Assembly 
 who has any investments in corporations, either in 
 this State or others, can see how dangerous a pre- 
 cedent this establishes. That some man or men 
 can come to the General Assembly and secure the 
 passage of an amendment that shall change the 
 whole character and purpose of the corporation 
 without even submitting it to the approval of the 
 stockholders, is a most monstrous proposition. 
 Some of you own stock in companies chartered in 
 other States, and you would very much regret to 
 have such a rule applied to your own investments. 
 104 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 3. I must object to this resolution now on 
 business principles. The title of this bill is a mis- 
 nomer, and it should read that this is an act to 
 put unearned money to the amount of five million 
 dollars in the pockets of a few men by a skilfully 
 drawn private act ; and most of these men are 
 now living without the confines of the State, and 
 rolling in fabulous wealth. 
 
 4. I think I can say truly that I represent the 
 sentiment and opinions of nine- tenths of the seri- 
 ous business men of Connecticut, when I say that 
 I am opposed to any further increase in the capital 
 stock of this company. The present stockholders 
 are very well satisfied with receiving eight per 
 cent dividends and no taxes, and they are opposed 
 to the filtering out of this stock until it becomes a 
 six per cent investment and sells for about par. 
 A small capital and a large surplus is the wisest 
 management ; and I appeal to the member from 
 Norwalk and the member from Wallingford, good 
 banking-men as they are, if I am not correct. 
 
 In discussing this matter the other day with an 
 officer of the company, he informed me that there 
 was only one director in the company who agreed 
 with my ideas ; but when he told me the name 
 of that man I was proud to be in harmony with 
 his business ideas, for he is probably the largest 
 stockholder in the company. He is a Hartford- 
 born man. He is the most far-seeing financier liv- 
 ing in America to-day, and his name is familiar to 
 105 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 every financier in the civilized world, — J, Pierpont 
 Morgan. No man and no corporation thus far have 
 ever made any mistake by following his advice on 
 financial matters. He is opposed to any more 
 increase in stock. He is opposed to cutting any 
 more melons ; and he is in favor of bonding this road 
 for these improvements at a low rate of interest, 
 and creating a sinking fund for paying them off. 
 And he is right. I venture to say that the Pratt 
 and Whitney Co., the Meriden Britannia Co., 
 Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Co., and the 
 Willimantic Linen Co., would be very glad if they 
 had less capital and more surplus. 
 
 In common with some stockholders of this road, 
 I do not think it is good policy to talk about cut- 
 ting any more melons or giving away any more 
 stock when all the towns along the line of this 
 road from Greenwich to Mystic, and along the 
 Housatonic and Naugatuck roads, the Air-Line, 
 and the main branch to Enfield, are being asked 
 almost to pauperize themselves to help pay for 
 abolishing its grade crossings. 
 
 Of course the great danger in having an enor- 
 mous capital is that in twenty-five years a Gould 
 or a Sage may own this road, and it will become 
 the plaything of Wall Street, and be wrecked and 
 robbed, as more than nine-tenths of the railroads 
 of this country have been, either first or last ; and 
 the poor savings-bank depositors in Connecticut, 
 and the small Connecticut owners who thought 
 1 06 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 they had a good investment, may live to see how 
 it was wrecked and lost in the maelstrom of specu- 
 lation and manipulation. 
 
 5. I am in favor of a law which shall provide 
 that all future increase of the capital stock of this 
 railroad shall be sold — the same as is provided 
 by the law of Massachusetts — by public auction. 
 This is the only fair way, and the only way to 
 protect the interests of the small holders — men, 
 women, and children — who have not the means 
 of buying more stock ; and it will surely prevent 
 all surreptitious or underhanded ways of disposing 
 of its capital stock. 
 
 Now, friends, you have no right to vote away 
 the interests of the citizens of this State. You are 
 their servants, not their masters ; and this House, 
 so far this session, has shown — thank Heaven ! — 
 that no man and no set of men can influence your 
 votes as against the true interests of this State and 
 especially as against the weak and powerless. 
 
 I admire the wonderful executive and construc- 
 tive ability of Charles P. Clark. He has never 
 had his equal on that railroad, and proud may he 
 be of his work. But he will leave his work half 
 done if he does not give to the travelling public 
 and to the manufacturers of this State some share 
 in the wonderful progress and wealth of this rail- 
 road, — in my opinion the grandest railroad fran- 
 chise in these United States. No man can figure 
 its future values. 
 
 107 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 It is time to call a halt, and instead of keeping 
 on giving to these millionaire stockholders these 
 grand largesses, to reduce its fares and its freight 
 charges ; to insure, as is done in England, the 
 limbs and lives of its employees, who daily risk 
 them for a bare pittance, so that their families 
 may have some little money in the event of 
 accident or death. 
 
 Am I not right? I appeal to the business men 
 of Connecticut. Yes, I know I am right, even if 
 I must stand here alone ; but I believe that you 
 are with me. 
 
 It may be that in opposing this resolution I 
 have signed my political death-warrant. But polit- 
 ical death has no terrors for me. It has not much 
 for any Democrat in these days. One day spent 
 in climbing the Alps or on the banks of the Nile 
 would afford me more real satisfaction than whole 
 months spent here in this Capitol contending in 
 what seems to me at times the almost hopeless and 
 thankless cause of the people. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to stop here, but I wish to do 
 justly by every one. The Consolidated Railroad 
 Company have placed in my hand a brief, giving 
 the reasons why they think I ought to vote for 
 this resolution. I have read it over carefully. I 
 am prepared to submit it to the examination of 
 every member of this General Assembly. It states 
 some historical facts that have no particular bear- 
 ing on this question, and the only argument or 
 ~ io8 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 reason advanced in that brief is embraced in one 
 paragraph, which I will read : — 
 
 " If the company were to ofEer a new issue of stock 
 to its full stockholders only, it would interfere with the 
 moral rights of the certificate holders, inasmuch as the 
 stock which they would be entitled to in 1903 would 
 not be so large a share of property as it was at the 
 time of subscribing for these certificates." 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I beg of you that you will 
 not smile when I speak of this argument. It 
 would seem that the Consolidated Railroad Com- 
 pany were worrying day and night about the moral 
 rights of the holders of these debenture bonds; 
 and after having looked this broad country over 
 they finally settled in their minds on the yEtna 
 Life Insurance Company and Morgan G, Bulkeley 
 as the proper parties to come to this Legislature 
 and present the moral claims of the debenture 
 holders of the road. Now, please do not laugh. 
 
 I am very fond of the Speaker of this House ; 
 and whenever I look at him I am always reminded 
 of one of the funniest political episodes that have 
 happened in this State in many a day, — the Bul- 
 keley banquet. If we are correctly informed, the 
 Speaker at that time promised to desert family, 
 children, friends, and all the pleasures and attrac- 
 tions of this world, to go on a pilgrimage of one 
 hundred and forty years with Morgan G. Bul- 
 keley. I often think of the Speaker as he goes 
 109 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 on that tramp, tired, fatigued, and footsore, and 
 occasionally sitting down by the roadside to rest 
 himself. Then, I imagine he says to Bulkeley : 
 " Morgan, tell me once more, how did it happen 
 that you came to the Legislature of 1895 to pro- 
 tect the moral rights of the debenture holders of 
 the Consolidated Road?" The Speaker, after 
 listening to the story, pats Bulkeley on the shoulder 
 and says : " Morgan, this story grows richer and 
 racier every time you tell it. Now I feel rested, 
 and am ready to resume the tramp : but you must 
 promise me that if we come across Charlie Clark 
 of the ' Courant,' or John Porter of the * Post,' 
 or Senator Piatt, you will tell them this story, for 
 they will appreciate it as much as I do." 
 
 Now, I want to tell you, gentlemen, a little true 
 story about the origin of this bill ; and you will 
 remember my story long after you have forgotten 
 my good friend from Milford, with his carroty hair 
 and speckled face, and long after you have forgot- 
 ten the magnificent mien of the member from 
 Stratford, with a head full of political tricks. You 
 will often tell this story to your wives and children, 
 and every time you tell it you will enjoy it the 
 more. 
 
 One cold, bleak, dreary day last January, Mor- 
 gan G. Bulkeley left the ^tna Life Insurance 
 Company's building, buttoning up his coat, witJi 
 this little bill in his pocket, to protect the moral 
 rights of the debenture holders of the Con- 
 no 
 
DEBENTURE CERTIFICATES 
 
 solidated Railroad, and started for the Capitol. 
 On his way up Capitol Hill he met Joseph L. 
 Barbour, — you all know him, and many of us love 
 him, although we do not like his politics. He 
 said to Bulkeley, " What are you going up to the 
 Capitol for, to-day, Morgan?" Bulkeley shook 
 his head and said, " I am going up to the Capitol 
 to vindicate the moral rights of the debenture 
 holders of the Consolidated Railroad." Joe burst 
 out in one grand laugh, — that infectious laugh so 
 many of us have enjoyed, — and, with tears rolling 
 down his cheeks, he finally got his breath, and 
 looking Morgan in the face, he said, " Oh, Morg., 
 come off there ! " 
 
 Now, gentlemen, to be serious, there is but one 
 thing to do with this bill, be you friend or foe of 
 the Consolidated Railroad, and that is to vote that 
 it should be indefinitely postponed. In voting 
 indefinitely to postpone this bill, in my humble 
 opinion, you are voting for your conscience and 
 your country, and I believe in the end for the best 
 interests of the railroad. 
 
EXTRACTS OF SPEECH 
 
 On the Connecticut River Navigation. 
 
 Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 I HAVE refrained from saying much during this 
 session of the Legislature, and it is with hesitation 
 that I rise to-day to trespass upon the time and 
 attention of the House ; but I should be false to 
 the people whose feeble representative I am, if I 
 did not rise in my place in this House and offer 
 my humble but solemn protest against the adoption 
 of this monstrous outrage upon their rights and in- 
 terests. Fortunately or unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, 
 they have certain dear rights and interests as well 
 as this railroad company, whose visionary project 
 has been many times sunk into the grave, and as 
 many times its skeleton dragged out by ambitious 
 speculators in the people's franchises. 
 
 Two hundred and odd years ago, where now 
 stands the city of Hartford, was a wild and track- 
 less wilderness. Two hundred and thirty years 
 ago the Connecticut River valley was inhabited by 
 the wild and untutored Indian. Two hundred 
 and thirty years have rolled away, and where there 
 
 112 
 
CONNECTICUT RIVER NAVIGATION 
 
 was only a wilderness now stands the fair and 
 queenly city of Hartford, one of the proudest 
 jewels in this Commonwealth of ours. Two hun- 
 dred and thirty years have rolled away, and the 
 Connecticut River valley, then inhabited by the 
 savage Indian only, has become the home of a 
 hundred and fifty thousand souls, and blossoms 
 with all the products of a commercial, a manufac- 
 turing, and an agricultural life. What, I ask, Mr. 
 Speaker, has made this wonderful change, except 
 it be the free navigation of the Connecticut River ? 
 What led your ancestors — what led Hooker and 
 his comrades — to settle along the Connecticut 
 River valley, except it was the belief that this river 
 would forever afford an easy and cheap commu- 
 nication through which they might send out the 
 products of their industry to the four quarters of the 
 globe, and receive back in return the commerce 
 of mankind ? 
 
 The petitioners ask leave of this Legislature 
 to construct a railroad from Willimantic to New 
 Haven, with the right to bridge the Connecticut 
 River at Middletown, a point thirty miles from the 
 mouth of the river and twenty miles from the head 
 of navigation, — thereby blocking up and destroy- 
 ing this great source of the wealth and prosperity 
 of the interior and northern sections of the State. 
 Although in my judgment, Mr. Speaker and gen- 
 tlemen, it has not been shown by the petitioners 
 that the wants, the business, or the convenience of 
 8 113 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the people along the line of the proposed road 
 warrants this Legislature in granting the prayer of 
 the petitioners, there is no opposition to chartering 
 their road if they will abandon their drawbridge 
 scheme and build their bridge just below the city 
 of Middletown, where Nature, by narrowing the 
 river and making huge rocky shoulders of its banks, 
 has provided seemingly for this very enterprise. 
 There build your road, gentlemen, and we wish 
 you success. Only leave open this great artery of 
 communication which connects us with the whole 
 world ; leave free to all comers this great natural 
 thoroughfare, whose capacities for transporting 
 freight excel those of all the railroads in the State, 
 and which now enable us to defy all possible rail- 
 road monopolies. 
 
 Now, if the wants and necessities of the people 
 along this proposed road authorize the Legislature 
 in chartering the Air- Line road, then they warrant 
 us in chartering it by the route of the Straits alone. 
 The interests of the people one mile east or west 
 of the river will be as completely subserved, and 
 the country to be traversed by this road as fully 
 benefited, by the suspension bridge as by the draw- 
 bridge route — the city of Middletown and the town 
 of Portland alone suffering any inconveniences from 
 the bridge across the Straits. Now, I ask, gentle- 
 men, if the prosperity of every town for miles to 
 the right and left of the river above Middletown, 
 if the vast interests of the city of Hartford and the 
 114 
 
CONNECTICUT RIVER NAVIGATION 
 
 thriving towns around, are to be jeopardized and 
 sacrificed because Middletown is to be less accom- 
 modated by a suspension bridge than by a draw- 
 bridge ? It is said that the road cannot be built by 
 the suspension route, by reason of the additional 
 expenditure of money requisite to build the bridge. 
 Then, gentlemen, there is not business or necessity 
 enough to warrant this Legislature in chartering 
 their road at all. But I apprehend that the suspen- 
 sion bridge is not a fatal obstacle to the building of 
 the Air- Line road. One of the principal witnesses 
 before the committee, Mr. Hubbard, a petitioner 
 and resident of Middletown, admitted frankly that 
 they wanted a railroad, with a drawbridge, if pos- 
 sible, — if not, with a suspension bridge. Grant the 
 petition of the Air- Line road, let that drawbridge be 
 built, and it will be the stepping-stone to the erec- 
 tion of other bridges. Pressing closely upon the 
 heels of this Air- Line petition comes the petition 
 of the Shore Line for a bridge at the mouth of the 
 river; and no legislator can with much consis- 
 tency vote for the bridge at Middletown, and not 
 for one at the mouth of the river ; and by building 
 these bridges you drive every timber of shipping 
 from the Connecticut River, the noblest river in 
 New England. 
 
 The friends of the bridge, in their enthusiastic 
 
 moments, claim that the draw can be so managed 
 
 as not to interfere with the navigation of the river. 
 
 If one draw can be so managed, so can a hundred ; 
 
 ii.S 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 and you might roof the river over with bridges 
 without affecting its navigation ! Now, is any man 
 so big a fool as to believe it? Do they beUeve it 
 themselves, when they say that this bridge will 
 make Middletown and Portland the head of river 
 navigation? Prominent among the petitioners are 
 men from the city of Middletown, who in the last 
 session of the Legislature strongly opposed the 
 erection of a bridge at the mouth of the river, 
 because of its disastrous consequences to the navi- 
 gation of the river. Mark you, gentlemen, the 
 bridge was to be located below Middletown then, 
 above it now. Can any sane man say in the face 
 of the irresistible and overwhelming proof on this 
 subject before the committee, that a drawbridge 
 is not fatal to the navigation of the river? If 
 drawbridges are not ruinous to navigation, why 
 does the Steamboat Company, year after year, 
 when this project of bridging the river is brought 
 before the Legislature, make such herculean efforts 
 in opposition to it? Why do the owners of every 
 vessel upon the river that will have to pass through 
 this draw, and why does this city of Hartford, make 
 similar exertions ? Why do petitions from towns 
 throughout the interior and northern sections of the 
 State come deluging this Legislature remonstrating 
 against the bridging of the river? Is it because 
 they are hostile to the Air- Line road ? Not so. 
 
 Nearly all the witnesses before the Committee 
 introduced by the petitioners have themselves ad- 
 ii6 
 
CONNECTICUT RIVER NAVIGATION 
 
 mitted that the draw will be an impediment to the 
 navigation of the river. Some of them admit that 
 it might be a serious obstacle. On the other hand, 
 a large number of captains and masters of sailing- 
 vessels, men who have learned from a life-long 
 experience something of the difficulties and em- 
 barrassments incident to river navigation ; men 
 who are behind no other class of men in the 
 improvements of the age, and whom practical 
 legislators will prefer to listen to on this subject 
 rather than to railroad managers or lobbyists or 
 manufacturers who know nothing of navigation, — 
 these men have come here and sworn that this 
 draw will be a serious if not a fatal obstacle to the 
 navigation of the river. Many thousand passages 
 are to be made through this draw every year, 
 some of them in the night season, some of them in 
 storms and floods. The vessel must feel its way 
 along, oftentimes lie by until morning, or until the 
 storm has abated and the floods have ceased, and 
 then a sailing-vessel must beat its way up and 
 down through this draw. Why all this delay, this 
 extra hazard, this expense? Because, gentlemen, 
 at the city of Middletown the station will be 
 located a mile nearer the centre of the town by 
 the drawbridge route than it would be by the 
 route of the suspension bridge ! The friends of the 
 drawbridge try to excuse this monstrous scheme 
 by showing that there are already obstructions to 
 navigation in the river, — that there are narrow 
 117 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 channels, short curves, and bends ; and still they 
 have the hardihood and audacity to come here and 
 ask this General Assembly to add another and far 
 more formidable barrier to the river navigation ! 
 
 The petitioners come here and ask this Legisla- 
 ture for the privilege of bridging the Connecticut 
 River, which from time immemorial has never been 
 bridged below the head of navigation ; to sacrifice 
 the interests of one section of this State to benefit 
 the interests of another and far lesser section. On 
 the other hand, the opponents of this draw do not 
 come here to oppose the building of this road, or 
 to ask this Legislature to enact any law to bene- 
 fit them to the detriment of any other section of 
 this State. They simply ask that those rights 
 which they and their fathers before them for more 
 than two hundred years have enjoyed shall not be 
 taken from them. 
 
 The navigation of this river has regulated and 
 cheapened the price of freight for miles in every 
 direction from it. Add another and an almost 
 impassable obstruction to its navigation, — increase 
 the price of freights, if you please, — and you have 
 put another lever in the hands of the railroad 
 interests, and dealt a serious blow to the manufac- 
 turing, the trading, and the agricultural interests of 
 the State. You may think it a very pleasant thing 
 to vote away the prosperity and the privileges of 
 this section of the State ; but some day or other 
 there will appear some other great grasping cor- 
 ii8 
 
CONNECTICUT RIVER NAVIGATION 
 
 poration that will seek to suck the life-blood out of 
 your section of the State. The Shore- Line road, 
 now joining hands with the Air-Line road in this 
 attempt to build a draw at Middletown, may receive 
 the aid of the Air- Line in return, and by like bar- 
 gaining secure the co-operation of other roads, and 
 ask of this Legislature permission to bridge the 
 Thames. 
 
 If this General Assembly shall decide in favor of 
 bridging the Connecticut River at Middletown, 
 and that bridge shall ever be built, and then it 
 shall be shown by unfortunate experience to be a 
 mighty impediment to the navigation of the river, 
 and shall drive from it every vestige of its once glo- 
 rious commerce, there will be no remedy. It will 
 have to stand there, a monument of the folly and 
 wickedness of the General Assembly of 1867. 
 
 It is for you to say, gentlemen, whether that 
 bridge shall be built or not. From your decision 
 the people whose rights and interests are at stake 
 have no appeal. If you shall have sacrificed them, 
 gentlemen, then they can only pray Almighty God 
 to send a raging, roaring flood, which shall carry 
 off in its seething bosom every relic of the Golgotha 
 erected by the General Assembly of Connecticut 
 to mark the limit of the free navigation of the 
 Connecticut River. 
 
 119 
 
AGE OF CONSENT 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 I HESITATE to Say anything in this matter. This 
 is a question which a woman hke Mrs. Isabella 
 Hooker — daughter of a New England clergyman 
 of world-wide fame, sister of one of America's 
 most illustrious sons, and wife of one of Hartford's 
 first citizens — can talk to you about better than 
 any member of this General Assembly. But she is 
 not here, and no woman is here to voice the senti- 
 ments of her sex. So I will briefly explain why I 
 am in favor of raising the age of consent to 
 eighteen years. 
 
 If you will take the pains to ask any clergyman, 
 Protestant or Catholic, or any physician, — those 
 men who go down where sorrow and sadness and 
 sickness dwell, — he will tell you that in ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred, where the first wrong 
 has been committed, the woman is the innocent 
 party. 
 
 I know no sight more sad, no fate more heart- 
 rending, than to see a young man or a young 
 woman who has sacrificed and thrown away all 
 prospects of an honorable future life. A prominent 
 
AGE OF CONSENT 
 
 clergyman of this' city remarked to me only a day 
 or so ago that he hardly ever knew an instance 
 where the persons were of nearly equal age but 
 that the man was willing to redress the wrong by 
 marrying the woman, and thereby saving her honor 
 and her self-respect. 
 
 I was talking on this subject only a day or so ago 
 with the editor of the " Hartford Times," who has 
 crowned eighty years of a useful and honorable life 
 largely devoted to the discussion of matters of 
 public interest ; and he remarked that a woman of 
 fourteen hardly knew her own mind ; that eighteen 
 was better as the age of consent, and that it ought 
 in his opinion to be twenty-one years. It is pretty 
 safe in Connecticut, be you Republican or Demo- 
 crat, to listen to the advice on matters relating to 
 the improvement and elevation of society of that 
 noble citizen and good man, Hon, Alfred E. Burr. 
 
 Since making our report, the Legislature of 
 Massachusetts has passed a bill making eighteen 
 years the age of consent. That age now is the 
 prevailing one in most of the progressive and en- 
 lightened States of the Union. I hope Connec- 
 ticut will not be behind her sister States. 
 
 We have been here four long months, passing 
 laws for the benefit of the men of Connecticut ; 
 but not one Act have we passed for the benefit 
 of the woman of this State. I beg of you to pass 
 this bill in the interests of innocent womanhood, 
 and I promise you that you shall never regret your 
 action. 121 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Minority Report from 'judiciary Committee on 
 House Bill No. 315. 
 
 The minority of the Committee on the Judici- 
 ary submit the following reasons for their report in 
 favor of making the age of consent eighteen years : 
 
 1. The main object of all legislation should be 
 the protection of the young, the innocent, and the 
 weak. No average woman under the age of eigh- 
 teen years has either the knowledge or the power 
 of will that puts her on an equality with her 
 seducer, be he man or boy. But the boy will 
 marry her, and thereby save her honor ; while the 
 man will cast her off, regardless of her fate, and 
 of all the terrible consequences that await her 
 imprudence. 
 
 2. All legislation should be consistent; and 
 while it is a criminal offence for a clergyman to 
 marry a woman under the age of twenty-one years 
 without the consent of her parents, and while it is 
 impossible for any woman to deed her property or 
 to transact any lawful business under the age of 
 twenty-one years, how much less competent is she 
 to act in matters that involve her peace and happi- 
 ness for life, and, if she makes a mistake, where 
 disgrace and sorrow attend her to her dying day. 
 
 3. The legislation of the last fifty years both in 
 America and in Europe has been gradually raising 
 the age of consent, and we believe eventually it 
 will be twenty-one years in all Christian countries. 
 
 122 
 
AGE OF CONSENT 
 
 In two States, Wyoming and Kansas, the age 
 now is eighteen years (and we understand that the 
 States of New York, Colorado, Delaware, New 
 Hampshire, and Missouri have this winter passed 
 laws making the age of consent eighteen years) ; 
 and below we give the list of States, showing the 
 limit at which legislators have placed the age at 
 which young girls may consent to their ruin, prior 
 to this year : — 
 
 Seven Years, — Delaware. 
 
 Ten Years, — Alabama, North Carolina, South 
 Carolina. 
 
 Twelve Years, — Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, 
 Wisconsin, Virginia. 
 
 Thirteen Years, — Iowa, New Hampshire, Utah. 
 
 Fourteen Years, — Arizona, California, Connec- 
 ticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, 
 Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, 
 New Mexico, North Dakota, ^Ohio, Oregon, Ver- 
 mont, West Virginia. 
 
 Fifteen Years, — Montana. 
 
 Sixteen Years, — Arkansas, Colorado, District of 
 Columbia, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, 
 New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South 
 Dakota, Tennessee, Washington. 
 
 Seventeen Years, — Florida. 
 
 We regret that Connecticut does not occupy a 
 better position in this list. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 123 Geo. H. CowELL. 
 
A. P. A. RESOLUTION 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 I NOTICE in the Journal that the Resolution is on 
 the table by my motion. Now, I propose to move 
 to take that Resolution from the table, and then 
 will move to refer it to the Committee on Federal 
 Relations. I do this for the purpose of disposing 
 finally of this matter; and if the House see fit 
 indefinitely to postpone the Resolution, I cannot 
 seriously object to it. However, I should think 
 the proper reference to be to the Committee on 
 Federal Relations. 
 
 This Committee dates back as far as the origin 
 of the Constitution of the State, and was evidently 
 contemplated as a Committee to which should be 
 referred all matters having a political bearing. I 
 think there has been no matter of any kind re- 
 ferred to this Committee this year, and it would 
 seem as if it were almost a matter of respect to the 
 Committee that something should be referred to 
 them. It is no honor to put a man on a Com- 
 mittee which never meets once during the entire 
 session. 
 
 124 
 
A. P. A. RESOLUTION 
 
 If this resolution does not agree with the sen- 
 timent of this House, this Committee can pre- 
 pare a suitable Resolution that will agree with 
 the sentiment of the majority of this General 
 Assembly. 
 
 Now, I did not introduce this Resolution, and I 
 am not the father of it ; but it was introduced by 
 a worthy member of this General Assembly, and I 
 believe that in the main it expresses the sentiment 
 of the vast majority of the people of the State of 
 Connecticut. 
 
 This Resolution, as I understand it, is aimed at 
 an organization whose almost sole object is to pre- 
 vent the election to any office of any man who 
 is unfortunate enough to belong to the Catholic 
 Church. Now, I take it that the members of this 
 General Assembly are opposed to all secret politi- 
 cal organizations, whether you call them Anarchists, 
 Ku-klux, Know-nothings, or A. P. A.'s. The wel- 
 fare and preservation of American institutions de- 
 pend upon a free and open discussion of all political 
 matters ; and the establishment, either in the North 
 or the South, in the East or in the West, of secret 
 political societies is dangerous to the perpetuation 
 of American institutions, and in my humble opin- 
 ion is the quickest way to sap the foundations of 
 the Republic. 
 
 I am determined not to become involved in any 
 discussion with any member of this General Assem- 
 bly upon matters of politics or religion. I respect 
 125 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the opinion of every member, and expect every 
 member to respect mine. 
 
 I am anxious to have this matter taken from the 
 table, and disposed of in some orderly way ; and 
 therefore I make this motion, and leave it to the 
 members of the General Assembly to decide what 
 action they wish to take. 
 
 126 
 
A QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 I RISE to a matter of personal privilege. 
 
 I read in the " Hartford Courant " this morning 
 what purports to be an abstract of a debate which 
 took place in this House yesterday. In it I am 
 made to say that certain lawyers, whose names are 
 given, are disreputable lawyers. 
 
 The House will bear me witness that what I did 
 say, and all that I said, was that " I do not believe 
 there is a reputable lawyer in Connecticut, except- 
 ing the member from Putnam, who favors the 
 Moiety system in dealing with criminals." I be- 
 lieved then, and I believe now, that in opposing 
 that section of the bill establishing the Law and 
 Order League, I was voicing the nearly unanimous 
 sentiment of the legal fraternity of this State. For 
 my action here yesterday I have been repeatedly 
 thanked by the officers of this League ; and I am 
 sure that this obnoxious provision would, in the 
 end, have brought the League into public contempt 
 and disgrace. 
 
 I have ever accorded to the member from Put- 
 nam and to the reporter of the " Hartford Courant " 
 127 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 that kind and courteous treatment which one 
 gentleman should extend to another. 
 
 I regret that such an unfair and unjust represen- 
 tation — or more properly such a misrepresenta- 
 tion — of what I did say should go forth to the 
 people of this State, and I can do no less than 
 humbly to protest against the same. 
 
 128 
 
ON THE DEATH OF FRED- 
 ERICK DOUGLAS 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 It seems fitting that this General Assembly, 
 representing as it does the sovereign State of Con- 
 necticut, should pause for a moment, and pay this 
 tribute of respect to the memory of a good and 
 great man who has passed away. It seems also 
 not altogether inappropriate that it should be rep- 
 resented by a member of a party to which he 
 never belonged. 
 
 Frederick Douglas, however, was always of an 
 honorable opinion, and was too great a man to 
 wear with patience the shackles of any party. 
 Whenever the acts of his own party did not accord 
 with his conscience and judgment, he had the 
 courage and the manhood to say so ; and when- 
 ever the acts of the Democratic party accorded 
 with his judgment, he had also the courage and 
 the manhood to give them his approval. 
 
 Since the earliest settlement of this country, no 
 
 man has ever arisen whose life and career are 
 
 a greater incentive to all young men struggling for 
 
 a position in the world. Born in slavery and 
 
 9 129 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 abject poverty, and of a hated race, he rose by his 
 own untiring efforts and commanding genius. He 
 became a leader among leaders, and the represen- 
 tative man of his race for all ages. He filled two 
 Continents with his greatness. Presidents and 
 nobles vied with one another in doing him honor, 
 and were proud of his acquaintance and friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Brass may corrode, and marble may mould, but 
 the name of Frederick Douglas will live forever 
 in American history, — a heroic man in a heroic 
 age. 
 
 130 
 
EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH 
 
 Delivered before the Cojmnittee of the Legislature 
 in New Haven, in 1875, in favor of the Char- 
 ter of the Dime Savings-Bank of Meriden. 
 
 But the city of Meriden is only in the gristle of 
 its youth, not having yet grown into the bone and 
 muscle of its manhood. It is not an old man 
 tottering to his grave; it is but an infant just 
 learning to walk. 
 
 Meriden has a glorious future before it. If 
 Providence shall spare your lives for five, ten, or 
 fifteen years, you will see that the progress of Meri- 
 den in the past will be as nothing compared with its 
 progress in the future now just dawning upon us ; 
 and among the institutions which the best interests 
 of Meriden to-day demand, and which its future 
 growth will imperatively call for, is that institution 
 which these petitioners pray for at your hands, a 
 Dime Savings-Bank, — an institution which if char- 
 tered will be one more stream of business which, 
 with a hundred other streams, will make that great 
 river of business on which Meriden is to float on 
 to its future prosperity, 
 
 131 
 
LAST SPEECH IN THE 
 ASSEMBLY 
 
 Mr. Speaker : 
 
 It is a great pleasure that I am permitted to be 
 present at the closing hours of this General Assem- 
 bly, and to contribute my mite of praise for the 
 able and courteous manner with which you have 
 presided over the proceedings of this House during 
 this session. You have won for yourself the praise 
 and the commendation of political friends and 
 foes alike, and well may you be proud of your 
 extraordinary success. 
 
 The session which is about to close will mark an 
 epoch in the history of this State. Never within 
 my knowledge has so much wise and beneficent 
 legislation been adopted at one session of the 
 General Assembly since this State first took its 
 position among and linked its destinies with the 
 great sisterhood of States. Some errors may have 
 been made, some mistakes that time and experi- 
 ence will modify or eradicate ; some things have 
 been done that ought not to have been done, and 
 some things have been left undone that ought to 
 have been done. I fear, sir, there has been a 
 132 
 
LAST SPEECH IN THE ASSEMBLY 
 
 wild and wanton expenditure of the public money ; 
 that we have not cut our garment to our cloth; 
 and that when in two years another General Assem- 
 bly shall meet in these halls, instead of finding, as 
 we did, a surplus of $500,000, they will find the 
 surplus has vanished, and that a State tax can be 
 no longer evaded even for political reasons. 
 
 I rejoice to think that much more could have 
 been accomplished for the welfare and the honor 
 of this State had it not been for the other branch 
 of this Legislature. The slogan of future political 
 contests in Connecticut is to be the reform and 
 remodelling of that unrepresentative political oli- 
 garchy that sits in the Senate Chamber, — the 
 pride and the hope, as now constituted, of the 
 corporate interests of this State, and the enemy of 
 the welfare and progress of the Commonwealth we 
 all love so much. I have not the time, and this is 
 not the place, to describe and enumerate the wise 
 and healthful legislation which has been either 
 mutilated or strangled in that Chamber. Another 
 time and another place we will try to find for this 
 work. Yet I am not disheartened. This great 
 constitutional wrong will be righted by the people 
 of Connecticut, and soon righted, sir. I have faith 
 in the intelligence of the American voter. 
 
 At a gathering of the most illustrious literary 
 
 men of the British Empire a few years ago, held 
 
 in the city of London, a renowned French savant 
 
 was asked to give a toast. He rose, and in the 
 
 ^33 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 presence of that brilliant assembly, in the presence 
 of lords and nobles, an hereditary aristocracy, and 
 in that monarchical country, he gave this toast : 
 " I ask you to drink to human intelligence, the 
 sovereign of the world ! " Much more, I repeat, 
 is human intelligence a sovereign in this Ameri- 
 can Republic than in any other land on which the 
 sun shines. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, pardon me for having taken so 
 much of your time. I carry away with me from 
 this gathering some of the pleasantest memories of 
 my life. The acquaintances and friendships formed 
 here during this session of the General Assembly 
 will be cherished by me until my dying day. To 
 you, sir, especially and to all the members of this 
 House, I return my most sincere and heartfelt 
 thanks for all the kindness and courtesy extended 
 to me during this session ; and I now bid you, one 
 and all, a most affectionate farewell. 
 
 134 
 
MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Of Ratdiffe Hicks in reply to Geti. Joseph R. Haw- 
 ley, delivered at Meriden, October 2, 1880. 
 
 I HOLD in my hand a Republican paper which 
 contains the speech that Hon. Joseph R. 
 Hawley is dehvering in the various towns in this 
 State in the pending canvass. The Republican 
 party in Connecticut is proud of Joseph R. Hawley, 
 and justly so, I think ; for to my thhiking he is by 
 far the ablest representative of that party in the 
 State. 
 
 In times past General Hawley has done some 
 things which endear him to all inteUigent voters. 
 During the administration of Ulysses Grant, when 
 crime held high carnival in Washington, he dared 
 to stand up, alone and unfriended, on the floor of 
 the American Congress, sacrificing every personal 
 and political ambition and association of his life, 
 and say, " I am coming to a time, now, when I 
 must seriously consider whether I shall go on with 
 some of my radical friends." Further on he said 
 that the proposed legislation of the Republican 
 party would end in ''creating a centralized gov- 
 137 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 ernment upon the ruins of the original theory of 
 the republic ; and it might be in the end, I fear, 
 the destruction, the final failure of this experiment 
 of free government." 
 
 After the election of 1876, Ulysses Grant, in 
 order to effect the Presidential steal and rob the 
 Democratic party of their victory, sent into the 
 Southern States a large number of active and un- 
 scrupulous Republican leaders ; but he did not 
 send General Hawley, for he dared not trust him 
 in the nasty work that was to be done. 
 
 In the following year, when Mr. Hayes was con- 
 fronted with two governments in Louisiana, and 
 was desirous of knowing which he ought to recog- 
 nize, he sent a commission to that State, of which 
 General Hawley was a member. That commis- 
 sion, after fully investigating all the facts in the 
 case, unanimously reported in favor of recognizing 
 the Nichols (or the Democratic) government. 
 Nichols was voted for at the Presidential election 
 of 1876, and had really about seven hundred votes 
 less than the Democratic Presidential electors. No 
 Democrat in the land needs any further proof that 
 the electoral vote of Louisiana was stolen from 
 Tilden and Hendricks. 
 
 During the past summer, by word of mouth and 
 through the columns of his paper. General Hawley 
 has resolutely contended against the nomination of 
 the unscrupulous Blaine and the manikin Grant, 
 always contending that it was better for the Re- 
 138 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 publican party to nominate its ablest and purest 
 men. 
 
 I shall to-night give my answer to General 
 Hawley's address, and the intelligent voters of 
 Connecticut shall be the jury, and decide between 
 us. I shall say nothing here to-night that I would 
 not say if General Hawley were sitting upon this 
 platform. I trust that the day has not yet arrived 
 in American pohtics when men cannot discuss 
 politics and still be gentlemen. When that day 
 does come, I want to be counted out of politics. 
 I regard General Hawley's speech as the strongest 
 representation that can be made of the Republican 
 cause in this canvass, and therefore it is that I 
 invite your serious attention to what I have to say. 
 
 General Hawley commences his address by 
 claiming " that the Republican party has reduced 
 the national debt a thousand millions of dol- 
 lars." In that he is mistaken. The national 
 debt in 1865 was $2,680,647,869, and in 1879 
 it was $2,245,495,072, — making a reduction of 
 $435,151,797. But General Hawley forgot to 
 state that the people have paid in the last fifteen 
 years in taxes to the national government the 
 fabulous sum of $5,170,332,042 ; and for all this 
 immense contribution by the people there is 
 nothing practically to show for it except this re- 
 duction in the national debt of about $400,000,000. 
 You have paid enough in taxes in the last fifteen 
 139 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 years to pay off the entire national debt twice. You 
 have paid $12 to get $1 reduction in the national 
 debt. At the same ratio the youngest voter in 
 America will have passed to his final reward, and 
 the people will have paid the debt twelve times 
 before it will be extinguished. In other words, on 
 a basis of fifty millions of people, every man who 
 has a wife and four children would pay in taxes 
 the sum of about $5,000 in order to pay off the 
 national debt. On the basis of forty millions of 
 people, every man with a wife and four children 
 has paid on the average to the national government 
 in taxes, in the last fifteen years, the sum of about 
 $720. Do you wonder, then, that it is hard work 
 for a poor man to get up in the world ; and do 
 you not think that it is almost time for a change ? 
 
 Again, the national debt was, in 1872, $2,234- 
 482,993.20, and in 1879 it was $2,245,495,072; 
 so that the debt has increased in the last six years 
 $11,013,079. Perhaps General Hawley can tell 
 you how long it will take to pay off the debt at 
 the same ratio. No other man can tell you. Is 
 this not a pretty poor encouragement after all the 
 taxes you have paid? 
 
 Again, General Hawley forgot to tell you that 
 the entire expenditures of the national government 
 for the seventy- two years prior to i860, including 
 two wars, was $1,506,706,141, and that the ex- 
 penses of fifteen years of Republican rule since the 
 war have been $5,170,332,042 j so that in fifteen 
 140 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 years the Republicans have spent $3,663,625,901 
 more than was spent in the seventy-two years pre- 
 vious to the war. 
 
 Look at it in another way. The people of 
 America pay annually as interest upon our na- 
 tional and municipal debts, in round numbers, 
 ^182,000,000. The people of the British Empire 
 pay on the same debts annually $135,000,000. Yet 
 America is poor in comparison with the wealth of 
 the British Empire. The revenue of the British 
 government is about $400,000,000, and the amount 
 raised for local purposes is about $104,337,000, — 
 so that the whole cost of governing the British 
 Empire is $504,437,000 a year; while the revenue 
 of the United States is about $260,000,000, and 
 the amount raised for local purposes is about 
 $330,000,000, — so that the whole cost of govern- 
 ing the United States is $590,000,000 against 
 ^504>337jOoc) in Great Britain. And yet the British 
 government supports in magnificent idleness a royal 
 family, maintains a great standing army of over 
 two hundred thousand soldiers, possesses the finest 
 navy in the world, and plants colonies and sustains 
 governments in all the four quarters of the globe. 
 
 A man who has a wife and four children, which 
 is about the average size of families (of course 
 some pay more and some less, I am now speaking 
 of the average), pays annually in taxes — national, 
 State, and town in America — over $700. The 
 annual expenditure of the United States govern- 
 141 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 ment is per head $6.13; of the German, $3.15 ; 
 and of the Russian, $4.83. 
 
 Under the rule of this Republican party, remem- 
 ber, my friends, that the rich grow richer, and the 
 poor grow poorer. The population of the United 
 States since the Republican party came into power 
 has increased about fifty per cent, while taxation 
 has increased six hundred per cent. What poor 
 man on a bare pittance of ^1.25 or ^1.50 a day 
 can lay by anything for a stormy day? The work- 
 ing-man is now just barely able to keep the wolf 
 from his door. Nowhere do I see any houses 
 being erected by working-men. If we had not 
 been blessed above all other countries in our 
 national resources, the American people would 
 long since have been bankrupt. But sooner or 
 later, if there is no change, the masses I fear will 
 tire of such enormous burdens, and a political 
 eruption will destroy the government under which 
 we are living. 
 
 Let me impress this matter upon your memory. 
 Let me illustrate it to you in another way. There 
 is no need crying over the wrongs of distant 
 people ; there is serious and solemn business at 
 home for every thoughtful American voter. 
 
 Suppose a laboring man earns $1.50 a day 
 (which is the average wages) ; and suppose that 
 out of it, after supporting himself and family, he 
 can lay by $2 a week. He cannot do more than 
 that. Now, if there are six in the family, he 
 142 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 pays in annually to the national government $36 ; 
 so that it takes all he can save in four and 
 a half months to keep up this extravagant and 
 costly Republican administration. 
 
 One hundred and fifteen men came over from 
 England last summer to work in a cutlery factory 
 at Bridgeport, and all but twenty-five have returned, 
 as they could save more money there than here. 
 
 Let no man deceive himself with the thought 
 that he pays no taxes ; for everything that a man 
 eats or wears pays a tax to the government. Some 
 people are so foolish as to say that the poor man 
 pays no taxes ; but he is the only man that cannot 
 escape taxation, the only man that pays his full 
 taxes. He must live and he must be clothed, and 
 so there is no escape for him from taxation ; but 
 the rich man may hide away his property, or if he 
 is a merchant he adds the tax to the price of his 
 goods. The same is true of the manufacturer. 
 The rich man in order to pay his taxes is not 
 obliged to sacrifice any of his luxuries; but the 
 poor man is obliged to deprive himself, his wife 
 and children, of many of the common necessities 
 of life. 
 
 I appeal to every man, rich and poor, white and 
 black, native and foreign born ! If you are satis- 
 fied with the way the government has been admin- 
 istered during the past fifteen years, you will 
 continue to vote the Republican ticket. Remem- 
 ber, however, my wealthy manufacturing friend, 
 143 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 that when the government crushes the working-man 
 it destroys your best customer ; for it is upon the 
 trade of the masses of the country that all business 
 finally depends. And I appeal with confidence to 
 all men who are tired of this unparalleled extrava- 
 gance and wild riot with the people's money, to 
 vote in November next with the only party that 
 promises a change for the better, — the poor 
 man's party, the Democratic party. 
 
 Again, General Hawley said in that speech : 
 " I belong to a party that struck the chains from 
 three millions of slaves." This is about all the 
 stock in trade that the Republican party has had 
 for the last twenty years. But I pronounce the 
 statement untrue. Show me, in any standard his- 
 tory of this country, where such a fact is recorded. 
 No historian has ever yet dared to go down to 
 posterity upon such a falsification of the facts. 
 Such a fact finds root only in the heated imagina- 
 tions of Republican orators. 
 
 Every man in the Republican party, from Presi- 
 dent Lincoln down to the humblest tide-waiter, 
 declared that the War of the Rebellion was only 
 waged for the perpetuity of the Union, and that 
 the relation of master and slave should not be dis- 
 turbed. In the darkest hours of the Rebellion, 
 when it seemed as if the cause of the Union must 
 go down in midnight darkness, some of our gen- 
 erals — General Butler among others — advocated 
 144 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 the enlistment of the colored men into our armies. 
 The suggestion was approved by the authorities at 
 Washington as a last military resort, as building a 
 fire in the enemy's rear ; and the end crowned the 
 means. The colored soldier became an American 
 citizen, and history records upon its truthful pages 
 that freedom came to the colored man as a result 
 of the war. 
 
 But if General Hawley thinks otherwise, was 
 there not some better way than to have sacrificed 
 half a million of precious human lives and caused 
 untold misery to a million bleeding hearts, and 
 squandered five thousand millions of dollars, and 
 mortgaged the industry of four generations? 
 Would it not have been better to purchase the 
 freedom of the slaves? You could have bought 
 the freedom of every slave in America, and planted 
 him on African soil, for one half the money you 
 spent to free him, and you would have saved so 
 many precious lives and so much misery. 
 
 The trouble with General Hawley' s logic is that 
 he strikes from the universe a living, loving God ; 
 that he leaves nothing for God to do in this fallen 
 world ; that he closes his eyes to a divine provi- 
 dence which presides over the affairs of nations as 
 well as of men, and that 
 
 "shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 In the place of a beneficent God he wishes to 
 install the Republican party, and to that party the 
 10 145 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 colored man is to hold himself indebted for all the 
 good of this hfe. Other men may do as they 
 please ; but were I a colored man, I would rather 
 hold my liberty as a heritage from divine Provi- 
 dence ; I would rather worship at the shrine of 
 the ever-living God than bow down to any false 
 image, to any golden calf, though it may have 
 written upon it those talismanic words, "The 
 Republican party." 
 
 Again, General Hawley said that he was sur- 
 prised to see so many of the men who were coming 
 to this country cling to the Democratic party. 
 What other party can they cling to ? What other 
 party bids them welcome to these Western shores? 
 What other party has been their unflinching friend 
 through all the changes of American politics, from 
 the foundation of the government down to the 
 present hour? What party is it that carries its 
 puritanical notions so far that it would make crim- 
 inals of three millions of our citizens — the most 
 industrious, the most peaceful, and the most valua- 
 ble — because they see no harm in the use of 
 lager beer as a beverage, while intelligent physi- 
 cians are daily prescribing it to weak women and 
 sickly children ? 
 
 It was the Democratic party which in 1804 
 
 repealed the odious law passed by the Federal 
 
 party requiring fourteen years' residence before an 
 
 alien could become a citizen. It was the Demo- 
 
 146 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 cratic party which furnished to the world that 
 famous doctrine which has been the shield and 
 protection of so many of our foreign-born citizens, 
 — " Once an American citizen always an American 
 citizen," — which has made it safe for them to 
 revisit the homes of their ancestry. It was the 
 Democratic party which strangled the bastard and 
 fiendish organization — born of the worst passions 
 of the human heart — which in 1855 burnt the 
 houses of those noble women, the Sisters of Char- 
 ity, who for centuries have spent their lives minis- 
 tering to the wants of the poor and the sick and 
 the unfortunate of every race and clime ; the 
 organization which attempted at the same time to 
 shut out from the privilege of American citizen- 
 ship all foreigners, and which found its advocate 
 and organ in General Hawley's paper, the " Hart- 
 ford Courant." 
 
 That spirit is not dead, but only slumbers ; and 
 it but needs some rallying cause to break forth 
 anew. There is an organization in existence now 
 known as the American Alliance, and one of its 
 principles is as follows. Listen, my fellow-men, 
 while I read you the infamous declaration : — 
 
 " I. An amendment to the naturalization laws 
 limiting suffrage to persons born in this country or 
 of American parents. 
 
 " 2. The election of American-born citizens only to 
 official positions in this country." 
 
 147 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 The present Republican President in America is 
 a member of that organization. That I may not 
 misquote him, let me read you his own words, and 
 let no lover of his country forget them : — 
 
 I have just received your letter informing me of my 
 election as a member of your admirable Alliance. 
 Return my thanks to the Alliance, as I deeply sympa- 
 thize with its principles. 
 
 I remain your fellow-citizen, R. B. Hayes. 
 
 To-day, in a New England State, — Rhode 
 Island, — a foreigner cannot vote unless he owns 
 $134 worth of property; while the most illiterate 
 and degraded negro, if he happens to have been 
 born on American soil, can enjoy the privileges of 
 citizenship. General Hawley and his political 
 associates have not yet learned that a man so un- 
 fortunate as to have been born on the other side 
 of the broad Atlantic is as good as a colored man 
 born here. And still General Hawley pretends to 
 wonder why foreigners cling to the Democratic 
 party. 
 
 It was foreigners that planted the American col- 
 onies ; it was foreigners that enabled us to win the 
 battles of the Revolution ; it was foreigners that 
 saved the Union ; it is foreigners that run our fac- 
 tories, that till our soil, that work our mines ; it is 
 foreigners that have kept America in the vanguard 
 of nations for the last one hundred years. And 
 still if you were to go out with me to-night into 
 148 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 the streets of this thriving city of Meriden, and 
 ask every Repubhcan whom we should meet why 
 he was not a Democrat, nine out of every ten 
 would give the woman's argument, " Because it is 
 not respectable to be a Democrat, as all the for- 
 eigners belong to the Democratic party." If you 
 could have gone back with me through nineteen 
 centuries, and we could have together traversed the 
 narrow stony streets of Jerusalem, and could have 
 asked the proud Jew why he was not a Christian, he 
 would have told us because it was not respectable 
 to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus ; that 
 only poor and ilUterate people belonged to the dis- 
 ciples of the risen Lord. But the time came, as 
 you know, when the proud Jew was an outcast in 
 every country of the inhabited globe, and a beggar 
 at every court in Europe. 
 
 Oh, my delicately clad proud son of Yankee 
 sires, beware lest the day may come when your 
 children will lag behind in the race of life with the 
 descendants of the despised foreigner ! The God 
 of the Universe moves in a mysterious way, and 
 his love encircles alike the pathway of the poor 
 and the contemned, of the alien as well as that of 
 his proud Republican neighbor. 
 
 Again, General Hawley says that "the Demo- 
 cratic party is similar to the Tory or Conservative 
 party in England," and he asked our foreign-born 
 voters to look into this matter and think it over 
 149 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 carefully. Ah, General Hawley, you either read 
 English history wrongly, or your memory fails you. 
 It is the Liberal party in England which has ex- 
 tended the suffrage to the poor ; which has passed 
 the burial act so that any clergyman may perform 
 the funeral rites in the churchyards of the estab- 
 lished Church ; which has passed an act so that the 
 Catholics of Ireland are no longer compelled to 
 support a hostile church ; which has passed the 
 hare and rabbit bill, the employer's liability act, 
 and many other acts in the interest of the laboring 
 classes. 
 
 How has it been in America? It was the 
 Democratic party which crushed the Society of 
 Cincinnati in its effort to establish an hereditary 
 aristocracy in this country. It was the Democratic 
 party in Connecticut which in 1818 wiped out the 
 provision in the Constitution which compelled every 
 man to contribute to the support of the Congre- 
 gational Church. It was the Democrats who 
 repealed the law once upon our statute books that 
 no foreigner should own any land in this State. 
 It was the Democratic party which in 1843 repealed 
 the provision of our Constitution that every voter 
 should hold property, and gave the suffrage to the 
 poor man. It is to a Democratic governor of this 
 State that you owe the law which provides an 
 exemption of a certain portion of the wages of the 
 working-man. That Democratic governor was none 
 other than that good man who sleeps so peacefully 
 150 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 to-night beneath the autumn leaves, your own 
 dearly loved and highly honored fellow-citizen, — 
 his name is dear to every Connecticut heart, — 
 Thomas H. Seymour. It was the Democratic con- 
 vention in this State which two years ago pledged 
 itself in favor of the repeal of the factorizing pro- 
 cess, and in favor of a homestead exemption, — two 
 things dear to the heart of the working-man. It is 
 to a Democratic governor of this State that you owe 
 more than to any other man living the establishment 
 of free schools in Connecticut, so that the poorest 
 man in the community may give his children the 
 benefits of an education. That man is your stand- 
 ard-bearer in this coming contest. Need I men- 
 tion his name? It is the Hon. James E. English. 
 The Republicans say they passed the homestead 
 act for the working-man. But just as soon as they 
 had passed that law, they gave away to rotten cor- 
 porations two hundred million acres of the best 
 land, and compelled settlers to pay two prices for 
 it. With the single exception of the homestead 
 act, which is of no benefit to the poor people of 
 Connecticut, there has not been a single act passed 
 in the last one hundred years in America in the in- 
 terest of the working-man that has not been passed 
 by the Democratic party. 
 
 Again, General Hawley says, " the RepubHcans 
 prosecuted the war to a successful close." 
 
 Here again I would rather have the facts than 
 151 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 General Hawley's statement. Listen while I read 
 these to you : — 
 
 cifofpc Union Total Vote, Rep. Vote, 
 
 stares. Volunteers. iS6o. i860, 
 
 Delaware 13)654 16,039 3)8 15 
 
 Maryland 49)7oo 92,562 2,214 
 
 W. Virginia 33)063 34.192 464 
 
 Missouri 108,773 165,508 17,128 
 
 Kentucky 78,540 146,216 i)364 
 
 Totals 282,608 464,467 24,965 
 
 Does it look as if nobody but Republicans went 
 to the war? New York State — a Democratic 
 State with a Democratic governor — sent two-fifths 
 of all the soldiers in the Union army. 
 
 When the Democratic soldiers were at the war 
 fighting and the Republicans were home making 
 money, the Republicans always carried the elec- 
 tions ; but when the war was over and the soldiers 
 came home, we carried Connecticut, New Jersey, 
 New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and many 
 other Northern States. 
 
 There was not one Union victory won in the 
 War of the Rebellion without the aid of Democratic 
 soldiers. There was not one bloody field of all 
 that dreadful carnage where Democratic soldiers 
 were not to be found fighting for the Union. And 
 in the darkest hours of the Rebellion, when the fate 
 of the North hung trembling in the balance, and all 
 the world awaited anxiously the issue of the contest 
 at Gettysburg, one man, the hero of the hour, rode 
 152 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 up and down the Union lines, and nerved every 
 heart to victory. As a Union soldier in Meriden, 
 who was on his body-guard, described it to me the 
 other day, in the fiercest of the battle that man's 
 horse was shot under him, when he rose, took off 
 the bridle, leaned over and kissed the dying beast, 
 leaped upon the horse of his aid, and rushed on 
 to the front of the battle. That man is your 
 standard-bearer, the idol of American soldiers, — 
 Winfield Scott Plancock. 
 
 Republican papers and Republican orators are 
 trying to injure the military reputation of General 
 Hancock. They know no other way of destroying 
 his estimation with the American people. But my 
 only answer to all their foolish gibberings is this : 
 that honors won on the bloody fields of battle and 
 recorded on the pages of the world's history cannot 
 be injured by the childish prattle of disappointed 
 stay-at-home Republican politicians. 
 
 Again, General Hawley claims " as one of the 
 achievements of the Republican party the putting 
 of the ballot into the hands of every adult man." 
 
 I have just shown you how groundless this claim 
 is when tried by the test of history. I have shown 
 you how the poor man of this country owes his 
 privileges of suffrage to the Democratic party. I 
 have shown you what unjust discriminations are 
 made in the State of Rhode Island against worthy 
 men who had the misfortune to be born on foreign 
 153 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 soil. Three years ago the RepubUcan party of 
 this State passed a law forbidding the making of 
 electors in the evening, — the most convenient 
 time for the working-man. Selectmen can meet 
 for any other purpose during any hours of the day 
 or night ; so can school visitors, assessors, boards 
 of relief, common council, and every other muni- 
 cipal body. Does it look as if the Republicans 
 wanted the poor man to vote? Oh, my friends, 
 they are willing that the poor man shall vote if he 
 will only vote as they tell him. 
 
 Now, listen to what I shall read, and similar 
 notices have been posted in many factories in New 
 England. I invoke the attention of every unpre- 
 judiced voter within the sound of my voice to- 
 night, and I appeal to him whether he approved of 
 such things. This notice was posted at the last 
 Presidential election in a factory in Westerly, R. I. 
 Let me read : — 
 
 To ALL Voters employed by the N. E. Granite Works 
 AND THE Smith Granite Co. : 
 Having become fully convinced that the election of 
 Samuel J. Tilden and a Democratic Congress on the 
 7th of November, will do a great injury to our busi- 
 ness, and will also be a national calamity, we do most 
 earnestly advise all voters in our employ to vote the 
 Republican ticket, most especially for a Republican 
 Member of Congress. You will by so doing secure 
 your own interest, our interest, and the interest of your 
 country. 
 
 The N. E. Granite Works. 
 The Smith Granite Co. 
 ^54 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 It appeared in evidence before the Committee 
 of Congress that the principal owner in the New 
 England Works was a citizen of the city of Hart- 
 ford, and an intimate friend of General Hawley. 
 It was no less a person than the Hon. James G. 
 Batterson, of the Hartford Accident Insurance 
 Company. Oh, "consistency, thou art a jewel" 
 that becomes even a Republican politician ! Let 
 us hear of no more bulldozing in the South so long 
 as this civilized coercion is going on all over these 
 New England States ! 
 
 Again, General Hawley says " the first act of the 
 Democratic party when it came into power was to 
 demand the repeal of the election laws which pro- 
 tected the citizens against unblushing and whole- 
 sale frauds at the ballot-box." 
 
 Ah, no man knows how anxious these Republi- 
 cans are to prevent fraud at the ballot-box ! They 
 have just completed the registry list in the city of 
 Philadelphia, and there are on that list twenty 
 thousand more names than the census of last June 
 contained of all men over twenty years of age, 
 naturalized and unnaturalized, sane and insane, in 
 prison and out of prison in that city. The registry 
 list is larger than the city of New York, although 
 New York is one-half greater than Philadelphia. 
 A Republican in Meriden told me himself that 
 he voted three times in one day in Philadel- 
 phia for Hartranft, the Republican candidate for 
 governor. 155 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Now, under this damnable law, the Republicans 
 have appointed in the cities of Philadelphia, New 
 York, and Cincinnati a long list of marshals, larger 
 than the police force in each of those cities. 
 These men, the vilest in the world, have been paid 
 out of the national treasury for no other purpose 
 than to keep men from voting the Democratic 
 ticket. I am wearying you to-night, but let me 
 read of only one of these sickening scenes that 
 took place in New York City only two years 
 ago : — 
 
 "Just prior to the election of 1878, the process was 
 repeated by Davenport; and some three thousand 
 more were arrested, and their naturalization papers 
 taken away from them by this man Davenport, who 
 had no more right to overrule the courts and declare 
 the naturalization papers they issued fraudulent than 
 had one of you. But few of the persons arrested on 
 the charge of having fraudulent papers were ever 
 brought to trial, and all who were were discharged, 
 their naturalization papers being held valid. Daven- 
 port, however, accomplished his object; and by his 
 arbitrary and illegal acts prevented and deterred thou- 
 sands of lawful voters from casting their votes. The 
 scene before this chief supervisor and commissioner, 
 Davenport, has been thus described: — 
 
 " ' From early morning till after the polls were 
 closed, his rooms were packed and jammed with a 
 mass of prisoners and marshals. Not only were they 
 crowded beyond their capacity, but the halls and cor- 
 ridors were thronged by those who were unable to 
 obtain admission, so that the counsel representing the 
 
IN REFLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 prisoners and the bondsmen who were offered to 
 secure their release had the greatest difificulty, and 
 were frequently unsuccessful, in obtaining entrance. 
 In addition to all this was that delectable iron pen on 
 the upper iloor, in which men were crowded until it 
 resembled the black hole of Calcutta, and where they 
 were kept for hours hungry, thirsty, and suffering 
 every way until their cases could be reached. With 
 scarcely an exception, these men had gone to the polls 
 expecting to be absent but a short time. There were 
 car-men who had left their horses standing in the 
 public streets, men whose situations depended on their 
 speedy return. Every imaginable vexation, inconve- 
 nience, injury, and wrong which the mind can conceive 
 existed in their cases. And over all this pushing, 
 struggling crowd Mr. Commissioner John I. Daven- 
 port sat supreme, calmly indifferent to everything but 
 the single fact that no man who was arrested was 
 allowed to vote,' " 
 
 Now let me read you a list of some of the men 
 who served as marshals in New York at the last 
 Presidential election, and the cheek of every 
 Republican ought to blush as I read them : — 
 
 •'Theodore, alias Mike Anthony, alias Snuffy, of 24 
 Cherry Street, a laborer, thirty-five years of age, mar- 
 ried, and cannot read or write. Anthony was arrested 
 by Detective James Finn of the fourth precinct on 
 July 24, 1870, for larceny from the person, and was 
 held in $2,000 bail for trial by Justice Hogan. He was 
 indicted by the grand jury on the charge on the 23d of 
 August last. 
 
 "Joseph Frazier, of 279 Water Street, is a thief and 
 confederate of thieves. 
 
 157 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 " James Miller is the keeper of a den of prostitution 
 in the basement of 339 Water Street. 
 
 "James Tinnigan keeps a similar den in the base- 
 ment of 337 Water Street. 
 
 "James Sullivan, alias Slocum, keeps a house of 
 prostitution at 330 Water Street, which is a resort for 
 desperate thieves. 
 
 " Frank Winkle keeps a house of prostitution at 
 337a Water Street. 
 
 "John, alias 'Buckey' McCabe, supervisor of the 
 Eighth District, Fifteenth Ward. He is now under 
 indictment for shooting a man with intent to kill. 
 This precious ' supervisor ' was first known to the po- 
 lice for his dexterity in robbing emigrants. His picture 
 is in the < rogues' gallery' at police headquarters in 
 this city, No. 225. He was known as Pat Madden, 
 alias ' Old Sow,' alias Honsey Nicholas, alias Dennis 
 McCabe. His real name is Andrew Andrews. 
 
 " Joseph Hurtnett, supervisor Eighteenth Ward. 
 Arrested June 3, 1869, as accessory to the murder of 
 Richard Gerdes, a grocer, corner of First Avenue and 
 Twenty-fourth Street. 
 
 " Henry Rail, supervisor Eighth Ward. One of the 
 principals in the Chatham Street saloon murder; went 
 off West to escape punishment, and has only been 
 back a few weeks. 
 
 " James Moran, supervisor, Third District, Eighth 
 Ward. Arrested on Sunday last for felonious assault. 
 
 " William (alias Pomp) Hartman (colored), marshal 
 Twenty-second Ward. Arrested a few days since for 
 vagrancy. 
 
 " Theodore Allen, marshal Eighth Ward. Now in 
 prison for perjury, and keeps a house, the resort of 
 panel thieves and pickpockets, on Mercer Street. 
 158 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 "Richard O'Connor, supervisor Seventh District, 
 First Ward ; has been for years receiver of smuggled 
 cigars from Havana steamers. 
 
 "L. H. Cargill, supervisor Ninth District, Ninth 
 Ward ; tried in United States Court for robbing tlie 
 mails. 
 
 " John Van Buren, supervisor Twelfth District, 
 Eighth Ward ; was at one time in sheriff's office and 
 discharged for carrying off a load of seized goods 
 from the establishment of Richard Walters in East 
 Broadway. 
 
 "Mart Allen, marshal Eighth Ward. Served a 
 term of five years in the Connecticut State-prison; 
 sentenced to Sing Sing for five years by Judge 
 Ward. 
 
 "John McChesney, supervisor Fourth District, 
 Ninth Ward. Associated with thieves; bears a bad 
 character generally. 
 
 "William Cassidy, supervisor Twelfth District, 
 Ninth Ward ; is a street bummer, without any visible 
 means of support. 
 
 "Thomas Mclntyre, marshal Eighth Ward. Has 
 been frequently arrested for beating his aged mother ; 
 sent several times to Blackwell's Island. 
 
 "Timothy Lynch, marshal Sixth District, First 
 Ward ; a Washington market-lounger. 
 
 " Peter Mose, marshal Sixth Ward ; habitual 
 drunkard. 
 
 "John Connor, supervisor First District, First 
 Ward; keeps a disorderly gin-mill, resort of lowest 
 characters. 
 
 "Francis Jordan, supervisor Sixth District, First 
 Ward. Lives in New Jersey; was turned out of the 
 post-office by Postmaster Jones for bad conduct. 
 159 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 " Bernard Dugan, supervisor Eighth District, First 
 Ward; habitual drunkard. His wife left him on 
 account of his drunkenness, and procured a divorce 
 on that ground. 
 
 "John Tobin, supervisor Ninth District, First 
 Ward ; arrested about six months ago for grand 
 larceny. 
 
 " Patrick Murphy, supervisor Fourth District, 
 Sixth Ward ; two years ago distributed fraudulent 
 naturalization papers, and would furnish them to 
 anybody that would promise to vote for Grant. 
 
 "Edward Sieven, Jr., supervisor Second District, 
 Fourth Ward ; has an indictment now pending against 
 him in court of general sessions for cutting a boy 
 named Kilkenny. 
 
 " Michael Foley, supervisor Fourth District, Fourth 
 Ward ; well-known repeater, voting for anybody that 
 will pay. 
 
 "James F. Day, supervisor Seventh District, Fourth 
 Ward ; shot at a man in fight between the Walsh asso- 
 ciation and a gang from Water Street. 
 
 "John Connors, alias 'Jockey,' supervisor Third 
 District, Fourth Ward ; a well-known desperate 
 character. 
 
 "Michael Costello, marshal Sixth Ward; bounty- 
 jumper during the war, 
 
 " Harry Rice, supervisor Thirteenth District, Sixth 
 Ward ; was connected with the Chatham Street con- 
 cert-saloon murder, and fled to Nebraska to escape 
 punishment. 
 
 " Thomas Lane, supervisor Seventeenth District, 
 Sixth Ward; formerly keeper of a notorious den at 
 Five Points, headquarters of thieves and robbers. 
 i6o 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 "John Lane, supervisor Twenty-second District, 
 same Ward ; was indicted for receiving stolen goods. 
 Has served a term in Sing Sing. 
 
 " Edward Foley, supervisor Sixth District, Ninth 
 Ward; arrested last year for stealing a watch. 
 
 " Humphrey Ayers, supervisor Eighteenth District, 
 Ninth Ward ; arrested six years ago for robbing the 
 U. S. Mail. 
 
 "John Dowling, supervisor Nineteenth District, 
 Ninth Ward; arrested August 20, 1869, for till- 
 tapping. 
 
 "James Fitzsimmons, supervisor Twentieth District, 
 Ninth Ward ; arrested August i, 1868, for robbery. 
 
 "John Martin, supervisor Fifth District, Twelfth 
 Ward ; arrested a few years ago under an indictment 
 for arson. 
 
 " Samuel Rich, supervisor Fourth District, Thir- 
 teenth Ward ; served a term of two years at Sing 
 Sing for felonious assault. 
 
 " William P. Burke, supervisor Twentieth District, 
 Eighth Ward; served his term in the State-prison of 
 Massachusetts for burglary; also two years in the 
 New York State-prison. 
 
 " James McCabe, supervisor Fourth District, 
 Eighth Ward; now confined in the Tombs under 
 indictment for highway robbery. 
 
 " William Irving, supervisor Fourteenth District, 
 Eighth Ward ; has served a term in Sing Sing prison 
 for burglary committed in the Eighth Ward, and has 
 never been pardoned. 
 
 " Patrick Henry Kily, alias Fred Williams, super- 
 visor Twenty-second District, Eighth W^ard ; keeper 
 of a house of ill-fame, a resort of the lowest and vilest 
 characters. 
 
 II 161 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 " Patrick Hefferman, supervisor of the Tenth Dis- 
 trict, Sixth Ward ; arrested some time since for 
 attempted murder. 
 
 " Frederick Sterringer, supervisor Eighth Ward ; 
 has been arrested several times for keeping disorderly 
 house. 
 
 " J. F. Baderhop, supervisor Tenth Ward ; arrested 
 for murder a few years since. 
 
 " Ed. Weaver, marshal in Eighth Ward ; has been 
 but a short time out of State-prison, where he has been 
 serving out his sentence. 
 
 "Walter Prince (colored), marshal Eighth Ward; 
 now in prison awaiting trial for highway robbery. 
 
 "Andrew Andrews, alias Hans Nichols, marshal, 
 panel thief; been sentenced two or three times to 
 State-prison, and has just returned from Blackwell's 
 Island." 
 
 I read this from page 1,636 of the Congressional 
 Globe for the Forty-first Congress, third session, 
 February 24, 1871. 
 
 What a magnificent roll of Republican statesmen, 
 guardians of the purity of the ballot-box, that 
 would be for Governor Jewell to send up and ask 
 Parson Beecher to read some Sunday morning from 
 tlie pulpit of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn ! 
 Oh, I do not know how it may seem to other men ; 
 but to me, when I hear a Republican politician 
 talking about the purity of the ballot-box, it is like 
 the drunken man preaching temperance, the thief 
 preaching honesty, the arch conspirator of hell 
 preaching the sublime doctrines of the Christian 
 162 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 religion. I feel like exclaiming, in the words of 
 the heroic dead, " O Liberty ! how many crimes 
 are committed in thy name ! " 
 
 General Havvley talks about ''the Democratic 
 party trying to starve the government into submis- 
 sion." Ah, has he read history so poorly? There 
 is no country in the world where the people have 
 any sort of control over the management of their 
 public affairs whose rulers would have dared to 
 throttle the voice of the people as Rutherford B. 
 Hayes has. Not the queen of England, not the 
 kings of Italy or Spain, not the proud emperors of 
 Austria or Germany, would have dared thus to 
 defy their parliaments. 
 
 Again, General Hawley said that "the Demo- 
 crats when they obtained control of Congress 
 appointed a large number of investigating com- 
 mittees, but found nothing wrong. It is true," he 
 added, " we had the Belknap and Credit Mobilier 
 scandals, but these were long before investigated 
 and condemned by committees of a Republi- 
 can Congress. The Republican party purified 
 itself." 
 
 My time will not permit me to go over the long 
 dark catalogue of crimes committed by the Repub- ■ 
 lican politicians during the last fifteen years. I 
 might summon to the stand a Republican, Ben- 
 jamin Bristow, Secretary of the Treasury under 
 General Grant, to prove how the whisky thieves 
 163 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 cheated the government out of what has been 
 estimated at fifty miUions of dollars. One man, 
 an intimate of General Grant, has lately made a 
 confession that one ring in St. Louis, in 1S72, 
 stole seven millions of dollars with the connivance 
 of leading Republican politicians, and that one- 
 half of it was spent as an election fund to elect 
 General Grant President. 
 
 I might summon to the stand another Republi- 
 can, Professor Marsh, of your own Yale College, 
 and show how the whole Interior Department was 
 one reeking mass of corruption under Grant. 
 
 I might summon A. T. Stewart, if he were alive, 
 and other Republican merchant-princes of New 
 York City, and show you how they had been 
 cheated and robbed by Republican officials in the 
 Custom House in that city. 
 
 I might summon Mr. Columbus Alexander and 
 many of the wealthiest Republican tax-payers in 
 Washington to tell you of the gigantic swindles 
 perpetrated in that city by Republicans. 
 
 I might summon Admiral Porter to tell you 
 how we have spent four hundred and eighty mil- 
 lions on the navy, and have nothing to show for 
 it. Then I might go over the blackest pages in 
 all that wild riot of corruption and fraud, and 
 show how two hundred millions were stolen by 
 carpet-bag rascals in the South. 
 
 But my time forbids. I will only summon two 
 witnesses to the stand. They shall be Republi- 
 164 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 cans, and the mouths of every Repubhcan in the 
 land will be dumb to deny their statements. I 
 have to-night only time to give you a sample of 
 how the people have been robbed by Republican 
 officials. I could stand here and read by the 
 hour from these truthful but sad pages which 
 record the crimes of these Republican officials. 
 
 Columbia, South Carolina, 1871. 
 Mr. Josephus Woodruff, 
 
 Bought of George Symmers, Commission Mer- 
 chant, Wholesale and Retail Dealer in Gro- 
 ceries, Provisions, Wines, Liquors, Cigars, &c. 
 
 1871 
 
 Feb. 25. I case champagne, W. E. H. (Sena- 
 tor W. E. Holcombe ; sent to Co- 
 lumbia Hotel) $50.00 
 
 Feb. 25. I box cigars, $10 ; 2 gallons whisky, 
 $16, W. E. H. (Senator W. E. 
 Holcombe; sent to Columbia 
 Hotel) 26.00 
 
 Feb. 27. 3 dozen ale, $10.50; 2 dozen porter, 
 
 $7 17-50 
 
 Feb. 27. Discount of draft 35-oo 
 
 Feb. 27. I gallon best brandy, $20; i gallon 
 best sherry, $12, for W. E. H. 
 (Senator W. E. Holcombe, Co- 
 lumbia Hotel) 32-00 
 
 Feb. 27. 2 boxes cigars $12. 50-^25; 2 demi- 
 johns, $1.50, for W. E. H. (Sena- 
 tor W. E. Holcombe, Columbia 
 
 Hotel) 26.50 
 
 165 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Feb. 28. I gallon whisky, $7; i box cigars, 
 
 $12.50 $19-50 
 
 Feb. 28. I case champagne, $50; 3 boxes 
 
 cigars, $i5-$45 95-oo 
 
 Feb. 28. 2 gallons whisky, $8-$ 16 ; i gallon 
 
 sherry, $12 (Senator D. Biemann) 28.00 
 
 Feb. 28. I gallon brandy, $20; jug and demi- 
 john, $2 ( Senator D. Biemann) . 22.00 
 
 Total $351-50 
 
 Received payment, 
 
 George Symmers. 
 (D. McKay.) 
 
 I read first from the great organ of the Repub- 
 lican party, the " New York Tribune " : — 
 
 " Unhappily, there is no room to doubt that the 
 local rule established by knavish adventurers who had 
 gained the confidence of the ignorant colored voters 
 was corrupt and oppressive in the extreme. Of this 
 fact, no investigation was needed to convince candid 
 men. The disclosures at the time of the Vicksburg 
 massacre were such as to prove that property owners 
 had been goaded on to the point of desperation by 
 outrages which no civihzed community long endures. 
 Ample proof exists that the local rule in other parts 
 of the State was infamously corrupt." 
 
 And now 1 read the spoken words of that man 
 
 whose name is on the lips of every Republican in 
 
 this canvass, Hon. Carl Schurz. On the 5 th of 
 
 October, 1872, Mr. Schurz spoke in Buffalo. The 
 
 166 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 following is the passage of his speech in which he 
 discussed the Southern question : — 
 
 " A blight has fallen over the South. It was not 
 so much the war which was the cause of it, as it is the 
 shameful corruption which pervades the State govern- 
 ments. Frauds plunder, shameless robbery^ — these 
 are the characteristics of the Southern State govern- 
 ments. And who is responsible for it ? Was it not 
 Grant's administration to which all these robbers, all 
 these plunderers, clung for support ? But how could 
 these thieves keep themselves in power? Their most 
 powerful aid was the Federal government, and the 
 next powerful aid they sought in the ignorant negro 
 vote. Secret societies were organized to keep the 
 negroes in subjection and to make them vote just as 
 the Administration and its servants would want to 
 have them vote. The thieves control these negroes, 
 and it was under their influence that they have been 
 arrayed against the whites. The blacks and the 
 whites stand face to face as enemies, for the negroes 
 are tinder the influence of the most villanous scoun- 
 drels that were ever allowed to disgrace a great and 
 noble country. If there can be anything worse than 
 civil war, it is the war of races ; and these scoundrels 
 have adopted just the very means to bring about such 
 a war. At the head of the negroes are the great 
 thieves that rule the South, and rely on Grant for 
 support. The support is given to them freely, and 
 every possible means has been taken to make them 
 blind instruments of the powers that be, and the foot- 
 step for a second term of President Grant." 
 
 But General Hawley says the Republican party 
 has purified itself. A party is to be judged by its 
 167 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 candidates. I will not weary you to-night in re- 
 hearsing the official delinquencies of James A. 
 Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. Suffice it for me 
 to say that the Republican press of the land only 
 a few months ago denounced them as unworthy 
 the suffrages of the American people. My only 
 witness against Mr. Garfield shall be the written 
 words indorsed and recorded by six thousand 
 Republicans in Mr. Garfield's Congressional Dis- 
 trict in 1876. These men were his political friends, 
 and had known him from boyhood. Listen while 
 I read : — 
 
 " 4. Resolved, That there is no man to-day officially 
 connected with the administration of our national gov- 
 ernment against whom are justly preferred more or 
 graver charges of corruption than are publicly made 
 and abundantly sustained against James A. Garfield, 
 the present representative of this Congressional Dis- 
 trict and the nominee of the Republican convention 
 for re-election, 
 
 "5. Resolved, That since he first entered Congress 
 to this day there is scarcely an instance in which rings 
 and monopolies have been arrayed against the interests 
 of the people, that he has been found active in speech 
 and vote upon the side of the latter ; but in almost 
 every case he has been the ready champion of rings 
 and monopolies. 
 
 "6. Resolved, That we especially charge him with 
 venality and cowardice in permitting Benjamin F. 
 Butler to attach to the Appropriation Bill of 1873, 
 that ever-to-be-remembered infamy, the salary steal, 
 and in speaking and voting for that measure upon its 
 168 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 final passage ; and we charge him with corrupt disre- 
 gard of the clearly expressed demand of his constit- 
 uents that he should vote for its repeal, and with 
 evading said demand by voting for the Hutchinson 
 amendment. 
 
 " 7. Resolved, That we further arraign and denounce 
 him for his corrupt connection with the Credit Mobil- 
 ier, for his false denials thereof before his constituents, 
 for his perjured denial thereof before a committee of 
 his peers in Congress, for fraud upon his constituents 
 in circulating among them a pamphlet purporting to 
 set forth the findings of said committee and the evi- 
 dence against him, when, in fact, portions thereof 
 were omitted and garbled. 
 
 " 8. Resolved, That we further arraign and charge 
 him with corrupt bribery in selling his official influ- 
 ence as chairman of the Committee on Appropriations 
 to the DeGolyer Pavement Ring, to aid them in secur- 
 ing a contract from the Board of Public Works of the 
 District of Columbia ; selling his influence to aid said 
 ring in imposing upon the people of said District a 
 pavement which is almost worthless at a price three 
 times its cost, as sworn to by one of the contractors ; 
 selling his influence to aid said ring in procuring a 
 contract to procure which it corruptly paid $97,000 
 ' for influence ; ' selling his influence in a matter that 
 involved no question of law, upon the shallow pretext 
 that he was acting as a lawyer ; selling his influence 
 in a manner so palpable and clear as to be so found 
 and declared by an impartial and competent court 
 upon an issue solemnly tried." 
 
 Against Mr. Arthur I will summon a man, a life- 
 long Republican, whose word no Republican in 
 169 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 this city dares to dispute. On January 28, 1879, 
 John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, wrote 
 President Hayes as follows : — 
 
 " If, to secure the removal of an officer, it is neces- 
 sary to establish the actual commission of a crime by 
 proofs demanded in a court of justice, then it is clear 
 that the case against Mr. Arthur is not made out, 
 especially if his answer is held to be conclusive, with- 
 out reference to the proofs on the public records and 
 tendered to the committee and the Senate. But if it 
 is to be held that, to procure the removal of Mr. 
 Arthur, it is sufficient to reasonably estabhsh that 
 gross abuses of administration have continued and 
 increased during his incumbency ; that many persons 
 have been regularly paid on his roles who rendered 
 little or no service ; that the expenses of his office 
 have increased, while collections have been diminish- 
 ing ; that bribes, or gratuities in the nature of bribes, 
 have been received by his subordinates in several 
 branches of the Custom House ; that efforts to correct 
 these abuses have not met his support, and that he 
 has not given to the duties of the office the requisite 
 diligence and attention, — then it is submitted that 
 the case is made out. This form of proof the de- 
 partment is prepared to submit." 
 
 What need to dwell on this sad picture ? There 
 is not a Republican but is willing to admit that the 
 nominations at Chicago were a mistake, and were 
 made, in the language of your own illustrious fel- 
 low-citizen, ex-Governor Hubbard, "amid break- 
 ing booms and in a thoughtless desperation." 
 170 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 Again, General Havvley claims " that the South- 
 ern people have come back to run this government 
 according to their own ideas, and that they intend 
 to pay the rebel debts," and says he heard Ben 
 Hill say so. 
 
 Now, I will not say that so good a man as Gen- 
 eral Hawley will say anything that is not true ; but 
 I will say one thing, that if General Hawley should 
 ever be so fortunate as to be a member of the 
 United States Senate, the last man in all that re- 
 nowned body whose pathway General Hawley will 
 care to cross will be that man who towers a giant 
 amid that brilliant assembly, — Hon. Benjamin 
 Hill, of Georgia. Now, what did that • illustri- 
 ous senator say? It is my platform, it is your 
 platform, it is the platform of four millions of the 
 liberty-loving Democracy of America : — 
 
 " If I had control of the party, as I have not, and 
 shall never have, if my voice were worth anything, 
 there are four things I would have the Democratic 
 party proclaim to the world in most convincing terms, 
 and adhere to with unflinching fidelity. I would have 
 the party say — 
 
 " I. We will not pay war losses, loyal or disloyal, 
 unless we make a few exceptions of religious, educa- 
 tional, and charitable institutions, and very few of these. 
 
 " 2. We will vote no more of the public money, and 
 no more of the public credit, and no more of the pub- 
 lic lands, to build up or enrich mammoth monopolies 
 in the shape of railroad corporations. 
 
 " 3. We will in good faith pay every dollar of the 
 171 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 public debt, principal and interest, in good money of 
 the standard value. 
 
 " 4. We will restore the Constitution to the country 
 and honesty and economy to its administration, con- 
 fining the general government to its limited, delegated 
 sovereign powers to promote the general welfare, and 
 leaving the States unmolested in the exercise of their 
 reserved sovereign powers to promote the local wel- 
 fare of the people. 
 
 " Do these four things, and, in my judgment, the 
 child is not born who will witness the termination of 
 Democratic administration in his country, and the 
 tongue has not been gifted with language that can 
 express the prosperity which will follow to all our 
 people in every section of our country." 
 
 Words worthy to have been written on the 
 sacred tablets that were delivered to fallen man 
 on the ever memorable heights of Mount Sinai ! 
 
 Again, General Hawley said " the Southern peo- 
 ple are hostile to the North, and intend to wipe 
 out all the legislation of the war." 
 
 It would be useless for me to deny what General 
 Hawley said, for it might at once be objected 
 against my denial that I am a Democrat. But I 
 will read to you the spoken words of a Republican 
 who has recently visited the Southern States, and 
 whose word ought to be to every honest Repub- 
 lican as conclusive as are the edicts of the Pope 
 to every faithful Catholic. I read from a speech 
 made by General Grant at Bloomington, 111., in 
 June last : — 
 
 172 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 " It may be appropriate on this occasion to refer to 
 my trip through the Southern States, and to what I 
 have seen while travelling. I have been gratified at 
 my reception in all the recently rebellious States. I 
 passed from Philadelphia to Florida on my way to 
 Havana, and on my return came via Texas from 
 Mexico, thus passing through all the rebellious States ; 
 and it will be agreeable to all to know that hospitality 
 was tendered me at every city through which I passed, 
 and accepted in nearly all of them by me. The same 
 decorations were seen in every State that are seen 
 here to-night. The Union flag floated over us every- 
 where, and the eyes of the people in those States 
 are as familiar with its colors as yours, and look 
 upon it as guaranteeing to them all the rights and 
 privileges of a free people, without regard to race, 
 color, or previous condition of servitude. In most of 
 the States, upon the reception committees, side by 
 side, were the men who wore the blue and the men 
 who wore the gray; and reception addresses were 
 made in part by those who wore the blue and those 
 who wore the gray. We have no reason to doubt that 
 those who wore the gray will fulfil all they have 
 promised in loyalty to the flag and the nation." 
 
 And now I will let General Hawley and General 
 Grant have it out. The first spoke for political 
 effect, the last to give expression to the honest 
 sentiments of a kindly heart. 
 
 Again, General Hawley said " the Democrats are 
 in favor of free trade, and that business will be 
 paralyzed if the Democrats come into power." 
 
 The Republicans are taking up this tariff discus- 
 
 173 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 sion simply for effect. They know there is nothing 
 to it, but they think it will scare some voters and 
 keep people from talking about the crimes of the 
 Republican party. With an annual expenditure 
 by the national government which cannot be less 
 than two hundred millions yearly for the next fifty 
 years, how is all this vast sum of money to be 
 raised except by a tariff which must necessarily be 
 protective ? 
 
 But this is not a question upon which men 
 divide politically. Only a few days ago a Demo- 
 cratic State convention in New Jersey adopted a 
 platform in favor of a protective tariff. The 
 strongest advocate of protection to American in- 
 dustry in Congress to-day is the Democratic 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. 
 Samuel J. Randall, of Philadelphia. Here is what 
 Wade Hampton of South Carolina says : — 
 
 "The South generally feels that its best interests 
 require the protection of home industries. With the 
 growing unity and prosperity of our country there will 
 soon be large manufacturing interests in the South." 
 
 Not many months ago a Republican convention 
 in Iowa declared in favor of free trade. The 
 strongest advocate to-day in New England of 
 merely a revenue tariff is a paper that supports 
 Garfield for President, and always supports Gen- 
 eral Hawley when a candidate, — the " Springfield 
 Republican." That I may not misquote it, here 
 are its own words, in its issue of September 2 7 : 
 174 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 " As other issues pale, the tariflfgets more and more 
 discussion. The leading manufacturing interests are 
 certainly ready to accept a reduction of duties. The 
 New England cotton, paper, and woollen interests, we 
 believe, would not oppose a moderate reduction of 
 duties. They find that protection has been overdone 
 until domestic competition necessitates combinations, 
 short time, and other artificial agencies to conserve a 
 profit. They see that the hope of reaching a foreign 
 market upon the present basis is a delusion. We 
 shall never be able to reach a foreign market until we 
 have reduced the cost of our production and placed 
 ourselves more nearly on a par with England, the 
 country of free trade. 
 
 " As a large revenue is necessary, and the Democrats 
 are not likely to increase the internal revenue by rais- 
 ing the taxes on spirits and tobacco, it is clear that a 
 tariff for revenue is likely to afford all the protection 
 needed . Besides, the Democrats are not of one mind ; 
 they are disposed to protect Louisiana sugar, Georgia 
 iron, Texas wool, Pennsylvania and New Jersey man- 
 ufactures. So that neither party is 'solid' in this 
 issue, neither party is likely to go to extremes, 
 although the Republicans are rather disposed to 
 represent to artisans in protected industries that 
 their employment is in danger from Democratic 
 success." 
 
 The most unflinching and uncompromising 
 advocate of free trade in America is that stanch 
 Republican paper in New York City, the " Even- 
 ing Post." The most prominent Republican can- 
 didate for Congress to-day from the city of Boston 
 is a well-known advocate of free trade. I find this 
 175 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 in the " Hartford Courant " of Saturday last from 
 their regular Boston correspondent : — 
 
 " Mr. John W. Candler has the Republican nomi- 
 nation here by ahnost a unanimous vote. I am pleased 
 to say, too, that he never retracted one word of what 
 he had said against the iniquities of the present tarifE 
 in order to get it. He will be elected, and will make 
 an excellent member. Mr. Candler can render ser- 
 vice by his information as regards the tariff." 
 
 Ah, General Havvley, there are some iniquities, 
 it seems, in this tariff; and why not be honest 
 when you talk to the voters of Connecticut, and 
 tell them so? 
 
 The most successful and wealthiest woollen 
 manufacturer ever in America, a Republican worth 
 his millions, was an advocate of free trade ; I 
 mean Hon. Edward Harris, of Woonsocket, R. I. 
 At a convention of woollen manufacturers in Mas- 
 sachusetts only a few months ago, it was openly 
 discussed whether they would not declare in favor 
 of free trade. One of the most enterprising and 
 wealthiest manufacturers in New Haven County 
 — a Republican who employs hundreds of men, 
 and who has sent his agents into every market of 
 the world — said to me a few days ago that he 
 found it impossible to sell his goods in foreign 
 markets so long as we kept up our tariff on raw 
 materials, and that as for him he was in favor of 
 free trade ; for then, instead of selling to forty 
 176 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 millions, he could sell to a thousand millions of 
 people. All that any Democrat proposes to do is 
 to put upon the free list a few of those articles 
 which are consumed by the poor people of this 
 country. 
 
 At the last session of Congress the Democratic 
 party repealed the tariff on that article which keeps 
 the breath of life in nine-tenths of the working- 
 people of New England, — quinine. It seems as 
 if General Hawley, however, were treading on 
 dangerous ground; for while he appears to be 
 such a great stickler for a high tariff, he is on 
 record as favoring the repeal of duties on that 
 article which he uses so largely himself, — paper. 
 What sublime assurance for Republican politicians 
 to go through this State talking against free trade, 
 when their candidate for President has been one 
 of the most pronounced advocates of free trade in 
 Congress, and not long since presided over a free- 
 trade meeting in Washington ! He is also a mem- 
 ber of the Cobden Club of London, the great free- 
 trade organization of England, which is said to 
 dispense large sums of money in this country and 
 all over the world to disseminate the doctrines of 
 free trade. General Garfield has also voted 
 repeatedly in Congress in favor of the reduction of 
 the tariff rates upon foreign goods coming into 
 competition with American industry; and when 
 he was nominated by a Republican caucus as 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1877, 
 12 177 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 five Republican members of the House from 
 Pennsylvania bolted the nomination because ' he 
 had been so prominent an advocate of free-trade 
 measures. 
 
 Every manufacturer and every working-man 
 ought to be in favor of Senator Eaton's bill to 
 drive this question forever from politics. The 
 Republican politicians want to defeat that bill and 
 keep this question in politics ; for their hope of 
 political success lies in forever keeping the manu- 
 facturers on the anxious seat, to contribute funds 
 and bulldoze their workmen in the interest of the 
 Republican party. 
 
 The rich and the poor, the manufacturer and the 
 working-man, are all interested in a change in the 
 Administration. In the last four years a Demo- 
 cratic Congress has reduced the appropriations 
 ^120,000,000. Do you know how much that is? 
 It is $1,500,000 for Connecticut alone. This 
 reduction was made against the violent opposition 
 of the Administration. Again, we are all interested 
 in having a new set of men to keep the public 
 accounts. It is admitted by everybody that there 
 have been forced balances made on the books at 
 Washington, — that is, that the receipts and ex- 
 penditures could not be made to balance ; and so 
 enormous sums — in some cases of $100,000,000 
 — have been arbitrarily added in order to make 
 the accounts come out even. Again, the whole 
 system of public expenditures needs overhauling. 
 178 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 The men now in office have been there twenty 
 years, and are so fixed in their rotten ways that the 
 only hope of the country is in clearing out and 
 starting anew. Let me give only a sample. In 
 Hartford the government is building a post-office 
 which has already cost over ^750,000, and will cost 
 one million. Mr. James G. Batterson, who built 
 the Capitol at Hartford, a Republican in politics, 
 says he will put up such a building for ^300,000. 
 This is but a sample in every building that is being 
 erected all over the country by the United States ; 
 and in all the supplies that are being purchased 
 for the government the people are being robbed 
 and cheated in the same way. It is with a nation 
 as with an individual, — it prospers by what it saves. 
 There is no royal road to wealth. Retrenchment 
 and reduction in the expenditures are worth more 
 to the business interests of the country than all 
 other things put together. Every manufacturer, 
 every business man, every tax- payer, ought to 
 throw aside the prejudices of a lifetime, and vote 
 for the only party that promises retrenchment and 
 honesty in the public expenditures. 
 
 Let me leave this topic by reading from a stanch 
 Republican paper, the " New York Tribune," upon 
 the doings of a Democratic Congress, and I ask 
 every Republican to listen while I read : — 
 
 " But it has made a success in three directions. It 
 exposed a corrupt Secretary of War and drove him 
 from office. It investigated an unscrupulous minister 
 170 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 to England, and scourged him home. It reduced 
 appropriations, — sometimes wisely, often unwisely ; 
 but at all events it reduced them, and so, for the 
 present, checked the enormous expenditures of public 
 money. For these let this Congress have all thanks ; 
 and let us frankly say, too, that the whole credit of 
 them is due to the Democratic House." 
 
 Again, General Hawley tried to frighten the 
 manufacturers of Meriden over the dangers of 
 Democratic rule, and regaled them with nightmare 
 dreams of coming misfortunes. Let me read just 
 a line from a Republican paper, the " Springfield 
 Republican," that will not swallow any of this 
 nonsense, and that dares to speak its honest 
 sentiments : — 
 
 " The Republican party for twenty years has so 
 governed the country, if the current cry of the organs 
 is true, that in a time of profound peace one party can- 
 not succeed the other without ruining the nation ! If 
 this were true, the Republican party ought to go forth- 
 with. It is not true." 
 
 Again, from the *' New York Herald " : — 
 
 " What is the use, again, of the Republican organs 
 and stump speakers pretending to a harrowing fear 
 that if the Democrats should come in they will pay 
 the rebel debt, or rebel war-claims, or the value of the 
 slaves, and generally destroy the credit of the country 
 and bankrupt the treasury and the tax-payers .'* Not 
 one of them believes in this silly stuff, which yet is a 
 staple of the Republican canvass." 
 1 80 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 Who is the wealthiest manufacturer in all New 
 Haven County? Why, James E. English. In 
 Fairfield County? Why, that sterling Democrat, 
 Nathaniel Wheeler. In Litchfield County ? Why, 
 Hon. W. H. Barnum. In Middlesex County? 
 Why, one of your Presidential electors, Henry G. 
 Hubbard. In Tolland County? Why, a Demo- 
 crat, Charles Fox, of Stafford. And who is presi- 
 dent of the wealthiest manufacturing company in 
 Hartford County? Why, another of your Presi- 
 dential electors, Richard W. Jarvis. Who is the 
 wealthiest manufacturer in New Jersey, employing 
 five thousand men ? Why, Hon. Abraham S. Hewitt, 
 a Democrat. Who is the wealthiest manufacturer 
 in New York State? Why, a Democrat, Erastus 
 Corning, of Albany. Who is the wealthiest mer- 
 chant and manufacturer in the United States, 
 and probably in the world? Why, a Democrat, 
 Henry Hilton, of New York City. 
 
 Oh, what folly, what nonsense, to preach that 
 these men have not the interests of their country 
 at heart, and would do anything to harm the 
 business interests of America ! Such ideas live 
 only in the disturbed imaginations of frightened 
 Republican office-holders. 
 
 So much for General Hawley. One thought 
 
 more and I am done. There is, to my way of 
 
 thinking, one question at issue in this contest that 
 
 outweighs, a thousand times, all other questions. 
 
 i8i 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 It is the question of the right of the people to 
 choose their own officers ; it is the rock upon 
 which our Hberties rest, upon which our govern- 
 ment exists, and upon which depends the prosper- 
 ity and the very existence of the republic. Strike 
 it out, and the repubUc goes down in midnight 
 darkness. 
 
 In 1876 the Democratic party elected to the 
 Presidency the greatest living American statesman, 
 Samuel J. Tilden, of New York. Every leading 
 Republican paper and every Republican in the 
 land, from Governor Hayes down to the humblest 
 sweeper in a government building, admitted it 
 to be true — except one man. That man was the 
 most dangerous, unprincipled, and unscrupulous 
 politician that this or any other country ever saw. 
 He knew that the electoral votes of three Southern 
 States were in the hands of the greatest rascals 
 that ever went unhung. In the watches of the 
 midnight hours, when all good men were sleeping, 
 he telegraphed to those willing instruments the 
 conspiracy against the liberties of the American 
 people ; and then began that series of plots and 
 counterplots which have no parallel in history, and 
 which constitute the darkest page in the history of 
 the new republic. 
 
 I cannot stop to dwell upon the damning facts 
 
 that make all American citizens hold their heads in 
 
 shame. Among the men who were sent down by 
 
 General Grant to watch the count in Florida, the 
 
 182 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 foremost man among them all was that great 
 Republican lawyer who had filled the office of 
 Attorney-General of New York, — General Barlow. 
 After careful investigation, he became convinced 
 that the Democrats had fairly carried Florida, and 
 these are his words. Listen, my Republican 
 friends. Here is what General Barlow says : — 
 
 "Mr. Davenport called upon me with a despatch 
 from President Grant asking if I would go to Florida; 
 and so I went. By the evidence laid before me I was 
 forced, in mv own mind, to believe that the Democrats 
 had carried the State. It was my own honest opinion 
 that the vote of the State ought to have been given to 
 the Democrats. The returning board did not apply 
 the same rule of action to Republican counties as to 
 Democratic. I am a thorough Republican, and went 
 South in the interests of the Republicans." 
 
 Turn again to Louisiana. I have told you how 
 General Hawley himself is on record that the 
 electoral vote of Louisiana justly belonged to 
 the Democrats. I cannot stop to read you all the 
 convincing evidence of that crime, without a name 
 and without a precedent in history. Let me read 
 you this, however, as a sample : — 
 
 Ao-reement between Anderson and Nash, Represen- 
 lative in Congress, New Orleans, November 21, 
 
 i: 
 
 By an agreement entered into this day between 
 James E. Anderson, Supervisor of Registration for the 
 parish of East FeUciana, La., and Charles E. Nash, 
 183 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 member of Congress from the Sixth Congressional 
 District of Louisiana, it is agreed tliat said Anderson 
 shall suppress evidence showing that the said parish 
 of East Feliciana was fairly carried by the Democratic 
 party at the election held November 9, 1S76, thereby 
 electing the entire Democratic State ticket and Con- 
 gressmen, — in consideration of which the said Nash 
 agrees to secure for said Anderson the position of 
 Naval Officer of the Port of New Orleans, La. 
 
 James E. Anderson. 
 C. E. Nash. 
 
 The above agreement was signed in our presence 
 this 2 1 St day of November, 1876. 
 
 J. M. TOMLINSON. 
 
 O. B. Morgan. 
 
 This agreement, as Anderson testified, was long 
 ago put into the hands of Mr. Matthews, and was 
 in his possession to Anderson's knowledge until the 
 middle of April last. In fact, in a letter written 
 March 27, 1877, ^^- Matthews himself acknowl- 
 edges that it is in his hands. This letter he here 
 reproduces, along with another to General Harlan 
 of Kentucky, since appointed by President Hayes 
 to be a Judge of the Supreme Cotirt. 
 
 Mr. Anderson, — You are at liberty to use the 
 note on the other page as an introduction to General 
 Harlan, who is one of the Commission, and you can 
 talk to him as freely as to me. You should say to 
 Nash, if inquired of, that I have the agreement. 
 
 Stanley Matthews. 
 184 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 Cincinnati, March 29, 1877. 
 Gen. J. M. Harlan : 
 
 Dear Sir, — This will be presented to you by Mr. 
 James E. Anderson, who may desire to communicate 
 with you confidentially. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Stanley Matthews. 
 
 Headquarters Republican Party of 
 Louisiana, Mechanics' Institute, 
 New Orleans, September 25, 1876. 
 To R. B. Edgeworth, Esq., Supervisor of Registra- 
 tion, Parish of Plaquemime, La. 
 Dear Sir, — It is known to this Committee, from 
 examination of the census of 1875 [the fraudulent one 
 above referred to], that the Republican vote m your 
 parish is three thousand ; and the Republican majority 
 is two thousand two hundred. 
 
 You are expected to register and vote the full 
 strength of the Republican party in your parish. 
 Your recognition by the next State Administration 
 will depend on your doing your full duty in the 
 premises ; and you will not be held to have done your 
 full duty unless the Republican registration reaches 
 three thousand, and the Republican vote is at least 
 three thousand. 
 
 All local candidates and committees are directed to 
 aid you to the utmost in obtaining this result, and 
 every faciUty is and will be afforded you; but you 
 must obtain the result called for herein without fail 
 Once obtained, your recognition will be ample and 
 
 ^^ ' Very respectfully, &c. 
 
 185 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Other letters explaining the modus operandi of 
 " not failing in the results expected " appear in 
 testimony. But this was not all. More specific 
 instructions were given orally to the supervisors. 
 Mr. Edgeworth testifies thus : — 
 
 " Governor Kellogg came to the parish in company 
 with Governor Warmouth, Judge Pardee, District- 
 Attorney Price, and others. I showed him letter of 
 instructions of 25th of September. Governor Kellogg 
 told me it was extremely necessary to have that 
 majority from that parish, and that I must by all 
 means send in that majority from that parish. I told 
 him I thought it was impossible ; the registration 
 would not reach three thousand, and it was impossible 
 to do it. Governor Warmouth brought eight men 
 from New Orleans and placed them at the different 
 polls. These men are now all office-holders at New 
 Orleans. They went to the polls and remained there 
 all day." 
 
 And he further testifies that " after the election 
 Governor Kellogg said to me that I had not carried 
 out his expectations." 
 
 When the question came up in Congress as to 
 how the electoral vote of Louisiana should be 
 counted, there were two Republican Congressmen 
 from Massachusetts who, by their commanding 
 talents and the purity of their lives, to-day outrank 
 all men in the Republican party in New England. 
 One of them to-day is president of Amherst 
 College, — President Seelye ; the other is that man 
 who last year refused a Republican nomination for 
 186 
 
IN REPLY TO GENERAL HAWLEY 
 
 governor in Massachusetts, — Henry L. Pierce, ex- 
 mayor of Boston. Here is what these men said 
 when they voted to give the electoral vote of 
 Louisiana to Tilden and Hendricks. These are 
 the words of ex-Mayor Pierce on counting the 
 electoral vote of Louisiana : — 
 
 " That gross frauds were committed in the canvass 
 of votes is admitted, I believe, by both parties; and it 
 is also admitted that the returning board acted in the 
 discharge of their duties in an arbitrary and illegal 
 manner. I should be recreant to my convictions if I 
 neglected to place on the imperishable records of the 
 House my dissent from the rule which it is proposed 
 to establish." 
 
 Here is what President Seelye said : — 
 
 " No nation, said Niebuhr, ever died except by 
 suicide ; and the suicidal poison is engendered not 
 so much in the unjust statutes of government, as in 
 the immoral practices of a people which the govern- 
 ment is unable to punish and unable to restrain. It is 
 because I fear that the strict and accurate interpreta- 
 tion of the Constitution applied by the electoral vote 
 of Louisiana would imperil that vote in the future, and 
 incur the very danger which the Constitution intended 
 to avoid, that I am unable to concur with such an 
 application." 
 
 There was one Republican in the Senate of the 
 United States whose magic eloquence and tran- 
 scendent genius places him at the acknowledged 
 head of the Republican party. When the question 
 187 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 came up in the Senate of counting the electoral 
 vote of Louisiana, Conkling turned to his Republi- 
 can colleagues and said, " Gentlemen, you may do 
 as you please ; but, as for me, I will have no part 
 or lot in this gigantic steal." He went out of the 
 Senate Chamber declining to vote, and left it to 
 others to consummate the greatest steal of nineteen 
 centuries. 
 
 And now for four long years the Democracy of 
 America have waited in patient silence to redress 
 the greatest wrong ever committed, and to punish 
 the most deadly blow ever struck at American insti- 
 tutions. But the hour of our deliverance draws 
 nigh. The free men of America are aroused, and 
 are marching to victory. The Democratic party 
 has outlived a score of parties, and will outlive this 
 Republican party that seeks to maintain itself in 
 power by feeding the fires of sectional hatred, and 
 by arraying one section of our common and blessed 
 country against the other. Methinks I hear the 
 beginning of the wild cheers of the stalwart De- 
 mocracy which will go up to heaven on the ides of 
 November next, over a country redeemed and dis- 
 enthralled from Republican rule. Methinks I can 
 read in the courses of the stars in heaven that 
 a savior has been born to purify, elevate, and regen- 
 erate the politics of America ; and that fifty millions 
 of people are waiting to welcome with loud acclaims, 
 as President of the proud Republic of the West, the 
 great soldier-statesman, Winfield Scott Hancock. 
 
TO THE TAX COMMISSION OF 
 CONNECTICUT 
 
 To THE Tax Commission of Connecticut : 
 
 I HAVE read with deep interest the discussion 
 from time to time before your Commission. It 
 seems as if all efforts were made principally to 
 shield some particular interest, and to transfer its 
 burdens to some other interest. This is sticking in 
 the bark. It is chasing a shadow and ignoring 
 the substance. 
 
 I know we are an old-fogy State, and that re- 
 forms move slowly here. But if we are to have 
 any change, let us have one for the better ; or let 
 us continue on in our old ways until the whole com- 
 munity shall have become so disgusted with our 
 present system that we shall be ready to cut it up 
 root and branch. 
 
 One of the principal branches of governmental 
 duties is the levying and collecting of taxes. Our 
 system, if you may call it a system, is a piece of 
 badly constructed patchwork, and needs an entire 
 reformation. It now shields those interests which 
 are best able to bear taxation, and imposes taxes 
 upon those interests least able to bear it. 
 189 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 It remains to be seen whether the mcoming 
 Legislature will have the nerve and courage to go 
 to the bottom of this whole matter. I am not the 
 champion of any particular interest, but I want 
 something that is equal and just and permanent ; 
 something which imposes taxation upon those in- 
 terests that ought and are best able to bear it. 
 Every man holds his life and property subject to 
 such regulations as may be best for the whole, and 
 this he agrees to when he becomes a member of 
 any civilized community. 
 
 1. It would be better to have our assessors 
 chosen county-wise, and hold oiSce for five years. 
 This would secure an equal and intelligent assess- 
 ment throughout the county and State. Now 
 property is assessed very differently in neighboring 
 town 1. In many towns the assessments are never 
 legally made, and bunglers are doing the work. 
 It needs to be put into the hands of systematic 
 and competent men, who will introduce into the 
 offices of assessors as much neatness, system, and 
 completeness as you find in a bank. If it were 
 not for the healing act passed at every session of 
 the Legislature to cover up the blunders and mis- 
 takes of town officers, one-half of the towns in the 
 State would never be able to collect their taxes. 
 It has been called " The Fool's Act." 
 
 2. There is no need of an assessment oftener 
 than once in three or five years. There is no great 
 change in the value of the property in any five 
 
 190 
 
TAX COMMISSION 
 
 years ; and if there is any change, it is general, so 
 that the assessment would bear a like proportion 
 to all property, however changed in value. Taxes 
 should always follow the property, as all deeds 
 should provide that the purchaser shall pay the 
 taxes ; otherwise they should be paid by the man 
 to whom assessed. 
 
 3. Taxes should be laid on the rental value of 
 real estate instead of on its supposed value. Taxes 
 should be levied upon live, not dead, property. 
 You do not lay taxes on cemeteries or churches ; 
 and so you ought not to lay taxes upon a factory 
 or a dwelling-house that is unoccupied. Besides, 
 if the tax were laid upon the rental value, with 
 perhaps a certain per cent added every five years 
 for possible increase in value of property, it could 
 be more easily and accurately ascertained. Take 
 the Hartford Trust Company building. Men 
 would differ $25,000 to $75,000 on its real value ; 
 but its rental value depends not on guesswork, but 
 on book-keeping, and can be accurately ascer- 
 tained. It is always well to eliminate guesswork 
 as far as possible from all business, and to reduce 
 it to a mathematical calculation. 
 
 4. It would be well to dispense with all taxes 
 upon personal property. The assessment of per- 
 sonal property is so unequal, and so easily and so 
 universally evaded, that it is almost a farce and a 
 fraud upon the few honest men who pay their full 
 taxes. Stocks are transferred to people outside 
 
 191 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the State, to savings-banks or national banks, to 
 escape taxation. Bonds, jewelry, notes, valuable 
 goods, etc. are buried so deep that no assessor can 
 ever find them. The whole thing is a sham and a 
 burlesque on justice. 
 
 5. All special taxes upon insurance companies, 
 savings-banks, and railroads are based upon wrong 
 principles. They are akin to brigandage, which 
 levies where it thinks it can collect the easiest. 
 Every man recognizes the justice of levying taxes 
 upon rum and tobacco, for they are hurtful ; but 
 why select one kind of legitimate business for tax- 
 ation, and allow others to go scot-free ? Why levy 
 taxes on life-insurance companies, and not on the 
 manufacturers of silks, guns, and powder? The 
 world can get along as well without the last as 
 without the former. The only principle upon 
 which such taxes can be sustained is that these 
 institutions are spendthrifts, bound to squander 
 their property, and that some of it might as well 
 go for taxes. Would it not be better to stop think- 
 ing how much taxes we can get out of these semi- 
 charitable institutions, and spend a little more time 
 in trying to make them safe and sound, and as 
 permanent as the government itself? Should sav- 
 ings-banks in this State be allowed to invest one- 
 half their assets in New York City bank-stock, and 
 thus furnish the means whereby stock-gamblers 
 may force the money of the poor people of Con- 
 necticut into Wall Street to the demoralization of 
 
 IQ2 
 
TAX COMMISSION 
 
 all honest and beneficial business ; to stake the 
 assets of our banks where the officers themselves 
 do not dare to invest their own money? Who 
 would dare to advise the poor people of Connecti- 
 cut to invest their money in New York City bank- 
 stock ? But there is where it is being invested every 
 day. Why should life-insurance companies be 
 permitted to scatter their assets to the four quar- 
 ters of the earth ? Ought they not to be as safely 
 managed and as carefully guarded as a savings- 
 bank? Why should it be a race to see whether 
 the man or the company will live the longest? 
 
 6. In place of a tax upon personal property, it 
 would be better to impose a tax upon the net 
 income of all persons and corporations. This 
 should include incomes from all sources, dividends 
 from savings-banks, interest on government bonds, 
 pensions, and wages, where the total exceeds 
 a certain sum ; deducting incomes from real 
 estate, as that is taxed in another way. If a cor- 
 poration makes no money, it should pay no taxes. 
 This is the way to encourage struggling industries 
 everywhere. It is the strong, not the weak ; it is 
 the prosperous, not the poor; it is those who 
 enjoy special privileges and reap great rewards, — 
 it is such that can and should bear taxation. 
 Gould and Vanderbilt pay no taxes. What a 
 mockery ! what a travesty on justice and fair play ! 
 England, the greatest commercial country in the 
 world, whose government is controlled by wealthy 
 13 193 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 business men, raises a large proportion of its taxes 
 by an income tax, holding that this is the fairest 
 tax ever known. No fair and reasonable man, 
 however rich he may be, can object to paying his 
 proportion of the taxes, only provided all the rest 
 of the community pay in a like proportion. 
 
 7. The poll-tax should be abolished. It 
 amounts to nothing. It is a relic of bygone 
 times. Nobody pays it. But it is desirable that 
 every able-bodied man should contribute some- 
 thing, no matter if it is a small sum, towards the 
 expenses of society. It makes more of a man of 
 him. It keeps up his self-respect, and teaches 
 him that he is a part of the body politic, and has 
 as good a right to express his opinion as aVander- 
 bilt, so long as he contributes as much in propor- 
 tion towards the support of the government. 
 Society might be classified into occupations, and 
 every man pay a small license fee annually, which 
 shall secure him permission to engage in his par- 
 ticular calling, and which shall at the same time 
 be a return for that protection and assistance which 
 government affords to every man. 
 
 8. One-half the proceeds of the sale of liquor 
 should go to the State. It is intoxicating liquors 
 that fill our jails, state-prisons, reform and indus- 
 trial schools, and that largely necessitate criminal 
 courts. Thus is spent one-half of the public 
 money. The income tax from railroads, steam- 
 boats, mining telegraph, and telephone companies. 
 
 194 
 
TAX COMMISSION 
 
 should go to the State. Ten per cent of the 
 receipts of all exhibitions should be paid to the 
 State. The railroads and bank and insurance 
 departments of the State should be self-supporting. 
 We should charge travelling agents from other 
 States the same as those States charge our own. 
 The foregoing would produce money enough to 
 run the State government ; but if it should not, 
 then the remaining sum needed should be assessed 
 to each town in proportion to its assessment list. 
 
 9. This is a practical age. The great question 
 of the hour is an economic political question. It 
 is the problem how to distribute the burdens of 
 society in the easiest and fairest way. This is the 
 task that confronts the legislator everywhere, and 
 is rising into prominence in all the States of the 
 Union. It is the question of tariff, of revenue, of 
 taxation, and of finance that is to engage the 
 thoughtful attention of the American voter for the 
 next ten years. 
 
 10. No man knows it all. Every man should 
 give his best thoughts to it. These are mine 
 to-day. Discussion may change them. The wise 
 man sometimes changes his mind; the fool, 
 never. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 Hartford, Conn., Dec. 24, 18S0. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 On the Irish Land League, delivered at Hartford^ 
 February 28, 1881. 
 
 Mr. President : 
 
 I AM here to-night to do what I can to explain 
 the cause of the Land League agitation in Ireland, 
 and to place it upon such high grounds that every 
 man in whose bosom burns one spark of human 
 love — every man who fears his God — will give at 
 least his sympathies and prayers to the down- 
 trodden people of Ireland. In order that I may 
 speak with brevity and exactness, and may cover 
 many important facts, I have written out what I 
 wish to say. 
 
 The one great question that is to-day agitating 
 the minds of the English-speaking race all round 
 the inhabited globe is the problem presented by 
 the Land League of Ireland. Thinking men, the 
 wide world over, are turning their thoughts to this 
 question. 
 
 The history of Ireland for two hundred years 
 
 has been a history of agitation and turmoil. I 
 
 shall not attempt, in the short time I have allotted 
 
 to myself to-night, to review its sad history. In 
 
 196 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 passing, I can only say that it is a liistory crowded 
 with crime, persecution, and suffering ; and it is a 
 history that ought to mantle with shame the face 
 of every Enghshman as he reads it. Who can 
 remain unmoved at " the sight of those long and 
 fruitless struggles of a poetic, ardent, inconsolable 
 race "? The great Irish orator and lawyer, Henry 
 Grattan, aptly described the English policy towards 
 Ireland as one " than which you would hardly find 
 a worse if you went to Hell for your principles, 
 and to Bedlam for your discretion." 
 
 You are all, doubtless, familiar with the com- 
 mencement of those outrages committed by Eng- 
 lishmen, which two hundred years ago laid the 
 foundation of Ireland's misfortunes. It is a page 
 in the world's history which for two centuries has 
 cried to heaven for vengeance. It is the prayer 
 of every liberty-loving soul on this whirling planet 
 that the hour of Ireland's deliverance be brought 
 to pass, and that the wrongs of centuries be righted 
 forever. This question breaks over all national 
 barriers. There is no man, be he Jew or Gentile, 
 American or Asiatic, but feels in this question a 
 personal interest. Ireland is to-day keeping the 
 camp-fires of liberty. The sons of Ireland are 
 sounding the tocsin of liberty, and every man 
 born of woman should extend at least a brother's 
 sympathy to these fellow-creatures struggling for 
 liberty. 
 
 And, above all other men on God's footstool, 
 197 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 this question ought to arouse the sympathy of 
 every true American. In the dawn of American 
 Hberty, one man, an Irishman, Edmund Burke, 
 stood up in the British parliament and pleaded for 
 the rights of America in those matchless words 
 that have never been surpassed in sixty centuries, 
 and that to-day stand as the highest effort of human 
 genius. From the opening battle of Bennington 
 down to the last skirmish on the far-off Western 
 prairies, there has not been one battle fought to 
 establish and perpetuate the liberties of America 
 where Irish blood has not flowed, and where Irish- 
 men have not laid down their lives to save for us 
 and our children the free institutions of America. 
 We, then, above all other men, basking, as we are 
 to-day, in the sun of American liberty, ought not 
 to forget this people who are bone of our bone 
 and flesh of our flesh. 
 
 Ireland has been called the English poorhouse, 
 supported by the people of the United States. For 
 half a century the American people have supported 
 millions of paupers made by the Irish land system. 
 We have sent millions and millions of dollars to 
 Ireland to keep the breath of life in her poor 
 people, and to fill eventually the coffers of her 
 landlords. We, then, have a personal interest in 
 the final and permanent settlement of the Irish 
 land question. If, however, there is any American 
 here to-night who feels no interest in this question, 
 let him go to some strange and inhospitable shore 
 198 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 where his language is not spoken, but where, per- 
 chance, he may hear, even though it be from 
 a stranger, and an Irishman at that, a few words 
 of his own magnetic language, his mother tongue ; 
 and then for the first time in his life, perhaps, he 
 will realize how near and dear to him is every man 
 who speaks the master language of the age, our 
 own good Saxon English. 
 
 Some people are so uncharitable as to charge 
 Ireland's misfortunes to her own people. They 
 say they are to be attributed either to the religion 
 the ignorance, or the slothful habits of the Insh 
 race Let us examine these charges. 
 
 Does any man dare to tell me that it is the 
 Catholic rehgion that has brought these misfortunes 
 upon the Irish race? I tell him he is a poor 
 student of history. I tell him that the wealthiest 
 nation to-day -the one where there are inore 
 men retired and living on a competence, where 
 there is more thrift and more saving than any- 
 where else -is Catholic France. I wonder if m 
 three hundred years, with all the unmeasured re- 
 sources of this magnificent country of America 
 we have not been able to reach the wealth of 
 France, — if ten generations have come and gone, 
 and we still lag behind, - how many more genera- 
 tions must come and go before we stand on a 
 level in wealth with Catholic France. God only 
 
 knows ! 
 
 It was Catholic France that built the most 
 
 199 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 stupendous work of engineering of ancient or 
 modern times, the Suez Canal. It is Catholic 
 France, to-day, that cheerfully and heroically un- 
 dertakes to do what all other nations have turned 
 from in despair, — dig a ship canal across the death- 
 breeding swamps of the Isthmus of Panama. Go 
 out with me into the marts of trade, to your fac- 
 tories, to your farms, to your savings-banks, and 
 where can you find a more thrifty and saving people 
 than the Catholic Irish ? They are to-day starving 
 the close-fisted Yankee off these bleak New Eng- 
 land hills. 
 
 If you tell me that the Catholic religion is not 
 consonant with liberty, all your reading has been 
 in vain. It was puritanical Massachusetts that 
 drove from its borders every man who dared to 
 differ from the religion of the Colony. It was 
 Catholic Maryland that opened its doors to all 
 good men of every religion. Did the Catholic 
 religion destroy the devotion to liberty of the 
 French patriot, the Marquis de la Fayette, of whom 
 it has been said that he was the only man whom 
 George Washington ever loved? It is Catholic 
 France that to-day flaunts the flag of liberty in the 
 face of Europe, and maintains a sister republic 
 second to none in the galaxy of nations. 
 
 No ! It is not Ireland's religion or the indo- 
 lence of her people. Is it, then, their stupidity? 
 If you ask me for the greatest orator of twenty 
 centuries, I point you to an Irishman, — Edmund 
 
 200 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 Burke, If you ask rae for the sweetest poet in all 
 the ages smce the Psalms of David were written, I 
 point you to the wandering Irish bard, Oliver 
 Goldsmith ; or to that other inimitable Irish poet, 
 the much lamented and dearly loved Thomas 
 Moore. If you ask me for the greatest com- 
 mander of modern times, I point you to an 
 Irishman, the hero of Waterloo, the Iron Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 There is no sphere in life that has not been 
 filled by Irishmen. I am not here to-night to 
 flatter the Irish people. I am here to speak 
 the truth as I understand it. I am here to do 
 justice to an outcast and injured people. And 
 I am here to say that I have no sympathy with 
 those false pedantic notions so prevalent to-day, 
 which look with contempt upon the capacities 
 of the Irish race. No Irishman need ever be 
 ashamed of his country or of his religion. Let 
 every thoughtful Protestant remember that the 
 Catholic faith in Ireland has been nourished by 
 " the most sacred sentiments of the human heart, 
 by the hatred of injustice, and by the devotion to 
 one's forefathers ; " and that the Irishman loves 
 with equal fervor his terrestrial and his celestial 
 country. 
 
 Now, let me invite your attention to what I con- 
 ceive to be the grievances to-day of the Irish 
 people. 
 
 Nowhere are there any people speaking the Eng- 
 
 20I 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 lish language who have as Httle voice in their own 
 government as the Irish. Any attempt to enforce 
 such a government in Canada or Austraha would 
 make either of those countries a great powder-house 
 of insurrection. Our forefathers plunged America 
 into the war of the Revolution for one-tenth the 
 pretext that to-day arouses all Ireland. It behooves 
 every American citizen to hesitate before he con- 
 demns the Irish people for disturbing the peace of 
 England. Washington unsheathed his sword in no 
 holier cause than inspires a Parnell. One hundred 
 years ago America appealed to the sympathies 
 of the civilized world for less cause than to-day 
 invokes the sympathies of civilized men everywhere 
 for suffering Ireland. 
 
 1. I want to show you how the taxes are laid in 
 Ireland, something that comes as close home to a 
 people as any branch of governmental duties. 
 
 As a relic of the days of the conquest, in every 
 county local taxes are imposed by a "grand jury." 
 These grand juries are appointed by the sheriffs ; 
 and the sheriffs, mind you, are appointed by the 
 English government. Almost as a necessary con- 
 sequence, the Irish grand juries are made up of 
 large landed proprietors and their agents ; and the 
 tenants, who compose a vast majority of the people, 
 have no representation or voice in this body 
 which levies the taxes. How unjust and how 
 undemocratic ! 
 
 2. These same grand juries name one-half the 
 
 202 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 local governing boards in the baronies or sub- 
 divisions of a county. The other half of these 
 local boards, answering somewhat to our board of 
 selectmen, is composed of justices of the peace 
 appointed by the English government. What a 
 wickedly conceived and cunningly contrived substi- 
 tute for the voice of the people ! What a travesty on 
 the boasted free institutions of England ! 
 
 3. The Board for the distribution of relief to the 
 poor and the sick derives its appointment from, 
 and is largely composed of, landed proprietors. 
 All clergymen are excused by law, and the English 
 government reserves to itself the right to fill the 
 entire board, which is often done. 
 
 4. Public education, which in England and 
 Scotland is placed in charge of a board elected by 
 the people, is in Ireland given to a board ap- 
 pointed by the Crown ; and its members hold for 
 life, — a scheme for governing a people worthy the 
 autocrat of all the Russias. 
 
 5. The few town and city officers that are elected 
 in Ireland are chosen by electors whose qualifica- 
 tions are much higher than are required of electors in 
 voting for members of Parliament. The qualifica- 
 tions are so high in voting for local oflficers that the 
 management of local affairs is kept in the hands of 
 a few wealthy land-holders. Irish cities and towns 
 in which Roman Catholics are in a majority, at all 
 elections for members of Parliament, have local 
 governments composed exclusively of Protestants. 
 
 203 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 No Catholic country maintains to-day such an 
 arbitrary and unrepresentative government as that 
 under which all Ireland is groaning. Not Catholic 
 France, Italy, Austria, or Spain, can boast such an 
 infamous scheme to cheat and drown the voice of 
 the people. 
 
 6. Let me call your attention to the marked 
 difference between the methods employed by the 
 British government to govern her own petted Eng- 
 land and the despised Green Island of the sea. 
 As I have already shown you, the great matter of 
 public education which in England and Scotland is 
 placed in the hands of a board elected by the 
 people is in Ireland managed by a board appointed 
 by the English government, whose members hold 
 for life. 
 
 By the law of i860, passed by the British Par- 
 liament, the landlords in Ireland possess summary 
 powers of ejectment far in excess of those possessed 
 by the landlords in England. In England they 
 have county officers elected by the people, but in 
 Ireland such officials are appointed by the English 
 government. As a result of this Land League 
 agitation, headed by those noble Irish patriots, 
 Parnell and Davitt, Mr. Gladstone has promised to 
 submit to this present Parliament a bill extending 
 the same county organization and privileges to 
 Ireland as are enjoyed in England. 
 
 7. It is almost impossible to make an American 
 comprehend the impediments which exist in Ire- 
 
 204 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 land to the transfer of real estate. There are no 
 offices or places where deeds can be recorded. 
 All records relative to real estate are kept in the 
 office of the attorney. If a man wants to make a 
 deed, he must go to some particular attorney, and 
 have him prepare an abstract showing how the land 
 is situated and encumbered, and the attorney 
 draws the deed and keeps it. For these services 
 he charges from one hundred to five hundred 
 dollars. It has long been mooted to establish the 
 American custom of recording deeds in some 
 public office ; but John Bull is slow to move, and 
 hates most of all to acknowledge that America can 
 teach the proud Briton anything. 
 
 8. All wills made in Ireland, where the amount 
 involved is more than twenty-five dollars, must 
 be filed and recorded in Dublin. If you want 
 to find out about any will, you must employ 
 some attorney at Dublin, whose charges are extor- 
 tionate. This matter of wills is of far more conse- 
 quence across the water than in America ; for here 
 we limit the power ot any man to tie up his estate 
 to the life of some person in being and twenty-five 
 years thereafter, while under the English govern- 
 ment there is no such limitation, and wills may 
 reach down through several generations. Thus 
 they have much more occasion in Ireland to 
 inquire into the terms of wills than we do. How 
 inconvenient it would be if all the people of the 
 six New England States and New York were 
 205 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 obliged to send to Albany before they could make 
 a deed, a mortgage, or a lease ! 
 
 9. As I have just explained, a man may in Ire- 
 land encumber his estate with legacies and settle- 
 ments extending down through several generations, 
 or for long periods of time. A person who has 
 not investigated the matter cannot appreciate what 
 a burden it becomes to the landed interests of 
 Ireland. So many different parties living off the 
 industry of the tenant, so many idlers staring every 
 purchaser in the face, so many sluggards encum- 
 bering every acre of land paralyzes the sale and 
 transfer of real estate, and freezes the industrial 
 ambition of the people. 
 
 10. The great trouble with the English govern- 
 ment is that it was originally created for the benefit 
 of the rulers. For four hundred years the great 
 mass of the people have been struggling to secure, 
 one by one, some of those great and inalienable 
 rights which, by " the laws of Nature and of 
 Nature's God," belong to all men. 
 
 One of the abominable customs which dates its 
 origin back to the mediaeval ages, and which ought 
 to wither and die in the light of modem civiliza- 
 tion, is the custom prevailing under the English 
 government to-day that you cannot attach and sell 
 the land of a bloated aristocrat, though he may owe 
 a hundred times as much as he is worth. Every 
 other man must pay his honest debts except this 
 pampered son of luxury and of wild and reckless 
 206 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 extravagance. England is cursed with that other 
 twin reUc of a barbarous age, primogeniture, which 
 robs a whole family to make one child rich. Poets 
 may write and philosophers may soliloquize on the 
 marvellous liberties of the British government, but 
 they look mean and contemptible beside the price- 
 less freedom of American citizenship. 
 
 II. But the one crying evil of the hour, the 
 ever-present and never-to-be-forgotten misfortune 
 of Ireland, is landlordism. 
 
 Now, what does landlordism mean? It means 
 this, that less than two thousand men own two- 
 thirds of all the land in Ireland. On the land 
 owned by these two thousand men are living five 
 hundred thousand tenants and over three millions 
 of people. I can explain this matter no better 
 than by quoting the spoken words of one of Eng- 
 land's great statesmen, — a man whose broad sym- 
 pathies, great learning, and marvellous eloquence 
 place him in the front rank of the world's great 
 men. On the i6th Oi November last, at Birming- 
 ham, England, John Bright spoke as follows : — 
 
 " What the tenants want is this : to insure in some 
 way, by some mode, that when a man has his house 
 over his head — built by himself, probably, or some pre- 
 ceding member of his family may have built it — and 
 his little farm around him, he should not incessantly 
 be taught that he may any day have notice to quit and 
 be turned out of his farm and liome ; and that the rent 
 should not be constantly added to, until even going 
 207 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 out of his farm is a less evil than remaining in it. He 
 wants some security from the constant torture and 
 menace of increasing rent which he feels hanging over 
 him ; and he wants also that there should be some 
 broad and generous and complete system established 
 by the government by which land-owners who are will- 
 ing to sell, of which there must be many now, — that 
 where land-owners are wilHng to sell (and there are 
 many at all times), and where tenants are able and 
 willing to buy, then, through the instrumentahty of a 
 government commission, you may gradually, year by 
 year, add to the number of the proprietary farmers in 
 Ireland." 
 
 Again he said : — 
 
 " If the English people had been informed, if they 
 had been capable within the last two centuries of judg- 
 ing fairly of these matters, and if in addition to this 
 the government had been merciful and just to Ireland, 
 there cannot be a doubt that Ireland would be as 
 closely welded at this moment to England as Scotland 
 is, and that it would be as difficult to raise the flag of 
 insurrection or discontent in Ireland as it would be for 
 Prince Charlie again to appear with his flag in Scot- 
 land. The Irish farmers are, in the main, industrious 
 and honest. There has been no country in Europe, 
 no part of the United Kingdom, in which rents have 
 been more generally and constantly and fairly paid 
 than in Ireland, until the recent troubles. The Irish 
 farmer is an economist ; he saves even to penurious- 
 ness. The great object of his life is to enable himself 
 to give a small portion to his daughters on their mar- 
 riage. The Irish people expatriated to the United 
 States have sent millions and millions of money to 
 208 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 Ireland, to help their poor relations to make the 
 voyage thither. Therefore I believe, as much as I 
 believe anything, that it is possible to frame a measure 
 of legislation which will satisfy the great bulk of the 
 Irish tenant-farmers." 
 
 To show that this is not an overdrawn picture, 
 let me read you a little account of what is meant 
 by a just landlord : — 
 
 " Sir Cavendish Foster is one of the few Irish land- 
 lords who have no trouble with their tenants. He is a 
 clergyman in Essex, and owns land in County Louth, 
 Ireland. Not long ago he instructed his agent to 
 reduce rents twenty per cent ; but his tenants replied 
 with a unanimous refusal to accept the reduction. 
 They did not wish for more consideration, — they 
 asked for none at all. Being able, they were wiUing, 
 to pay their just rent in full. They told the agent to 
 inform the landlord that such habitual justice as he 
 gave them made it unnecessary for them to use, and 
 they were too honest and grateful to abuse, his gener- 
 osity. He explains what happened by saying that the 
 rents were reduced a the time of the last famine in 
 1847, and they have never since been raised. The 
 result of a gentle use of the landlord's power is proved 
 by two remarkable circumstances. When the late 
 landlord died, the tenants spent two thousand dollars 
 in putting up a monument to him. The agent — the 
 usually hated agent — died. A similar monument was 
 put up to him. At a time when landlordism is being 
 decried all over Ireland, Sir Cavendish Foster is 
 receiving constantly from his tenants declarations 
 that if all landlords were like him, the Land League 
 would be impossible." 
 
 14 209 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Such fidelity and such attachment as is pictured 
 in the description which I have just read to you 
 proves that the Irish people possess some of the 
 best and noblest traits of the human heart, — "a 
 singularly pure, domestic nature, an affectionate 
 and even sunny disposition, and hearts full of 
 gratitude and friendship." 
 
 You read much in the papers of the three " F's." 
 Let me explain what is meant by the three " F's." 
 The first -^stands for fixity of tenure. The tenant 
 in Ireland wants the privilege of renting the land 
 for a definite term of years at some fixed rent. 
 At the present time he is liable to have his rent 
 raised or himself evicted at every whim of the 
 landlord. Remember that in three years a million 
 people were turned out-doors by their relentless 
 landlords, to sleep with nothing above them but 
 the blue arch of heaven, and nothing beneath 
 them but the cold sod. The tenants also want 
 that when they are evicted they shall receive 
 compensation for any improvements they have 
 made, and also compensation for being disturbed, 
 — these questions to be determined by a fair 
 board of appraisers. If the English government 
 has made it impossible for a vast majority of the 
 people of Ireland to gain any permanent interest 
 in the land on which they live, and compels them 
 to occupy for many generations the position of 
 simple tenants of the soil, throwing upon them 
 
 2IO 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 also the misfortune of bad crops or stagnation in 
 business, without any corresponding reduction in 
 their rents, — who can blame these poor people 
 when they appeal from the avarice of the landlord 
 to some fair and impartial tribunal? 
 
 The second F stands for free sales. By this is 
 meant that the outgoing tenant wants the privilege 
 of selling to the incoming tenant the unexhausted 
 improvements which he has made upon the farm. 
 Bear in mind that this is secured to the tenant in 
 England by a law containing a list of the improve- 
 ments for which compensation may be demanded 
 by the out-going tenant, and the rates to be al- 
 lowed for the same. England, as I have already 
 shown you, has one law for the Jew and another 
 for the Gentile. 
 
 The third F stands for fair rent, and means a 
 protection to the tenant against the arbitrary and 
 excessive exactions of the landlord. It contem- 
 plates the creation of some board of arbitration to 
 decide between the landlord and the tenant when 
 they are unable to agree. Every sign of prosper- 
 ity of the tenant is now only an incentive to the 
 landlord to raise the rent. 
 
 In order to appreciate the importance of these 
 three schemes for improving the condition of the 
 tenant in Ireland, you must remember that the laws 
 of England have made it almost impossible for a 
 vast majority of the Irish people ever to own any 
 interest in the soil ; they are condemned by cer- 
 
 211 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 tain inexorable laws to live and die, generation 
 after generation, as simple tenants of the soil. 
 The terms of their leases cover many years, during 
 which, for the purpose of protecting and advanc- 
 ing their own interests and the interests of their 
 landlords, they are obliged to make many perma- 
 nent improvements, — build houses, barns, walls, 
 ditches, etc., — while in England the landlord 
 makes these improvements. Do you wonder then 
 that three millions of people, who have spent their 
 lives in improving the farms on which they are 
 living, demand some protection against the avarice 
 of the landlord, some security that they shall not 
 be driven in the hour of their misfortune, or in 
 that old age which comes alike to the rich and the 
 poor, from the land on which they were born, and 
 from the homes which they have erected? 
 
 It is only carrying a little further, and I think for 
 a better purpose, a principle well recognized every- 
 where, that all men hold their property subject to 
 its being taken for public use at a fair appraisal. 
 You can take my land to build a court-house on, 
 upon paying me the appraisal. Why may you not 
 compel a greedy landlord to rent his farm at a fair 
 appraisal and upon reasonable terms, when poverty 
 and starvation stare a whole nation in the face ? 
 
 If you ask me whether these contemplated im- 
 provements have ever been tried anywhere else, I 
 tell you yes. The Land League of Ireland is only 
 attempting to secure for the tenants in Ireland the 
 
 212 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 same privileges that have been enjoyed for many 
 generations in the happy and prosperous Nether- 
 lands. In the laws and customs of India, long 
 prior to its domination by the British, you could 
 find nearly all the privileges that the Irish tenant 
 is begging for to-day. Under the old Roman 
 Empire, whose people found their chief pleasure 
 in the brutal gladiatorial fights, who worshipped 
 false gods, who had never heard the sublime doc- 
 trines of the Christian religion, who never dreamed 
 of a risen Lord, — among that ancient people it 
 was a law that when the land was unproductive 
 through the calamities of the season, the rent of 
 the land was either suspended or extinguished. 
 The Land League of Ireland appeal to their Eng- 
 lish rulers, with all their boasted learning and 
 civilization, to establish for the unfortunate people 
 of Ireland a law which has come down to us from 
 pagan Rome, an*, which has had the approval and 
 is covered with the hoary frosts of twenty cen- 
 turies. This may explain why poverty-stricken 
 Ireland is to-day in arms against landlordism, and 
 appeals confidently to the humanities of the race 
 and the brotherhood of mankind to move the hard 
 hearts of her British rulers. 
 
 Another great object sought to be accomplished 
 by the Land League is to induce the English gov- 
 ernment to lend its aid in reclaiming the waste 
 lands of Ireland, estimated to contain over two 
 213 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 millions of acres, and then to divide the lands into 
 small farms. These lands alone would make forty 
 thousand farms. John Bright eloquently says : 
 " What is a million of money, what are ten mil- 
 lions, what are fifty millions, to this country, to 
 pursue to a successful issue a great question like 
 this?" He might well have added that hardly a 
 year passes in which the English government does 
 not spend an equal sum to subjugate some savage 
 race, exasperated by the cruel and relentless de- 
 mands of British officers and traders, in the wilds 
 of Africa, or in the snow-clad heights of central 
 Asia. 
 
 England might learn a lesson from America. 
 We could have freed three millions of slaves and 
 planted them on African soil, and saved a bloody 
 fratricidal war and five millions of dollars and one 
 million of precious human lives, had we been wise 
 enough. The poet has truly sung — 
 
 " Peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than war." 
 
 Another object which the Land League seeks to 
 accomplish is to induce the English government to 
 lend its credit, as has been done in Prussia and 
 Russia, and enable the Irish people to become 
 owners of the soil ; to divide up the vast tracts of 
 land now for sale, or owned by corporations, — in 
 the words of an eloquent Irish orator, " to root the 
 people to the soil." No people are so happy, no 
 214 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 people are so contented, no people are so loyal to 
 the government, as where all the people own a few 
 acres of God's green earth. Ireland could easily 
 be made to support twenty millions of people bet- 
 ter than she supports six millions to-day. Ireland 
 has less population to the acre than France, Bel- 
 gium, Italy, Netherlands, or Switzerland. The 
 infernal policy of the English government has in 
 the last twenty years reduced the population of 
 Ireland nearly three millions, — two millions by 
 emigration, and one million by starvation. 
 
 In Ireland, from 1841 to 1861, two hundred 
 and seventy thousand houses, representing at least 
 two millions of people, were levelled to the ground. 
 In one year, in the province of Connaught, 
 twenty-six thousand four hundred and ninety 
 holders of land were wiped out to please the 
 ambition or ta^cC of great landed proprietors. It 
 was an Irish poet whose tongue was touched 
 with heavenly wisdom, who sang in those sweet, 
 sad words, — 
 
 "111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. 
 Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade, — 
 A breath can make them as a breath has made ; 
 But a bold peasantry, a country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 
 
 Ireland is cursed in another way and differently 
 from any other country of which you may read in 
 215 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 history. Nearly one-half of all the land in Ireland 
 is owned by men living in other countries. What 
 interest have such men in the soil except to suck 
 all the life out of it? These three thousand 
 absentee landlords own one-half of all the culti- 
 vated land of Ireland, and have exhausted and 
 allowed in the last five years three hundred and 
 ninety-eight thousand acres of land to relapse into 
 waste and uncultivated fields. They demanded 
 such exorbitant rents that the tenants were obliged 
 to abandon the fertile plains of Connaught, and 
 move on to the barren and cheerless hills which 
 rise toward the Curlew Mountains. When, after 
 years of toil, they had reclaimed their wretched 
 mountain tracts, and dotted them over with happy 
 homes, their landlords doubled the rents, and they 
 found themselves again houseless and pensioners 
 on the charities of a cold and uncharitable world. 
 When these poor people are set adrift in the 
 world with nothing left to them but the hopes of 
 an immortal heaven, they look thithei to find some 
 remedy, some cure, for their overwhelming misfor- 
 tunes ; and they find on the pages of the wisest 
 political economist of the nineteenth century, in the 
 writings of the flower of the British intellect, John 
 Stuart Mill, these pregnant sentences : — 
 
 " The land of Ireland — the land of any country — 
 belongs to the people of that country. The individ- 
 uals called landlords have no right in morality and 
 216 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 justice to anything but the rent, or compensation for 
 its salable value. When the inhabitants of a place 
 quit the country en masse because its government will 
 not make it a place fit for them to live in, the govern- 
 ment is judged and condemned. It is the duty of 
 Parliament to reform the land-tenure in Ireland. 
 There is no necessity for depriving the landlords of 
 one farthing of the pecuniary value of their legal 
 rights ; but justice requires that the actual cultivators 
 should be enabled to become in Ireland what they will 
 become in America, — proprietors of the soil which 
 they cultivate. The greatest burthen on land is the 
 landlords. Returning nothing to the soil, they con- 
 sume its whole produce, minus the potatoes, strictly 
 necessary to keep the inhabitants from dying of 
 hunger; and when they have any purpose of improve- 
 ment, the preparatory step usually consists in not 
 leaving even this pittance, but turning out the people 
 to beggary, if not to starvation. When landed prop- 
 erty has placed itself on this footing, it ceases to be 
 defensible, and the time has come for making some 
 new arrangement of the matter. When the sacred- 
 ness of property is talked of, it should be remembered 
 that any such sacredness does not belong in the same 
 degree to landed property. No man made his right 
 in the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole 
 species. Its appropriation is a question of general 
 expediency. When private property in land is not 
 expedient, it is unjust. It is no hardship to any man 
 to be excluded from what others have produced ; they 
 were not bound to produce it for his use, and he loses 
 nothing by not sharing in what otherwise would not 
 have existed at all. But it is some hardship to be 
 born into the world and to find all Nature's gifts pre- 
 217 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 viously engrossed, and no place left for the new-comer. 
 To reconcile people to this, after they have once 
 admitted into their minds the idea that any moral 
 rights belong to them as human beings, it will always 
 be necessary to convince them that the exclusive 
 appropriation is good for mankind on the whole, them- 
 selves included; but this is what no sane human being 
 could be persuaded of, if the relation between the 
 land-owner and the cultivator were the same every- 
 where as it has been in Ireland." 
 
 The eloquent historian Froude, with all his 
 English prejudices, says : " The land in any coun- 
 try is really the property of the nation which 
 occupies it." 
 
 Do you wonder, then, that these people begin to 
 agitate these great questions ; that they have organ- 
 ized the Land League of Ireland to endeavor to 
 secure in a peaceful way those rights and privileges 
 which are the birthright of every human being, 
 and without which life is not worth living? The 
 American patriots a hundred years ago, in the city 
 of Philadelphia, proclaimed to all the world and 
 to all times these grand principles : " We hold 
 these truths to be self-evident, — that all men are 
 created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that 
 among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness ; that to secure these rights governments 
 are instituted among men, deriving their just 
 powers from the consent of the governed; that 
 218 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
 tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to 
 alter or to abolish it." The Irish patriot of to-day 
 would stand approved in history through all time 
 if he should plant the flag of liberty on every green 
 hill of the Emerald Isle, and sound the bugle 
 blasts of freedom. You must remember that it 
 has only been by agitation and turmoil that the 
 Irish people have ever been able to secure any 
 concessions, or any new privileges, from the Eng- 
 lish government. The most brilliant living English 
 essayist, William Lecky, writing on this subject 
 says : " Generation after generation, by a slow, 
 steady, and fatal process, the Irish nation has been 
 educated into disloyalty ; taught to look with dis- 
 trust upon constitutional means of obtaining its 
 ends, and accustomed to regard outrage and vio- 
 lence as the invariable preludes to concession." 
 
 Catholic emancipation, the concession of equal 
 rights to Catholics and Protestants, was only 
 granted by the king of England after the Duke of 
 Wellington, the commander of His Majesty's 
 forces, had told the king that he must choose 
 between emancipation and insurrection. The wild 
 and futile efforts of the Fenians, Mr. Gladstone has 
 pubhcly stated, made the disestablishment of the 
 Irish Church a political necessity. 
 
 I have not time to-night to go into that other 
 question, which for three-quarters of a century has 
 219 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 been uppermost in the minds of the Irish people, 
 and whose advocates are known to-day as home- 
 rulers. It would be useless for me to attempt to 
 plead a cause which has had for its advocates a 
 Curran, a Grattan, and an O'Connell, — names 
 born never to die. 
 
 The series of acts which finally culminated in 
 the abolition of the Irish parliament, and in the 
 consolidation of Ireland and England under one 
 parliament, constitutes the blackest page in the 
 history of the last century. All the blood of all 
 the landlords in Ireland cannot atone for that 
 crime which smells to heaven. A modern English 
 writer has justly said : " In the case of Ireland, as 
 truly as in the case of Poland, a national consti- 
 tution was destroyed by a foreign power contrary 
 to the wishes of the people. In the one case, the 
 deed was a crime of violence ; in the other, it was 
 a crime of treachery and corruption. In both 
 cases a legacy of enduring bitterness was the 
 result. Whatever may be thought of the abstract 
 merits of the arrangement, the union, as it was 
 carried, was a crime of the deepest turpitude, — a 
 crime which, by imposing with every circumstance 
 of infamy a new form of government on a reluctant 
 and protesting nation, has vitiated the whole course 
 of Irish opinion." 
 
 William Gladstone, the premier of England, 
 following in the footsteps of most English states- 
 men, proposes, as the first solution of the problem, 
 220 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 the adoption of the usual coercive legislation, — a 
 very instructive but lamentable fact, — and vainly 
 hopes by this means to still the troubled waters. 
 The legislation of the British parliament for Ire- 
 land has ever bristled with dragons' teeth. It has 
 passed one coercion act, on an average, nearly 
 every year since the union was fraudulently estab- 
 lished. These coercion laws have always fallen 
 short of their purpose. All the laws and all the 
 soldiers of the English government can never 
 destroy or exterminate the undaunted spirits of 
 the Irish people. The poet has truly said, — 
 
 " Freedom's battle once begun, 
 Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son. 
 Though baffled oft, is ever won." 
 
 We can already begin to see the dawn of a 
 better day. By agitation, by public meetings, by 
 a calm, peaceful, and persistent presentation of her 
 claims, Ireland will, I believe, under the guidance 
 of a kind Providence, soon pass through the Red 
 Sea of her afflictions into the Promised Land of 
 peasant proprietary, and of consequent prosperity 
 and contentment. 
 
 A commission appointed by the English parlia- 
 ment to investigate the condition of Ireland has 
 recently reported in favor of two fundamental 
 principles, which have never been recognized in 
 the discussion of the Irish question, and which will 
 call forth a horrified protest from the land-holding 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 class ; namely, that the cultivator has a property in 
 the soil he tills, and that he has a right to get a 
 living, and something more than a living, from the 
 land. The commission condemns that system 
 which robs the tenant of everything except what is 
 necessary for a bare subsistence ; which keeps half 
 a nation in abject poverty, and crowds and stifles 
 the brute creation and human souls in one narrow 
 hovel. Nearly three-quarters of all the people in 
 Ireland are living to-day in mud houses, sharing 
 their pitiable shelter with their best friend, the 
 brute animal. 
 
 The commission therefore recommends that the 
 tenant should be protected against forfeiture of the 
 interest in his holding, — either by arbitrary eject- 
 ment, or by raising his rent at the discretion of 
 the landlord, — and, instead of a tenancy from 
 year to year, the commissioners would create a 
 statutory tenure defeasible only by decree of the 
 land court for a breach of specified conditions. 
 This would secure that fixity of possession which 
 is the prime condition of successful farming and 
 contentment of mind. 
 
 We are approaching the most critical period in 
 the history of the Land League agitation. This is 
 no time to haul down the colors or suspend the 
 agitation. Let no man be discouraged because 
 the foremost champion of the Land League agita- 
 tion, Michael Davitt, pines in a British jail. Every 
 great cause must have some martyr, and future 
 
 222 
 
IRISH LAND LEAGUE 
 
 generations will cherish the memory of Ireland's 
 martyred saints. Now is the time for the sons and 
 friends of Ireland to marshal their forces for the 
 final charge upon the embattled hosts of land- 
 lordism, and of English ignorance, cruelty, and 
 injustice. In this Land League agitation, in this 
 grand appeal to the public opinion of the world and 
 to the parliament of mankind, there is no need of 
 soldiers or the dreadful calamities of civil war. 
 Instead of muskets, I would put into the hands of 
 every member of the Land League organization a 
 banner, and on that banner should be blazoned the 
 words of the immortal Grattan : " I wish for 
 nothing but to breathe in this our island, in com- 
 mon with my fellow- subjects, the air of liberty. I 
 have no ambition, unless it be to break your chains 
 and contemplate your glory. I will never be satis- 
 fied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has 
 a link of the British chain clanking to his rags." 
 
 No true Irishman ever despairs of his country. 
 When Henry Grattan, the foremost representative 
 of the Irish people and one of the noblest repre- 
 sentatives of the human race, spoke for the last 
 time in the Irish parliament, at the old Parliament 
 House in Dublin he proclaimed to the world these 
 lofty sentiments, which may well serve as a rallying 
 cry for the unconquered and unconquerable spirits 
 of all the true sons of Ireland, and which will go 
 resounding through the cycle of the ages. Listen 
 to his memorable words : — 
 223 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 " The constitution of Irelapd may for a time be 
 lost, but the character of the people cannot be lost. 
 The ministers of the Crown may perhaps at length 
 find out that it is not so easy to put down forever an 
 ancient and respectable nation by abilities however 
 great, or by corruption however irresistible. Liberty 
 will repair her golden beams, and, with redoubled 
 heat, animate the country. The cry of loyalty will 
 not long continue against the principles of liberty. 
 Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capacious princi- 
 ple : but in these countries loyalty distinct from liberty 
 is corruption, not loyalty. Yet I do not give up my 
 country. I see her in a swoon ; but she is not dead. 
 Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, 
 still there is on her lips a spirit of life and on her 
 cheek a glow of beauty. 
 
 "' Thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson on thy lips and on thy cheeks. 
 And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.' " 
 
 And closing, he said : " While a plank of the 
 vessel stands together I will not leave her. Let 
 the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the 
 light bark of his faith with every new breath of 
 wind ; I will remain anchored here, with fidelity 
 to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her 
 freedom, faithful to her fall." 
 
 224 
 
A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN 
 
 speech delivered at a Methodist Church. 
 
 Friends, — It is fitting that we should assemble 
 to-night in this temple of the living God to com- 
 memorate the heroic deeds of the brave and fallen 
 soldiers of the Union. For six thousand years no 
 government has been raised up by human hands 
 which has done so much to advance the cause of 
 the Christian religion as this free government of 
 America. In all the history of man from the time 
 of his inception upon the globe down to the pres- 
 ent hour, you fail to find any government that so 
 truly represents the grand principle of our religion 
 — the equality of man to man — as does the 
 American Republic. It knows no distinction of 
 race or color, rank or birth. 
 
 This great doctrine first burst upon a startled 
 world nineteen centuries ago, when the Saviour of 
 mankind proclaimed upon the hills of Judea to the 
 Jews, who thought themselves the chosen sons of 
 Heaven, that in the sight of Almighty God one 
 man is as good as another. That magnificent idea 
 grew slowly through the ages, and only reached its 
 perfect fruit when in 1862, amid the throes of a 
 gigantic rebellion, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed 
 15 225 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 that thereafter and forever there should be no dis- 
 tinction known in law in America between one 
 man and another. Our forefathers, fleeing from 
 the despotism of the Old World, sought to found 
 upon the wild and inhospitable shores of America 
 a nation where every man might worship God 
 according to the dictates of his own conscience, 
 and where he might enjoy under the least possible 
 restraints the great sum of human existence, " life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This na- 
 tion, born amid tears and sufferings, has for three 
 hundred years been the vanguard nation in the 
 march of civilization, and is now the proud hope 
 of liberty-loving men in every quarter of the civil- 
 ized world. And, to-day, it is the only govern- 
 ment in the wide world where the mass of mankind 
 are not toiling to support in a pernicious and 
 unmerited luxuriance a favored few. 
 
 Look at the two great rival nations. In Eng- 
 land, with all its boasted progress and develop- 
 ment, all men are taxed to support a church at 
 whose altar they may never worship, and to main- 
 tain a clergy oftentimes indolent and unworthy. 
 Besides, they are taxed millions on millions to sup- 
 port a royalty and an aristocracy whose only claim 
 is the accident of birth. The toiling millions are 
 thus robbed every year of countless hours which 
 they might otherwise spend in ministering to the 
 development and happiness of themselves, and of 
 those near and dear to them. 
 226 
 
A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN 
 
 Germany, of which we hear so much in these 
 days, on account of her struggles with the Roman 
 Church, is only just breaking from the shackles 
 which were welded in the Middle Ages. Her 
 government is following in the onward march of 
 civilization two hundred years behind America. 
 Within the past year an otherwise respectable 
 clergyman has been sent to jail in Germany for 
 thirty days because he said that in his opinion the 
 Bible contains some errors. The free press of 
 Germany is crushed under the iron heel of a re- 
 lentless government. King WiUiam wars not so 
 much against the Roman Church as against every- 
 thing that threatens the overthrow of his one-man 
 despotism ; and the Pope at Rome is, wittingly or 
 unwittingly, fighting the battles of liberty. 
 
 The enemies of the liberty of conscience and of 
 the rights of human nature all round the inhabited 
 globe hoped with satanic jealousy for the over- 
 throw of the American Union, — the last, best 
 hope of mankind. To whom are we indebted 
 for the preservation of the Union except to the 
 Union soldiers? And no person owes them a 
 deeper debt of gratitude than the American Chris- 
 tian. While we have met here to-night to cele- 
 brate the brave deeds of the fallen soldiers of the 
 Union, by whose heroic struggles we are enabled 
 to transmit to coming generations the priceless 
 heritage of American liberty, we have met in no 
 spirit of animosity toward any section of our com- 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 mon country. Inspired by that same spirit of 
 charity and forgiveness by which we hope finally 
 to secure an entrance into the mansions of the 
 blessed, we are here, ready to rejoice with every 
 man and woman who call themselves Americans, 
 over the grandest triumph that has been won in 
 nineteen centuries for the cause of religion and 
 justice. 
 
 228 
 
HORACE GREELEY 
 
 Speech in Memory of the Great Journalist. 
 
 Mr. President, — 
 
 It is more appropriate on this festive occasion 
 that those men should fill the happy hours of this 
 gathering who had been long in sympathy with 
 the political views of the lamented statesman in 
 honor of whose memory we have assembled 
 to-night. For it was only recently that I found 
 myself acting in consort and fighting under the 
 leadership of the great man whose transcendent 
 virtues will live as long as time shall last. 
 
 But now that I am up, I have one sentiment to 
 offer, and then I have done. It is that, through 
 the fifty years of bitter political controversy and 
 through all the varying tides of party through 
 which he passed, our lamented friend, .whatever 
 else may have been said against him, ever bore the 
 name of an honest man. And all who read his 
 life in the years to come, differing with him though 
 they may, will find stamped upon his every act, 
 as clear as the sun at midday, those heavenly 
 virtues, purity of purpose and kindness of heart. 
 Not one dollar of di^onest money, obtained either 
 in private life or in public station, ever soiled his 
 229 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 hands. He could say better than any other man 
 that ever lived upon the American soil, in the lan- 
 guage of Wolsey, " Let all the ends thou aim'st at 
 be thy Country's, thy God's, and Truth's." 
 
 There was one thing in the life of Horace 
 Greeley which interested me more than anything 
 that has transpired in these many years, — the last 
 great act of his life. He went from city to city, 
 from State to State, from ocean to ocean, pro- 
 claiming the glad news of reform in the adminis- 
 tration of public affairs ; and from the days of 
 Patrick Henry down to the present hour, no man 
 ever walked upon the American rostrum who 
 excelled our lamented friend in the matchless 
 eloquence, in the nobility of the sentiments pro- 
 claimed, and in the variety of topics touched upon 
 in those prophetic addresses. It seemed like the 
 singing of the dying swan, like the expiring effort 
 of a great and noble genius. Through all those 
 addresses ran a sentiment so pure, so noble, it 
 seemed born of something better than earth. 
 
 In my judgment, any man who steadily toils 
 and sacrifices to make men better and purer is in 
 the highest and best sense a follower of Him who 
 went about doing good. 
 
 Peace be to the memory of Horace Greeley ! 
 
 230 
 
IN MEMORY OF E. K. FOSTER 
 
 Mr. President, — 
 
 It is with feelings of hesitancy that I, one of the 
 younger members of this Bar, rise to address this 
 meeting ; but I should be false to every feeling of 
 my heart if I did not pay my tribute of respect to 
 the memory of our departed friend and member, 
 E. K. Foster. 
 
 His gentle demeanor and unfailing kindness, 
 especially towards the younger members of this 
 Bar, have won from them all their undying love. 
 No man ever extended so kind a greeting to a 
 young man just entering upon the arduous struggles 
 of a professional life ; and in his death the younger 
 members of this Bar have lost a friend indeed, the 
 Bar of New Haven County one of its brightest 
 jewels, and the commonwealth of Connecticut one 
 of her noblest citizens. 
 
 Peace be to his ashes, and sweet be his memory ! 
 
 231 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered at Town Hall, October, \S6%, introducing 
 JAMES F. BABCOCK. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I REiTJRN to you my sincere thanks for the honor 
 which you have done me to-night in appointing 
 me the presiding officer of this meeting. 
 
 I am proud to be with you to-night ; I am 
 proud to belong to the great national Democratic 
 party, — that party which ever carries the flag and 
 keeps step to the music of the Union. 
 
 When Pericles paused upon the opening thresh- 
 old of eternity, and in his dying moment reviewed 
 the events of his great life, he consoled his parting 
 spirit and rested the chief glory of his reign upon 
 the fact that he had never caused a citizen of 
 Athens to shed a tear. The Democratic party 
 was cradled at the commencement of this govern- 
 ment, and in its subsequent growth it has kept 
 pace with the rise and progress of the great 
 American republic ; and in the elevation of the 
 Democratic party to power once more we look for 
 the restoration of peace and harmony to this dis- 
 232 
 
INTRODUCING JAMES F. BABCOCK 
 
 tracted land, — for the return of those halcyon 
 days when once again all the people of this coun- 
 try, North and South, East and West, shall rejoice 
 in one another's successes, striving to alleviate one 
 another's woes, and struggling together to bear 
 upward and onward the emblem of freedom, the 
 standard of the Union. 
 
 During the past three years not a hostile arm 
 has been raised from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 from the Lakes to the Rio Grande ; not a rebel- 
 lious son of the great republic has been found any- 
 where. And why, during these three years, have 
 we not had peace, — benign, heaven-bom peace ; 
 that peace for which the people have labored ; 
 that peace for which our soldiers fought and died, 
 — peace, which should reunite the people of thirty- 
 seven States in the bonds of love and friendship, — 
 peace with its accompanying blessings, prosperity 
 and plenty? Ah, I will tell you. Because the 
 men in Washington preferred war to peace ; be- 
 cause they were determined to keep one-half of 
 this country under military rule : yes, to do just 
 what Jefferson Davis had failed to do, — to blot 
 out ten States from this Union. And why? For 
 fear that they might lose their offices ; for fear that 
 their party might soon be in a minority. 
 
 " God grant swift safety to the land I 
 God haste the peace-returning mom, 
 When our great Mother yet shall stand 
 Triumphant with her second born I " 
 
 233 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 There is present with us to-night a distinguished 
 citizen of this State, — a man who in the dark 
 days through which we have passed, when the 
 radical leaders in Congress took up the secession 
 doctrine ; when they declared that ten States had 
 seceded from the Union and were no longer 
 members of the great Confederacy; when Con- 
 gress passed laws to prevent the Supreme Court 
 from deciding upon the constitutionality of the 
 acts of Congress ; when, finally, these radicals 
 attempted to impeach the lawful President of these 
 United States, and to thrust him from his high 
 position and put in his place a swearing brag- 
 gart, Ben Wade of Ohio ; when they attempted 
 this consummate act of infamy, this stain and 
 disgrace on the American nation, because, for- 
 sooth, they could not bend Andrew Johnson to 
 their wicked purposes, — then it was that our 
 fellow-citizen said to his poUtical associates, " I 
 can go with you no longer. My voice and my 
 vote are for the Union." 
 
 I have the pleasure of introducing to you 
 to-night Hon. James F. Babcock, of New Haven. 
 
 234 
 
REMARKS 
 
 Made at the Fireynan's Dinner, Meriden, 
 May 1 8, 1869. 
 
 Mr, Mayor and Gentlemen : 
 
 It is with extreme reluctance that I rise this 
 day to respond to the sentiment of " His honor 
 the Mayor." But although I am a young man, 
 and have been only for a year or two a resident 
 of this city, I take a deep interest in everything 
 that concerns this young and rising municipality. 
 
 As a citizen of this city, I never felt prouder of 
 Meriden than I did to-day, when I witnessed the 
 parade of our fire department. I venture to say 
 that there is not in this State a better disciplined, 
 a more efficient fire department than that of the 
 city of Meriden. Great praise is certainly due to 
 the officers and members of the fire department 
 for its successful organization ; and some praise is 
 certainly due to those members of the Common 
 Council who have given to this subject no little 
 thought and consideration. 
 
 We meet to-day, gentlemen, to dedicate a 
 building, erected by the Common Council of this 
 city, for the convenience of the different depart- 
 235 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 ments of the city government. I trust this build- 
 ing will long stand, a monument of the good sense 
 and judgment of the Common Council of 1868-69. 
 Not only in the erection of this building, but on 
 every hand, — in improved streets, in new side- 
 walks, in the erection of street-lamps, in the 
 organization of a police and fire department, in 
 the building of public water-works, — in these, 
 and in a hundred different ways, have the Common 
 Council of this city shown their faithfulness and 
 devotion to the public interests ; and the time will 
 soon come when all the people of this city will be 
 ready to give to these gentlemen — the mayor, the 
 aldermen, and the Common Councilmen — the 
 praise and the thanks to which they are justly 
 entitled. And I can only express the wish that 
 that same good feeling and that same earnest 
 devotion to the public interests which has thus far 
 since the organization of the city united men of all 
 parties, and without which this city government 
 would never have been organized, and without 
 which it would not have been so honestly, faith- 
 fully, and successfully managed as it has been for 
 the past two years, — I say I can only express the 
 wish that that same good feeling and that same 
 earnest devotion to the public interests may still 
 continue to unite men of all parties and to rule in 
 the councils of our city. 
 
 236 
 
A TRIBUTE TO TOLLAND 
 
 From the ^^ Stafford Press, ^^ Dec. 6, 1894. 
 
 A UNION gathering of the voters of all political 
 parties of the town of Tolland was held at the town 
 hall, Monday evening, November 26, by invitation 
 of the Hon. Edward E. Fuller, Senator-elect, and 
 Representatives-elect William Sumner and Ratcliffe 
 Hicks. Every voter in the town was asked to par- 
 ticipate in the festivities of the occasion; and about 
 two hundred sat down to the tables, which were gen- 
 erously supplied. The meeting was called to order 
 by Frank T. Newcomb, one of the town committee, 
 and E. S. Agard was chosen chairman. After supper, 
 the chairman introduced the Hon. Edward E. Fuller, 
 Senator-elect, who responded in a very excellent 
 speech. Representative-elect Sumner was next in- 
 troduced. He made some pleasing and well-appre- 
 ciated remarks ; and then his colleague, Mr. Hicks, 
 was called on, and spoke as follows : — 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 It is with feelings of pleasure, tinged with some 
 little sorrow, that I am here to-night to attend 
 this festive gathering of the voters of the town 
 of Tolland. 
 
 It is a pleasure to me to come back to the place 
 where I was bornj where I spent the happiest 
 237 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 twenty years of my life ; where my ancestors have 
 lived for one hundred and fifty years and more ; 
 where are buried my nearest and dearest of kith 
 and kin; and where, in the good order of 
 Providence, I expect to be finally laid away at 
 rest. 
 
 If there is any spot in this wide, wide world that 
 I feel I can call, and that I have a right to call, my 
 home, it is this little town of Tolland, nestled up 
 here among the rock-ribbed hills of Tolland 
 County. But, as I have already said, it is with 
 some feelings of sorrow that I always come back 
 to Tolland ; for I miss the famihar faces and the 
 kindly greetings of many noble men and women 
 whose lives are a part of the history of this grand 
 old town, and who have passed on to their final 
 reward. In thinking of them I am reminded of 
 those beautiful lines of one of New England's 
 sweetest poets : — 
 
 " Dear souls, who left us lonely here, 
 
 Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom 
 We, day by day, are drawing near 
 Where every bark has sailing room." 
 
 It may possibly be true, my friends, that I am 
 open to the criticism that I am not always with 
 you in the body ; but it is true that I am always 
 with you in the spirit. However far I may have 
 wandered from my ancestral home in my travels 
 round this broad earth, — whether in the crowded 
 238 
 
A TRIBUTE TO TOLLAND 
 
 cities of the Old World, London, Paris, or Rome, 
 or among the snow-capped mountains of the 
 Alps, — wherever I may have happened to be, 
 there has hardly been a day of my life that my 
 thoughts have not come back to beautiful Tolland, 
 and to the scenes through which I have passed 
 here, and to the dear friends I had left behind. 
 
 If by any act or word of mine, either in public 
 or in private life, I have ever contributed in the 
 least towards the prosperity, the stability, the repu- 
 tation, and the fair fame of the town of Tolland, 
 my highest ambition is satisfied. As for what I 
 am willing to do in the future, in all the things 
 that may tend to promote the welfare of this town 
 and of its inhabitants, I must let the past speak 
 and make for me my pledges. For all the kind- 
 nesses and favors that you have extended to me 
 in the days and years that are gone, I return to 
 you, one and all, my most sincere thanks. 
 
 And now, in bidding you all a very good night, 
 I pray that Heaven will shower upon you, and 
 upon all the homes in goodly Tolland, its sweetest 
 and its choicest blessings, — health, happiness, and 
 prosperity. 
 
 239 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered at Meriden, March 25, 1871, opening the 
 Connecticut Ca?npaign. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 I SINCERELY thank you for the honor you have 
 done me, by appointing me the presiding officer of 
 this meeting. The question this spring, my friends, 
 is not who shall be the next governor of Con- 
 necticut, but how great shall be his majority. The 
 people of this State have already elected in their 
 hearts as their next governor, the Hon. James E. 
 English, and the only question to be decided on 
 the first Monday in April is how large shall be his 
 majority; and hundreds of Republicans in this 
 State are saying that James E. English is good 
 enough Governor for them, and that they have no 
 desire, and much more no expectation, of seeing 
 him defeated. 
 
 A most bitter feud has sprung up in the ranks 
 of the Republican party, and Ulysses S. Grant is 
 surely and steadily tolling the death-knell of his 
 party. He has descended from his proper posi- 
 tion as President of the United States, and lobbied 
 with Congressmen to disgrace and degrade some 
 240 
 
CONNECTICUT CAMPAIGN 
 
 of the oldest, most spotless, and faithful members 
 of the Republican party. He has secured the 
 removal of Charles Sumner from the chairmanship 
 of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, — a place 
 which he has held for twelve years with great credit 
 to his country, — and has secured the appointment 
 in his place of the most corrupt politician in 
 America, Simon Cameron, who, the " Springfield 
 Republican " says, twice bought his election to the 
 United States Senate, and whom Abraham Lincoln 
 removed from his Cabinet for corruption in office. 
 General Grant has also lost the support of the 
 whole German element of the West by his refusal 
 even to see Carl Schurz, the eloquent and gifted 
 Senator from Missouri, when he called at the White 
 House upon official business. And all this, gentle- 
 men, because these men would not bow the knee 
 to Ulysses Grant, and vote for the annexation of 
 San Domingo. I hope that the people of this 
 Congressional District will send to the next Con- 
 gress a gentleman who, caring nothing for Presi- 
 dential frowns, will have the courage to speak, as 
 Stephen W. Kellogg has not, the true sentiment of 
 a vast majority of the people of this district in oppo- 
 sition to that infamous scheme, urged by a White 
 House lobby, for the annexation of the remote and 
 worthless island of San Domingo, whose inhabitants 
 are in no way fitted for a successful and happy 
 union with the people of the American republic. 
 To annex it would be a worthless expenditure of 
 i6 241 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the people's money, and dangerous to the per- 
 petuity of the institutions of our common country. 
 The people of New Hampshire on Tuesday last 
 proclaimed in thunder notes their disapproval of 
 the annexation of San Domingo. It only remains 
 for Connecticut to imitate the glorious example of 
 New Hampshire, by electing as Governor, by three 
 thousand majority, that honored gentleman, James 
 E. English, and by sending to Congress four true 
 Democrats. 
 
 242 
 
SPEECH 
 
 At the Meeting of the Committee on Humane 
 Institutions. 
 
 As briefly stated in Tuesday's "Republican," 
 the Committee on Humane Institutions met in the 
 afternoon at two o'clock, in room No. i6. Insur- 
 ance Building, Hartford, to take action regarding 
 the petition for an investigation into the affairs of 
 the State Reform School. The full committee 
 were present, Senator Charles W. Yale, of the Sixth 
 district, being in the chair. Ratcliffe Hicks, Esq., 
 appeared for the petitioners, and addressed the 
 committee. 
 
 Mr. Hicks began by calling the attention of the 
 committee to many changes that ought to be made 
 in the laws relating to the Reform School, and 
 pointed out the great superiority of the laws of 
 Massachusetts relative to such institutions over our 
 own laws ; among others, that the office of super- 
 intendent and treasurer should be separated, and 
 not held as at present by the same person ; the 
 law should be so changed that the teachers and all 
 officers should be alone appointed and removed 
 by the board of trustees. In support of these 
 243 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 propositions, Mr. Hicks claimed that these powers 
 vested in one man clothed him with too much 
 authority, deprived under officers of their inde- 
 pendence, and made them fearful of asserting their 
 rights. 
 
 After dwelling at length on these points, Mr. 
 Hicks took up the question of contracts, and 
 claimed that these should be put in writing, as 
 otherwise the State might suffer great loss by the 
 death, removal, or resignation of the superinten- 
 dent or other officer. A detailed report of the 
 expenses and receipts should be made, so that 
 each item would explain itself. The reports should 
 state in separate items the amount of salary paid 
 each officer, — something never done here, al- 
 though it has been the custom in other States. 
 The tax-payers have a right to know how much 
 their public officers are paid. 
 
 The attention of the committee was then directed 
 to the report of the superintendent for the past 
 year, and Mr. Hicks claimed that there were many 
 items of expenses which had for some reason been 
 omitted from the report. There were ^1,200 for 
 flour, ^600 for cattle purchased, and $2,200 for the 
 superintendent's salary. Mr. Hicks next dwelt 
 upon the fact that the superintendent is the best- 
 paid officer in the State of Connecticut, as, accord- 
 ing to the best information, his salary is $3,000 
 per year, with board and house furnished by the 
 State ; also servants, horses, and carriages, — which 
 244 
 
HUMANE INSTITUTIONS 
 
 altogether make his salary as good as ^6,000 a year. 
 If economy was to be practised at the State Reform 
 School, here was the place to commence, instead 
 of bragging of the fact that the superintendent 
 economized by cutting down to $500 a year the 
 salary of the poor watchman, who watched three 
 hundred and sixty-five nights of the year around the 
 institution. Why, said Mr. Hicks, the judges of 
 the Supreme Court of the State, who require many 
 years of practice to fill honorably their places, get 
 only ^4,000 a year, and pay their own board, fur- 
 nish their own houses, and pay their travelling 
 bills. 
 
 The next point reached was the internal man- 
 agement of the institution, and Mr. Hicks said he 
 was prepared to prove that the boys had been 
 oftentimes most severely and cruelly punished. 
 In some instances the blood was drawn from their 
 heads, and others had scars which they would take 
 to the grave. This system of punishment was 
 behind the age ; much more could be accom- 
 plished by kind treatment, and by stimulating the 
 boys with offers of extra play, rewards, and other 
 inducements, than by such harsh discipline. It 
 was a matter of record that Dr. Hatch, who never 
 feared the most stubborn boy, succeeded better by 
 his genial and pleasant ways than if he resorted 
 to the system of cruelties, which were wholly un- 
 known until his successor was appointed. During 
 the doctor's administration the rawhide and the 
 245 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 hickory stick were seldom called into use, and the 
 revolver and handcuffs never. 
 
 Mr. Hicks concluded by urging the committee 
 to see that no ofificer who might be called on to 
 testify, should suffer because he was a willing or 
 unwilling witness in this investigation. If an offi- 
 cer came before this committee to testify, and he 
 was a faithful man, anxious only to tell the truth 
 and do justice to the State, it would be an outrage 
 if his superior officer could injure him in his posi- 
 tion. He (Mr. Hicks) believed the committee 
 would protect the witnesses in this respect, in 
 order that the whole truth might be known, and 
 that the people of the State might know posi- 
 tively how the affairs of the Reform School are 
 conducted. 
 
 246 
 
SPEECH TO THE REFORM SCHOOL 
 COMMITTEE 
 
 Gentlemen of the Committee: 
 
 In 1854, in the administration of Hon. Thomas 
 H. Seymour, the Legislature of this State founded 
 an institution where our wayward boys might be 
 cared for. For twenty years it went along, the 
 pride and admiration of all, under the successful 
 working of men like Little, Chamberlain, and 
 others, whom my friend Piatt has seen fit to tra- 
 duce ; and here I say, it ill becomes Piatt to say 
 anything against my friend, the editor of the 
 *' Meriden Republican," a man the influence of 
 whose paper has always been cheerfully given to 
 every good cause, as Piatt very well knows. 
 
 But Graham is nothing, Little is nothing, Piatt 
 is nothing, neither am I anything, compared with 
 the welfare of the boys in this institution. I have 
 said, gentlemen, for twenty years, that the Reform 
 School was a model ; yet in two short years its 
 usefulness was destroyed. Piatt says it was caused 
 by the disaffection of Little and Chamberlain, and 
 that the Legislature last year settled the matter by 
 appointing additional trustees. Let us see. 
 247 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 The investigating committee reported that had 
 the trustees of that year attended to their business, 
 a better state of things would have existed. They 
 said Ingham was totally unfit for the place, was no 
 disciplinarian, and had a bad temper. Then my 
 friend Mr. Cocks, who had been around during 
 the whole investigation, besought the committee 
 not to disgrace the trustees. Senator Briggs, the 
 chairman of the committee, rose in his place in 
 the Senate, and said that every one of the trustees 
 and Ingham should be turned out of ofifice. 
 
 This is how it ended, if my friend Piatt wants to 
 know. Ingham pleaded hard with them to give 
 him a chance. He got it. Old officers who had 
 grown gray in the service were turned out, and 
 Ingham was left to select his own officers. Then 
 he was to have peace and harmony. But these 
 officers are swearing against him, and he is de- 
 nouncing them as conspirators. This is the order 
 he brought out of chaos. Gentlemen, it is said 
 that we are here persecuting Mr. Ingham, which is 
 false. We are here believing we owe something to 
 the State, that it may not continue to be disgraced 
 by such atrocities as have been recounted in your 
 presence. 
 
 I think, gentlemen, that I voice the sentiment 
 of the people of this State, when I say that Edward 
 Ingham has no mortgage on the State. The State 
 owes him nothing. Ingham is disqualified by his 
 physical nature from superintending this institu- 
 248 
 
REFORM SCHOOL COMMITTEE 
 
 tion; he stands before you a monument to dys- 
 pepsia, — fretty and crabbed. He is not to blame. 
 He is as God made him. Yet none of you, gen- 
 tlemen, would give him charge of your factory; 
 you would not put him over your own boys ; and 
 surely you will not keep him in charge of these 
 three hundred friendless boys. A bigger lie, a 
 falser claim, a more monstrous proposition than 
 that a conspiracy existed, was never fabricated to 
 trump up the defence. He has discharged forty- 
 two officers, and he would have us believe that all 
 these people are wrong, conspiring against him, 
 while he is all affable and pleasant. Look, gentle- 
 men, at the treatment of these boys. Who wants 
 his son, who wants his dog even, treated as has 
 been testified to here ? You give your cattle some 
 bedding and a warm place to sleep. Now, gen- 
 tlemen, it is better that these boys should be 
 allowed to wander over and under the hills, than 
 subjected to the inhuman barbarities sworn to here. 
 And yet Mr. Piatt finds the convenient way of 
 charging all the trouble at the school to my friend 
 Graham and the old officers of the school. 
 
 I would like to say more if I had the time ; but 
 being limited, I will now close. 
 
 249 
 
SPEECH 
 
 Delivered in Judge IVa/do's Afewory. 
 
 The entire bar of Hartford County met Monday, 
 and suitable resolutions on the death of Judge Waldo 
 were offered by Hon. Henry C. Robinson. Some un- 
 equalled tributes to his memory were offered by Gov- 
 ernor Hubbard, Senator Eaton, Ratcliffe Hicks, Judge 
 Calhoun, Messrs. Mahlon, R. West, William R, 
 Cone and Charles Perkins, Mr. Hicks's remarks, 
 which were terse, fitting, and eloquent, were as 
 follows : — 
 
 We meet to commemorate the death of a good 
 man. I do not believe in unreasonable and indis- 
 criminate eulogy ; I will not bestow unmerited 
 praise upon the dead to please the living. 
 
 I have known Judge Waldo ever since I knew 
 anybody. He was my preceptor ; and I treasure, 
 as one of the legacies of my earthly pilgrimage, 
 the acquaintance and friendship of that good man. 
 Greater lawyers have practised at the bar, and 
 more learned judges have adorned the bench of 
 this State; but in some things Loren P. Waldo 
 was the peer of any man that I ever knew. He 
 was an honorable lawyer and an honest judge. 
 In one branch of the law he had, perhaps, no 
 250 
 
JUDGE WALDO'S MEMORY 
 
 superior in the State in the construction of our 
 statutes. He was a born gentleman. He was a 
 man of kind and gentle sympathies. He ever had 
 a pleasant and courteous bearing toward all men, 
 and especially in his intercourse with the younger 
 members of the bar. He dies at the close of a 
 long, eventful, and honorable life, with his honors 
 thick upon him. He leaves, as a heritage to his 
 family, kindred, and friends, that best of all worldly 
 things, reaching from earth to heaven, — an unsul- 
 hed reputation and an untarnished name. We 
 shall all miss his wise counsel, we shall long mourn 
 his death, and we shall always respect his memory. 
 Peace be to his ashes ! 
 
 251 
 
CORRESPONDENCE 
 
THE CITY OF MERIDEN 
 
 An editorial in the ^' Me ride n Recorder,'' 
 July 3, 1867. 
 
 MERIDEN is a city ! Thanks be to the united 
 and harmonious action of her citizens. 
 To-day this community occupies a prouder posi- 
 tion than was ever vouchsafed to it before. To- 
 day Meriden takes her place among the sister 
 cities of this ancient Commonwealth, and enters 
 into a noble rivalry with them in all that adorns 
 and makes precious the advancing civilization of 
 the age. 
 
 What has been done, however, is but the creep- 
 ing of the mewling infant. There are manly and 
 vigorous steps yet to be taken, which will demand 
 the best energies and the noblest impulses of her 
 sons and daughters. There is work to be done ; 
 there are sacrifices to be made ; there is tiresome 
 and perplexing planning to be performed, — all 
 these for the common weal and the common good 
 of us all. As we do these things so will be meted 
 unto us prosperity and renown, the sure rewards of 
 high-born principles, an exalted conduct, and a 
 never-tiring activity. 
 
 Something needs to be done to make clean the 
 streets; to remove all nauseous and unhealthy 
 255 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 substances ; to lay sidewalks ; to erect street 
 lamps ; to introduce water ; to establish a fire 
 department; to preserve order; to maintain a 
 proper observance of the Sabbath ; to build neat 
 and commodious public buildings ; to clear out the 
 manufacturing from the only public building 
 the town can boast, as the Saviour drove out 
 the money-changers from the temple ; and to do 
 many other things without which this village must 
 forever wallow like a duck in its own mire. These 
 things cannot be done in a moment ; it will take 
 years to accomplish them all. Yet now is the time 
 to lay, deep and broad, the foundations of this 
 rising community ; and the work upon the super- 
 structure will never cease, until in the fulness of 
 time, in the ages ahead, this city of Meriden shall 
 have reached her crowning height, and like the 
 cities of the plain begun to moulder back into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Meriden has placed herself in the lists, and 
 should now gather all her strength, her natural 
 resources, and her mechanical power for the great 
 contest that lies before her. Every citizen should 
 feel it his duty to do all that lies in his power to 
 increase the prosperity, to add to the beauty and 
 attractions, and to foster an enlightened culture 
 among the people of the city of Meriden. 
 
 " Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
 Act well your part, — there all the honor lies." 
 
 R. H. 
 
 256 
 
THE CITY ATTORNEYSHIP 
 
 Letter explaining the True Cause of his Removal 
 from that Office. Published in the " Meriden 
 Republican,^^ Nov. ii, 1870. 
 
 To MY Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 I DISLIKE newspaper controversy, but I feel that 
 1 should perhaps be doing injustice to my many 
 kind friends in this city if I did not put within 
 their reach a full answer to all the foolish slanders 
 which are being circulated against my good name 
 and character. To my mere removal from office I 
 should make no objection through the columns of 
 a public newspaper; but when my character is 
 assailed through the public print, I feel bound to 
 vindicate it. I leave the members of the Common 
 Council to reply, if they see fit, to the insults 
 which have been cast upon them. 
 
 As to the charge of malfeasance in bringing 
 several complaints against one James Turner and 
 wife, keepers of a house of ill-fame on Colony 
 Street, and against the persons found in this house 
 when the officers made their descent upon it, 1 
 have this much to say. This low, vile den of 
 iniquity, situated right in the heart of the city, 
 17 257 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 in one of the principal streets, and within a stone's 
 throw of many of the finest residences in the 
 city, had been loudly complained of both to me 
 and to the police officers for many months. The 
 policemen had spent many nights in watching the 
 house in the vain hope of establishing a success- 
 ful prosecution against the inmates ; and when, 
 finally, through the instrumentality of one of the 
 inmates, who turned state's evidence (not because 
 there was one complaint against him, but because 
 there were three in all, which would send him to 
 jail for many months), I was able to commence a 
 successful prosecution against the inmates, I deter- 
 mined to bring complaints for the several different 
 crimes which the statute has defined, and of which 
 I believed these parties were guilty, and for which 
 they were both to be punished, so that if I failed 
 to get a conviction on some of the complaints for 
 want of sufficient evidence or other cause, I might 
 succeed on others, — and so I hoped to rid this 
 community of this long-standing pest. I do not 
 think any reasonable man or woman ought to 
 blame me for my conduct in this affair. 
 
 The city received 1^41.54, and paid out ^34, 
 including my fees and all expenses in the cases 
 brought in connection with this house of ill-fame ; 
 so that the city really made ^7.46, besides ridding 
 itself of a disgraceful nuisance. If I had brought 
 only one or two complaints and failed to get a 
 conviction on them, the city would have been 
 258 
 
CITY ATTORNEYSHIP 
 
 obliged to pay the bills, and would have received 
 nothing for it. The prisoner paid Mr. Charles H. 
 Shaw $50 for defending him, and he paid Mr. 
 O. H. Piatt in addition, — how much, I do not 
 know. I tried the case alone, and got ^32.96 for 
 my services ; and if any man thinks the city paid 
 too much for its counsel, and begrudges me my 
 money, I say to him that hereafter he is welcome to 
 all such disgusting prosecutions. For my part, I 
 would rather be doing something else ; it would be 
 more in accordance with a man's better feelings. 
 
 On page 21, section 45, of the city charter you 
 find these words : " Said police court may reduce 
 or disallow fees taxable by said court in cases 
 where the negligence of any ministerial officer, or 
 the discharge of the accused for want of evidence, 
 or the insufficiency of the service rendered, or 
 other circumstances, shall render such restriction or 
 disallowance expedient in the view of said court, 
 in the exercise of its sound discretion." From 
 this, every person will see that it was within the 
 power of the judge to have reduced or disallowed 
 my fees in these cases ; and, further, that it was his 
 duty, as a sworn officer of the city, to have stopped 
 the judgment to me of any unreasonable fees. 
 Therefore, if, as it is alleged, I received unreason- 
 able fees, the judge was guilty in allowing me to do 
 so. I spoke to the judge at the time of the trial 
 about having several complaints against the pris- 
 oners, and said that if he had any suggestions to 
 259 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 make, I should like to have him make them. He 
 said he thought I was warranted in bringing the 
 complaints from the information I had received, 
 although he did not think the evidence was strong 
 enough to warrant the court in finding the parties 
 guilty on all of the complaints. 
 
 On the day of my removal I asked the judge, at 
 the request of some of my friends, for the reasons 
 for my removal. He told me that he had no fault 
 to find with me, that it was nothing I was to blame 
 for ; but he said that there were certain assurances 
 held out to him when he continued Mr. Levi E. 
 Coe (for whose removal I have never heard any 
 reason given than perhaps this) and myself in 
 office which had not been fulfilled, and he did not 
 feel disposed to continue us any longer in office. 
 I asked him what those assurances were, and he 
 would not tell me. Last July a person came into 
 my office and said that he was authorized to say 
 that I would be appointed city attorney if I would 
 use my influence to secure his appointment to 
 another office under the city government. I turned 
 a cold shoulder on that person ; and ever since 
 then he has vilified me in bar-rooms, saloons, and 
 wherever he could get a listener, and has repeatedly 
 threatened that I should be removed from my 
 office. And more than two weeks before I was 
 removed, and more than two weeks before these 
 cases were brought against Turner and his wife, it 
 260 
 
CITY ATTORNEYSHIP 
 
 was announced by this man in a certain saloon in 
 this city that I was soon to be removed. 
 
 It is four years this week since I came to 
 Meriden, and there was only one kind hand 
 stretched out to welcome me then, — Hon. O. H. 
 Piatt's. During these four years I have been as- 
 tonished at the many kind offices and favors which 
 the members of the city government and so many 
 of the respectable citizens of this place have shown 
 to me. I take this, the first fitting opportunity which 
 I have ever had, to thank them ; and while it 
 would not be appropriate for me to mention in the 
 columns of a newspaper the long list of names 
 of men in this place who, without distinction of 
 party, at one time or another, have gone out of 
 their way and left their own business and cares to 
 do me some kind office, I have treasured up their 
 names ; and whether I spend my days in this place 
 or elsewhere, I shall ever hold in grateful remem- 
 brance the citizens of Meriden. I am conscious, 
 in office or out of office, of having done as any 
 man would have his son or brother do. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 261 
 
THE STAFFORD DISASTER 
 
 To THE Editor of the "Courant": 
 
 The appalling disaster at Stafford invokes the 
 charitable benefactions of the people of this State. 
 A vast amount of property has been annihilated, 
 the important industries of the town have been 
 crippled, and a thousand operatives who depend 
 upon their daily labor for their daily bread have 
 been thrown out of employment for the coming 
 six months at least. 
 
 There is no insurance and no salvage to relieve 
 the bitterness and suffering entailed by this great 
 calamity, unless it wells up in the benevolent hearts 
 of the people of Connecticut. Such calamities, 
 either by flood or by fire, are liable to visit any 
 community in this Commonwealth, and I for one 
 believe that such calamities call for the active and 
 practical assistance of the State government. In- 
 dividual charities are limited and very often ill 
 directed. The State, in administering its charities, 
 can devise means much better calculated to accom- 
 plish the desired results, and it so scatters the 
 burden that no one feels his portion. An appro- 
 priation of fifty thousand dollars would not pay for 
 one-sixth of all the property lost, but would help 
 262 
 
STAFFORD DISASTER 
 
 the town to repair its roads and bridges, and sup- 
 port its unemployed operatives until they can find 
 work, besides carrying encouragement to the man- 
 ufacturers to rebuild their works and set their idle 
 spindles whirling. This appropriation would be 
 less than ten cents for every individual in this 
 State ; and who would begrudge that amount of 
 money for so good a cause? 
 
 Again, there are eight dams to be rebuilt, and 
 the people who own property or live below them 
 have a right to know that they are this time to be 
 properly constructed. Now is the time, if ever, 
 for the State to intercede for their protection, for 
 it will be too late after they are rebuilt. The 
 inhabitants of the towns of Stafford, Tolland, Wil- 
 lington, Mansfield, Coventry, and Windham, the 
 stockholders of the New London Northern Rail- 
 road, and the depositors in the Tolland and other 
 savings-banks that hold mortgages on property in 
 the wake of these dams have a deep interest in 
 their proper construction. Millions of property 
 and thousands of lives all over this State are 
 depending on the stability of similar structures. 
 This awful warning should not go by unheeded. 
 There is no time to be lost. The Legislature 
 should be at once convened. It costs nothing, as 
 they are paid by the year ; and in one day they 
 could finish this whole matter, and every man of 
 them would say, " I was never engaged in any 
 better business." 
 
 263 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 The sublimest wisdom of the ages and the key- 
 note of the Christian doctrine, as it comes rever- 
 berating through nineteen centuries, is embraced 
 in these few words : " Do unto others as you 
 would that they should do to you." 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 264 
 
THE JOHNSON TRIAL 
 
 Editor of the Meriden "Republican": 
 
 Dear Sir, — As the shortest way to answer many 
 questions asked me daily, I send you the following 
 statement. 
 
 On a day in the opening of the year 1872, a 
 poor and friendless Swede, John Robert Johnson, 
 came to the enterprising city of Meriden in search 
 of employment. He found it as a mason. By 
 one of those accidental events by which a man's 
 future is made or unmade in this world, he ob- 
 tained lodging in the house of a woman of brutal 
 tastes and of a still more brutal heart. While at 
 work, an unfortunate accident befell him. His 
 right hand was nearly severed by a brass drain, 
 and he was for many days unable to work. This 
 woman, ready to coin her soul into money, refused 
 him any longer food and lodging; and retaining 
 his best clothes, and leaving him only his over- 
 alls and working clothes, she drove him, sick, 
 penniless, and friendless, from her door, adding 
 imprecation and abuse to her cruel treatment. 
 Half famished, and with a wandering mind due to 
 disease and trouble, he returned for the purpose 
 of getting his clothing. He was set upon by this 
 fiendish woman the very moment he opened 
 265 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 the door, and under a wild impulse he struck her a 
 blow which resulted in her death. It was a thing he 
 had never designed to do, and a thing that never 
 would have happened if this anomaly of her sex 
 had not provoked and treated him as she did. 
 
 A celebrated French writer, Auguste Laugel, in 
 his recent work, says that there is in every human 
 breast something of the wild animal, — a some- 
 thing in every human creature which when driven 
 to the verge of endurance, when crushed to the 
 earth by cruel treatment, impels him to strike his 
 persecutor. John R. Johnson is a human being, 
 with human feelings and passions ; and in an 
 unguarded moment he committed an act which it 
 would be unjust to punish him for by imprisonment 
 during the remainder of his natural life. 
 
 On his first trial Johnson was charged with 
 murder in the first degree, and convicted of that 
 crime and sentenced to be hung. It appeared in 
 evidence on the trial that on the day in question, 
 being weak from sickness and hunger, he drank 
 something which ordinarily would not have affected 
 him, but which in his then condition made him 
 crazy. It was claimed, in his behalf, that, as by the 
 law murder in the first degree requires deliberation 
 and premeditation, the jury had a right to take into 
 consideration the fact of his intoxication in arriving 
 at a conclusion whether the act was committed 
 with deliberation and premeditation. The court 
 said that drunkenness was no excuse for crime, 
 266 
 
JOHNSON TRIAL 
 
 and that it was not to be considered by the jury. 
 The Supreme Court, however, subsequently decided 
 that the fact of intoxication should go to the jury, 
 and that it was for them to say whether the man 
 was so intoxicated that he could not have premed- 
 itated and deliberated concerning the act, but did 
 it unconsciously. This was the first time that this 
 eminently wise and just doctrine was ever pro- 
 claimed by the Supreme Court of this State, or of 
 any New England State. The want of this doc- 
 trine has in Connecticut sent more than one unfor- 
 tunate victim to an untimely and unmerited grave ; 
 and the enunciation of this intelligent Christian 
 doctrine would have saved Gaffney, who suffered 
 within two years on the gallows, in the city of 
 Buffalo, for a crime he never knowingly committed. 
 On the second trial, John Robert Johnson was 
 charged with murder in the second degree, was 
 convicted, and sent to state-prison. On this trial 
 it was claimed in his behalf, that, as malice is by 
 law necessary to constitute the crime of murder in 
 the second degree, and that without malice it was 
 manslaughter, the jury should therefore have the 
 right to consider the fact of drunkenness in deter- 
 mining whether the act was done with malice. 
 Malice requires the use of the reasoning faculties, 
 and the idiot and the insane — whether the insan- 
 ity be caused by disease, opium, or rum — cannot 
 be guilty of maHce. In other States they have got 
 round this by saying that the killing implies malice ; 
 267 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 but the doctrine was scouted out of court in the 
 recent case of Stokes, and the enunciation of this 
 erroneous doctrine in the court below saved Stokes's 
 life. The Supreme Court has refused Johnson a 
 new trial, but on what grounds it is not yet known. 
 The claim made in Johnson's case must, however, 
 eventually become the law. It is a part of the 
 code of Prussia, the Netherlands, and Austria ; and 
 however much we may boast of America, she fol- 
 lows in her laws the reforms in Europe, and rarely 
 leads them. 
 
 But it is said that drunkenness is voluntary, and 
 therefore no excuse ; and so the courts have said 
 for two hundred years. But was it any more vol- 
 untary with Johnson than with Mrs. Hess, who 
 sold him the drink, knowing full well the effect it 
 might have upon him. The result was to both of 
 them unforeseen, unsought, and unpremeditated, 
 and in the administration of law and justice that 
 fact should be taken into consideration. 
 
 The ever present argument against this doctrine 
 is founded on an unreasoning fear. The world 
 will gradually learn, however, that it is the certainty 
 of some punishment rather than the severity of an 
 occasional punishment which deters men from 
 crime. The people on the Continent of Europe 
 are as anxious to preserve their lives as the people 
 of Connecticut. It is the same argument that is 
 urged against the abolition of capital punishment ; 
 but the statistics show that there are less murders 
 268 
 
JOHNSON TRIAL 
 
 in Rhode Island and Michigan since the abolition 
 of capital punishment than there were before. 
 The time will come when the people of this coun- 
 try will look back upon capital punishment and 
 the scenes enacted in the execution of it with the 
 same disgust and shame that we, of our day, do 
 upon those foolish fanatics who once hung men 
 and women for being witches, in order to protect 
 society. It is no benefit to the dead to crucify 
 the living ; and it is no protection to the living to 
 enforce a punishment which the rich and powerful 
 hardly ever suffer, but the poor and friendless 
 rarely escape. Hanging brutalizes the community, 
 and too often only attests the inhumanity of man- 
 kind to man. The onward march of events for 
 two hundred years has eradicated a thousand evils 
 and wrongs which the barbaric progenitors of the 
 English race had incorporated into the English 
 jurisprudence. And time will work wonderful 
 changes yet. The man who thinks that the laws 
 of America are perfect and will never be improved, 
 is filling his own eyes with sand. 
 
 I have done what I could under our present 
 laws to alleviate the condition of an unfortunate 
 man to whose defence I have been assigned; and 
 I trust that the kind Providence that tempers the 
 winds to the shorn lamb will move the hearts of 
 all good people to assist in relieving John Robert 
 Johnson from suffering the extremity of his pun- 
 ishment. Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 269 
 
A SOUTHERN TRIP 
 
 From the '' Bridgeport Farmer,'^ March 13, 1873. 
 
 Hon. Ratcliffe Hicks, of Tolland, not only makes 
 good speeches in the House of Representatives upon 
 any subject in which he takes a particular interest, 
 but he has also the faculty, when travelling, of writing 
 entertaining sketches. Mr. Hicks is now at Lake- 
 wood, N. J., having returned last week from an ex- 
 tended Southern tour. By reason of his large real- 
 estate and other interests he is well known in this city, 
 and the two following letters written by him will be 
 read with interest : — 
 
 El Paso, Texas, Feb. 24, 1893. 
 
 After leaving New York, I made my first stop 
 at Atlanta. Every time I visit Atlanta I am more 
 impressed with the city. It is a Northern city 
 transplanted in Southern soil. 
 
 I went from Atlanta to New Orleans, which I 
 found had greatly improved in the last five years 
 and showed signs of considerable prosperity. The 
 establishment of large sugar refineries and cotton- 
 mills has been of great benefit to the place. The 
 United States government pays annually about 
 ;^8,ooo,ooo in sugar bounties to planters, and there 
 270 
 
A SOUTHERN TRIP 
 
 are less than one hundred persons who divide this 
 money ; but this has been of much help to the State 
 of Louisiana. There are many beautiful residences, 
 and the city seemed particularly attractive after 
 leaving the wintry climate of New York City. 
 Flowers were in bloom. Men were cutting the 
 lawns, and the gardens were like our own in June. 
 
 I went from New Orleans to San Antonio ; and 
 as this was all new to me, I was wonderfully im- 
 pressed with the country through which I passed. 
 The magnificent fields where they raise their 
 sugar-cane and rice reminded me of the fields in 
 France, — so level, so rich, and so extensive. 
 They are now in the height of their planting, and 
 their weather is like ours in June. 
 
 The forests are very interesting to observe, the 
 trees being covered with moss, giving them a weird 
 appearance. The ground is covered with the low 
 palms which we prize so much in the North in 
 our hot-houses ; and the leaves of the trees having 
 so many different colors — red, white, green, and 
 different shades of green and red — made it all 
 look exceedingly interesting to a Northern man. 
 
 San Antonio certainly possesses the best climate 
 of any place that I ever visited in my travels. It 
 is far superior to that of Nice or Naples, or to any 
 spot in Europe or the West Indies or America 
 which I have seen. The temperature was 75°, but 
 it was that dry air which does not cause perspira- 
 tion; it was the most exhilarating temperature 
 271 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 that I have ever experienced. They are happy if 
 they can get two days of rain in the year, for it is 
 almost one continuous sunshine with them. It 
 seemed strange that on Washington's Birthday, 
 when you were suffering from such violent storms, 
 people should be walking and driving in San An- 
 tonio in weather equal to that of our best summer 
 seasons. 
 
 I came on last night to El Paso, and am not 
 impressed favorably with the place. It is much 
 cooler here, is windy and very dusty, and there 
 are no signs of vegetation apparent at present. 
 
 I never before could realize the magnitude of 
 the State of Texas. You can travel as for as from 
 New York to Chicago, and then go two hundred 
 miles farther before you cross the State of Texas, — 
 a State which in fifty years is liable to have any- 
 where from fifty to seventy-five or perhaps one 
 hundred Congressmen, and to equal in Washington 
 the power of all the other thirteen original States. 
 A State that is larger than New York, Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
 and New Jersey, with a climate so favorable to the 
 growth of the population, and a soil so favorable 
 to its support, has in it possibilities that are mar- 
 vellous when you come to think of them soberly. 
 It only needs time and double-track railroads and 
 speedy communication with Chicago and New 
 York and Philadelphia, connecting those places by 
 twenty-four or thirty-six hours, to bring this coun- 
 272 
 
A SOUTHERN TRIP 
 
 try to the notice of the Northern people more than 
 has ever yet been done. 
 
 Denver, March i, 1893. 
 
 The day I wrote you from El Paso it was very 
 windy, and rather disagreeable on account of the 
 dust; but the next day was extremely pleasant, 
 and the people all said that the previous day was 
 an exception. I liked El Paso the more I saw of 
 it, especially the climate, as it was considerably 
 higher than at San Antonio, and the atmosphere 
 was drier and more exhilarating. I bought some 
 bank stock when there which pays twelve per 
 cent per annum, and earns about twenty per cent. 
 
 I went over into Mexico and visited the city of 
 Juarez. It is a real Mexican city, and in visiting 
 it one gets a very good idea of the Mexicans. I 
 am frank to say that I was not favorably impressed 
 with the Mexicans or their country. They are 
 about two hundred years behind the times, and, in 
 my opinion, always will be. 
 
 This land from San Antonio to El Paso suffers 
 greatly from want of water, and I never realized 
 before the importance or the magnitude of the 
 undertaking to irrigate that vast section of country. 
 There are thousands of miles of land capable of 
 wonderful development in the future when water 
 has been provided by some feasible system of irri- 
 gation. It is calculated that thirty thousand cattle 
 have perished in the last year between San Antonio 
 iS 273 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 and El Paso from thirst, and it is a pitiful sight to 
 see the cattle all along the railroad sufiering and 
 perishing from the same cause. 
 
 One word more about the magnitude of the 
 State of Texas. It has over nine thousand miles 
 of railroad. To get an idea of what those figures 
 mean, — its railroads if stretched in a continuous 
 line would reach across the Atlantic Ocean three 
 times ; or, to express it in another way, they would 
 reach from Liverpool to New York, across the 
 prairies and mountains to San Francisco, and 
 across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. 
 
 Leaving El Paso, we came up on the Santa F6 
 road through New Mexico, — a country suffering, 
 as I have indicated heretofore, from want of water, 
 and inhabited very largely by Mexicans living in 
 little adobe or earth houses one story high, and 
 giving poor promise of becoming good American 
 citizens and voters. 
 
 I stayed at Colorado Springs one night. I pre- 
 sume it is a beautiful place in summer. It is finely 
 laid out, and is in a mountainous country with fine 
 natural scenery, and is largely inhabited by wealthy 
 people. I visited the Garden of the Gods, and 
 was not so much impressed as I expected to be. 
 After going over the Canadian Pacific and across 
 the mountains on the Santa F^ road, and having 
 visited most of the mountainous countries of 
 Europe, the Garden of the Gods seems to me to 
 be largely overwritten. 
 
 274 
 
A SOUTHERN TRIP 
 
 I came thence to Denver. There seems to me 
 to be only two cities in the West, — Chicago and 
 Denver. To hear the people tell of the wonderful 
 fortunes accumulated here in a short space of time 
 sounds like a novel ; but they confirm their state- 
 ments by showing you the people and the prop- 
 erty, and you finally have to confess that more and 
 larger fortunes have been acquired in Denver and 
 vicinity in the last ten or twenty years than in any 
 other place on the globe. They show you prop- 
 erty which belonged to a lady here some fifteen 
 years ago, left to her and appraised at ^2,200, 
 which sold recently for $125,000. They show you 
 lots which sold a few years ago at $400, and now 
 sell quickly at $4,000. They show you a corner 
 lot owned by a Connecticut lady which was sold 
 eight years ago for $40,000, soon after sold for 
 $80,000, a few months later for $120,000, and 
 about a year ago for $235,000 ! I give these as 
 simply specimens of the v/onderful advance in 
 property in this city. I have never seen or known 
 anything like it ; and why any young man, be he 
 lawyer, doctor, physician, dentist, or business man, 
 stays down East is beyond my comprehension, — 
 that is, if he cares to accumulate a fortune and be 
 in the swim. 
 
 It is estimated that there are over one hundred 
 
 millionaires in Denver, a place of one hundred and 
 
 twenty thousand inhabitants, — which is probably 
 
 more than there are in all Connecticut, with seven 
 
 275 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and two 
 hundred years of savings. 
 
 I have had one or two propositions made me 
 here to go into large real- estate transactions ; but 
 while I think there is lots of money in them, I 
 have finally made up my mind to keep out of them, 
 for I can see that it will make for me more work. 
 I have purchased some bank stock here, however, 
 as a kind of souvenir of the place. It pays eight 
 per cent annually on cost, and also pays the taxes. 
 I am very favorably inclined towards the banks of 
 Colorado as an investment. I find that they are 
 making a great deal of money, much more than 
 similar institutions in the East can make, and they 
 seem to make it safely and to be well managed. 
 I think it a grand thing for every man having 
 money to invest to visit the West and see for him- 
 self this country and the opportunities for making 
 money, even if he does not care to try it himself. 
 
 R. H. 
 
 276 
 
A CONDENSED HISTORY OF 
 BERMUDA. 
 
 Letter to the " Meriden Republican." 
 
 Hamilton, Bermuda, April 21, 1875. 
 
 Dear Republican, — Judge Sumner and myself 
 arrived here Monday morning, having been one 
 day longer on the voyage than we had expected. 
 We were both of us somewhat sea-sick the first day 
 or two out. Sumner kept calling for oranges, and 
 he told John (the little Welshman that waited on 
 us) to tell the steward not to be discouraged : he 
 was only trying to lay a foundation in his stomach 
 to put something substantial on. 
 
 The hotel at Hamilton, where we are stopping, 
 is kept by Mr. Dodge, who in the summer keeps 
 the hotel at the top of Mount Washington. The 
 accommodations at the hotel are very good, and 
 the charge is three dollars per day. 
 
 The Bermudas are a group of about three hun- 
 dred islands, distant from New York about seven 
 hundred miles, and on a latitude with Charleston, 
 S. C. The group of islands extend thirty miles, 
 and by means of ferries and bridges you can drive 
 277 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 nearly the whole length of the group. In the 
 harbors lie one hundred little islands which make 
 one think of Lake George. We have been driving 
 around the islands for the past four days. The 
 first thing that attracts the attention of a stranger 
 from New England is the vegetation. The first 
 day or two we did nothing but stop the driver and 
 inquire, " What is that tree ? " There are growing 
 here India-rubber, date, cocoanut, lemon, orange, 
 palmetto, coffee, bamboo, fig, tamarind, and many 
 other kinds of trees. The streets are lined with a 
 very homely-looking tree. They call it the " Pride 
 of India." 
 
 The next thing which attracts attention are the 
 wonderful caves, containing beautiful pools of 
 water, with splendid specimens of stalactites hang- 
 ing from the roofs. Then there are forts and 
 dockyards. This is the largest military and naval 
 station of the English government, except Malta. 
 It is estimated that the English have spent as high 
 as $500,000,000 here in all. The dockyards are 
 enormous, and every hill is crowned with a fortifi- 
 cation. The English undoubtedly regard this as a 
 key to their Western possessions, and a valuable 
 spot in case of war with us. 
 
 There are about twenty thousand inhabitants on 
 the islands. Their principal business is raising vege- 
 tables for the American market. They can raise 
 every year two or three crops of onions, potatoes, 
 tomatoes, watermelons, squashes, beans, and all our 
 278 
 
BERMUDA 
 
 varieties of vegetables. Their principal export now 
 is onions. They could, if they were as enterprising 
 as our New England farmers, raise a large quantity 
 of all kinds of vegetables for export to New York. I 
 asked one colored man, who was gathering onions 
 in a field, how much he would get for his crop this 
 year. He said ^2,000. The two races live here 
 on the most perfect good terms. The blacks out- 
 number the whites three to one. The blacks vote 
 and hold office, the same as the whites ; but no 
 man can vote unless he is worth $300. 
 
 Bermuda is governed by a little parliament of its 
 own. The climate is one of the best in the world. 
 Water never freezes. They have no fires in their 
 houses, and sit out doors the year round. In sum- 
 mer it is not very warm. Sunstrokes are unknown, 
 and thunder- showers are rare. A lightning-rod 
 man would be a great curiosity here, as they have 
 none. The place has a Spanish look. The houses 
 are mostly one-story, built of soft stone, resem- 
 bling chalk, sawed out in blocks ; the roofs are of 
 the same material. They have no wells, as the 
 island is all a solid rock. They save their rain- 
 water, and keep it in large covered stone-cisterns 
 in their yards. The buildings and roofs are all 
 whitewashed. The roads are as hard as rock. The 
 soil is rarely more than a foot deep anywhere, and 
 they use the spade instead of the plough. The islands 
 are of oval formation, and are surrounded by reefs 
 extending eight or ten miles out to sea ; so that it 
 279 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 is very dangerous approaching them, and nearly 
 every week some ship is wrecked because the 
 captain does not know the channel. 
 
 There is no doubt that these islands will be 
 more and more visited from year to year by 
 Americans. It is only within four or five years 
 that a steamer has been regularly running here 
 from New York. As the beauty of the islands and 
 the salubrity of the climate become known, and 
 the ease of access increases, Americans will flock 
 here instead of going to Florida. The fare from 
 New York here and back is ^50, which includes 
 everything. We shall leave here in about a week. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 280 
 
PROPOSED REDUCTION 
 
 Of the Rate of Interest to be Charged by Savings 
 Banks and the School Fund, 1880. 
 
 To THE Members of the Connecticut Legislature: 
 
 There is an act pending before your Committee 
 on Banks which is worthy of your serious consider- 
 ation. It is the proposed reduction in the rate of 
 interest to be charged by Savings Banks and the 
 School Fund. It concerns more directly the in- 
 terests of your constituents than any and all other 
 legislation pending before your body. 
 
 It is a question which you are compelled to 
 meet. Are you going to vote on the side of wis- 
 dom, of justice, and of relief to the already over- 
 burdened land-holders of the State ; or are you 
 going to allow capital to take advantage of its 
 power to wrench undue returns from the struggling 
 property-holders of Connecticut? If you fail in 
 your duty, another Legislature will right the wrong. 
 This question is now being agitated by the voters, 
 and will not down until it is righted. 
 
 What are the facts? 
 
 I. No man to-day can safely invest his money 
 where it will earn more than from four to five per 
 281 
 
RATCLTFFE HICKS 
 
 cent net. In a late number of the " Financial 
 Chronicle " a comparison is made between the 
 value of representative stocks and bonds at the same 
 dates in 1872 and in 1880, and shows that upon 
 an average the purchaser would realize from six to 
 eight per cent on his capital in 1872, and that he 
 realizes only from 3I to 4f per cent now. Will 
 you, then, compel the honest, industrious masses of 
 this State to pay six per cent when they furnish the 
 best collateral security in the world, — the roof 
 over their heads? 
 
 2. There is no prospect that the rate of interest 
 will increase for many years, if ever. 
 
 (a) The West, which so long absorbed the 
 money of the East, is no longer asking for loans. 
 Good Western mortgages are readily taken at 
 home. 
 
 (/^) The legislation of the Western States is 
 tending to drive Eastern capital away. In Illinois, 
 last winter, a law was passed forbidding the taking 
 of more than eight per cent interest, and also for- 
 bidding the mortgaging of land to trustees to secure 
 bonds, thus hampering the future sale of Western 
 loans. Again the Legislature of Illinois has for- 
 bidden all corporations located out of the State 
 from holding land longer than five years ; so that 
 if such a corporation is obliged to foreclose its loans, 
 it must sell the lands within five years. 
 
 (<r) The ill-luck that has followed all persons 
 who have loaned money at the West has taught the 
 
REDUCTION OF INTEREST 
 
 East a fearful lesson. Only fools and children are 
 now caught with such investments. All safe and 
 prudent men prefer four per cent where they know 
 it is safe, to seven or eight per cent with an even 
 chance that they may never see the principal again. 
 Many a poor man has gone West to find that the 
 land on which he held a mortgage was under water, 
 or that the buildings had been moved off, or that 
 the property was almost worthless and had been 
 sold for taxes, and that what little was left no 
 neighbors would buy or rent to help out an " East- 
 ern shark," as they call the bondholder. 
 
 {d) The late decision of our United States 
 Supreme Court in the case of the bonds of the city 
 of Memphis has driven the last nail in the coffin 
 of Western credit. The city owed a large sum of 
 money; and as a short way to repudiate, they 
 went to the Legislature of Tennessee and got an 
 act passed wiping out the city charter. The United 
 States Supreme Court last month said it was legal, 
 and that the bondholder must lose everything. Any 
 man who can buy a Western town, school district, 
 city, or county bond after that decision has faith 
 enough to move mountains. It was bad enough 
 before. If you sued and obtained a decision 
 against a town or city, the officers would all resign 
 rather than pay the debt. But this crowns the 
 infamy of Western credit. 
 
 {e) Money is bound to be cheap. Within two 
 years more than three hundred millions of dollars 
 283 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 of new money have been added to the currency of 
 America, and our currency is that much larger 
 than it was two years ago. The wildest dream of 
 a Greenbacker never looked for such an inflation 
 of our currency as we have to-day. So long as 
 every man is permitted to dig gold and carry it to 
 the mint and have it coined, and put it into cir- 
 culation without limit, you may look for cheap 
 money and plenty of it. 
 
 (/) The ease with which money is transferred 
 from European centres to America by telegraph 
 and otherwise, the agencies which large European 
 houses have established in America will tend to 
 keep the rate of money in New York on a par 
 with that in Europe. There is going to be more 
 nearly an equilibrium in money the world over 
 than formerly. The ways of doing business are 
 changing, and money runs after investment. Three 
 thousand miles to-day is no more than two hun- 
 dred miles was fifty years ago. If money is dear 
 at any place, it pours in there until the price 
 comes near to a level with that of other places. 
 The rate of interest in France is four per cent ; in 
 England, three and 3^ per cent; in Germany, 3^ 
 per cent. Our own government contemplates 
 issuing a three per cent bond, and that is about 
 all a four per cent bond nets to-day. Of course, 
 money will be dear in new and barbarous countries, 
 but we in New England are getting to be an old 
 and civilized country. 
 
 284 
 
REDUCTION OF INTEREST 
 
 (g) There is no business to-day that pays, on 
 an average, more than four or five per cent net 
 income. Banking, insurance, manufacturing, and 
 agriculture do not pay on the average more than 
 four per cent, after paying all expenses and taxes. 
 Of course, some branches pay more, but some pay 
 much less. I am speaking of the average. Manu- 
 facturing is overdone, and the country cannot fur- 
 nish a market for any increase in our manufactures. 
 Manufacturers are not going to demand much 
 more money than they are now using. 
 
 3. The rate of interest should correspond with 
 the annual return of property, which is between 
 four and five per cent. As matters stand to-day, 
 no man can afford to borrow money on real estate, 
 keep it in repair, pay the taxes and insurance, and 
 pay more than five per cent. If borrowers pay 
 more for a series of years, they are carrying a 
 burden which will, sooner or later, bury the major- 
 ity of them in poverty. 
 
 4. It was said in 1876, when you reduced the 
 rate of interest from seven to six per cent, that 
 depositors would draw out their money ; but such 
 has not proved to be the result. Now, if you 
 reduce the rate of interest to five per cent, so that 
 banks can only declare 4^ to 4f per cent divi- 
 dends, the money will not be drawn out. The 
 profit which the banks make by collecting the 
 money in advance ought nearly to pay the expenses 
 and taxes. No individual can invest his money 
 
 285 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 where it can earn more than four per cent. If he 
 gets more than four per cent, he takes the risk 
 that may wipe out his principal. Large trust- 
 estates are loaning money in Connecticut for a 
 term of years at five per cent, and absorbing some 
 of our best bank-mortgages. Savings Banks in 
 Massachusetts and New York State are loaning 
 money at five per cent. Individuals in this State 
 are loaning here cheerfully at 5^ per cent. Sav- 
 ings Banks in this State are occasionally loaning 
 money on the sly at i\\'Q per cent. If it is left 
 with the banks to fix the rate, a few favorites or 
 influential parties will get their money at five per 
 cent, while the great mass of borrowers, less sharp 
 and conniving, will have to pay the old rates. 
 
 5. It is for the interest of the depositors in 
 Savings Banks that the rate of interest on loans 
 should be reduced. The lower the rate, the better 
 security you can command. Depositors in a Sav- 
 ings Bank do not want to have the bank lose its 
 best real-estate loans, and have only the fag ends 
 left. Again, depositors in Savings Banks ought to 
 tremble when they see how much of this money 
 is being invested in New York city bank- stock and 
 in Western railroad mortgages, — roost hazardous 
 securities. Some of them are going to fail, — 
 human foresight cannot prevent it ; and if only 
 one in ten of such investments fail, it reduces the 
 income of the total investments below five per 
 cent, 
 
 286 
 
REDUCTION OF INTEREST 
 
 6. A Savings Bank needs prosperous and healthy 
 borrowers as much as it needs depositors. Re- 
 member that a vast majority of the borrowers 
 invested their money in real estate, which has 
 shrunk one hundred per cent in value, while the 
 present amount of their loan remains the same. A 
 reduction in the rate of interest would enhance the 
 value of real estate, and so enable Savings Banks to 
 unload much of the real estate on their hands. 
 
 7. Savings Banks in this State, not knowing 
 what to do, have invested largely in Government 
 bonds, which net them only about three per cent. 
 The Savings Banks have to-day a million of money 
 on deposit which they do not know what to do 
 with. If the rate was made five per cent, it would 
 be loaned at home. The true policy is to encour- 
 age people to borrow money from Savings Banks, 
 build homes, and add to the wealth of the State. 
 Why should not the honest, hard-working people 
 of Connecticut borrow the money from Savings 
 Banks at five per cent, instead of investing the 
 deposits in New York bank-stock, in Western 
 railroad and in Government bonds? Is it policy 
 to drive all the money we can out of the State ? 
 
 It seems as if the true policy ought to be to keep 
 in our own State all the money that we can, and to 
 give the people of Connecticut the use of the 
 money at as low a rate as we loan out of the State. 
 
 8. Most Savings Banks are declining deposits 
 for the very reason that they cannot invest them. 
 287 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 By so doing, they are defeating the object for 
 which they were created ; namely, to provide a 
 safe place where poor and ignorant people can 
 invest their small earnings. If this state of affairs 
 lasts much longer, the government ought to, and 
 will, establish a postal savings-bank for the benefit 
 of poor people. 
 
 9. Many Savings Banks are contemplating low- 
 ering the rate to five per cent ; but they are afraid 
 to do so for fear that they may lose temporarily 
 some of their depositors. If it is made uniform, 
 then no bank will have any advantage over another 
 on account of its location or size. Small banks 
 located in growing places have great advantages 
 over some of our older and wealthy Savings Banks. 
 
 10. It should be a law that Savings Banks shall 
 not pay more than four per cent on all deposits 
 over $2,000. They then could easily pay five per 
 cent on all deposits less than that sum. Large 
 deposits are made by wealthy people to escape 
 taxation ; and this is all wrong. 
 
 11. No man can afford to borrow money of a 
 Savings Bank to-day and invest it in business. The 
 laws of business have set a limit to the avarice of 
 the capitalist ; and if the Legislature of this State 
 overrides those laws, and exacts a rate of interest 
 above the amount that the borrower can afford to 
 pay, it only exhausts the security of the bank, and 
 finally swamps in one common misfortune borrower 
 and lender. 
 
REDUCTION OF INTEREST 
 
 12. This question comes properly before your 
 body. You are the custodians and managers of 
 the Savings Banks of this State, and the sole man- 
 ager of the School Fund. You have said in the 
 past, and you must say in the future, how they shall 
 be managed. The safety of the bank, the security 
 of the depositor, the welfare of the borrower, the 
 good name of the State are all at stake, and in 
 your hands for keeping. You are the final arbiter 
 between the borrower and the lender ; and it is for 
 you to say what, under all circumstances, is the fair 
 rate of savings-bank interest in this State. The 
 poor people of Connecticut, who have mortgaged 
 their homes and their very lives to the Savings 
 Banks, can only look to you for justice. They 
 cannot pay off their loans, they cannot change 
 them, they are tied hand and foot ; and they ask 
 that they shall be compelled to pay only that rate 
 of interest which, with the taxes, insurance, and 
 repairs, is a fair and just remuneration to the 
 borrower. They do not expect to borrow money 
 as cheap as the millionaire can ; but, like the Land 
 League of Ireland, they believe in the motto " Live 
 and let live." 
 
 The reports of the Bank and School Fund Com- 
 missioners this year point out the necessity for this 
 proposed reduction in the rate of interest. 
 
 19 289 
 
LETTER OPPOSING JURY 
 TRIALS 
 
 From the ''MericUn Republican." 
 
 I REGRET to see that an effort is being made to 
 take away from a prisoner the privilege of being 
 tried by the court. The Legislature of 1878 may 
 turn back a little the wheels of progress, but some 
 succeeding Legislature will certainly re -enact the 
 law with still greater privileges to the accused. 
 Every thoughtful, conscientious citizen glories in 
 the fact that Connecticut gives to every accused 
 man all reasonable opportunities to prove his inno- 
 cence. It permits him to tell his own story in 
 court ; it furnishes him with counsel, and gives him 
 the closing argument. It is better that ten guilty 
 men should escape than that one innocent man 
 should suffer. 
 
 A case that cannot stand a fair investigation 
 before an unprejudiced and intelligent court ought 
 never to be tried. Now, it is proposed to give to 
 every man who has a civil suit, which involves the 
 honesty of a horse-trade, the right to elect whether 
 he shall be tried by a judge or a jury ; but when a 
 man's life or liberty is at stake he is to have no 
 290 
 
LETTER OPPOSING JURY TRIALS 
 
 choice. If there is any force in the argument 
 against the right of election, it is as good in one 
 case as in the other. It only illustrates again what 
 history so thoroughly teaches, — the inhumanity of 
 man to man. 
 
 A trial by jury is a bequest of the Middle Ages, 
 and was the invention of a people who were ground 
 to earth by despotic rulers and unprincipled judges, 
 the lackeys and appointees of those rulers. It was 
 then a bulwark of protection to the people ; but 
 in a free government, where the judges are above 
 suspicion and are appointed by the people, a jury 
 trial is a wart on the body politic, which the good 
 sense and experience of the American people will 
 soon cauterize and eradicate. 
 
 Every argument is in favor of a trial before a court 
 made up of intelligent and unprejudiced lawyers, who 
 carefully note all the evidence, conscientiously weigh 
 every point, intelligently consider all the legal ques- 
 tions involved, and coolly state the reasons for the 
 conclusion to which they have come. The jury can 
 carry in their minds the evidence in a case lasting 
 several days. Oftentimes some witness who hap- 
 pens to make a bad appearance, and some prejudice 
 that the jury may have against the party or their 
 counsel, are the turning points in the case. Jury 
 lawyers are not generally selected for their great 
 learning or known probity, but because they are 
 consummate blackguards, and can keep a court- 
 room in a titter; because they are prominent 
 291 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 politicians in the country, and are supposed to 
 have friends in the panel ; because they possess 
 attractive manners, and know the thousand and 
 one little points practised in the court-room and 
 out to win the favorable opinion of the jury. 
 Everybody knows that a railroad company, an 
 insurance company, a municipal corporation, a 
 man against a winsome woman, stands no chance 
 before a jury, twelve butchers of the law, and the 
 evidence. It is provided that they are not bound 
 to submit to a jury trial; but is the question of 
 man's life or liberty of less consequence? 
 
 Instead, then, of repealing this wise provision, the 
 Legislature of 1878 ought to take steps to wipe from 
 the laws of the State every provision for preserving 
 a trial by jury ; for it is a relic of the feudal ages, 
 for which we have no use in these modern times. 
 It is a legal snare, and it is gambling for justice at 
 a sacrifice of the rights and liberties of the citizen. 
 It is of the earth, earthy, and belongs to the age of 
 
 the javelin and the bow. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 292 
 
A TAX-PAYER ON CONSOLI- 
 DATION 
 
 From the " Meriden Republican.'" 
 
 To THE Editor of the " Republican " : 
 
 Let us make a last appeal to all voters to come 
 out on Monday to vote for consolidation. The 
 ballot-box will be open from 8 a. m. until 5 p. m., 
 at the Town Hall. The friends of the measure are 
 in a large majority, and will prove it if they will 
 only come out to vote. The great danger is that 
 the friends of the measure will not take the pains 
 to vote. Therefore we urge every man who has 
 the best interests of Meriden at heart to vote for 
 consolidation. It will result in a great saving to 
 the town. It will put the management of our 
 schools into the hands of a permanent board of 
 our best citizens. It will improve the character of 
 our schools. It is doing just what the Legislature 
 will compel every town in the State to do within 
 ten years. 
 
 A well-developed system of public schools is 
 worth everything to Meriden. You have no system 
 now. They say that it means a high school. We 
 do not expect to see a high school in our day, but 
 it is just what Meriden needs. The boys and girls 
 293 
 
RATCLIFFE HTCKS 
 
 of Meriden need just as good public schools as any 
 city, unless you expect your children will only dig 
 roads, build cellar-walls, and do housework. The 
 only way to give your children a good start in Hfe 
 is to give them a good education. Not all your 
 churches, not all your factories, will do one-half as 
 much to attract men of enterprise and wealth to 
 your city as would a first-class school. Men are 
 working to-day in Meriden and living in New 
 Haven and Hartford, because they want to give 
 their children the best school advantages. Every 
 poor man should vote for consolidation, for he 
 cannot afford to send children to Hartford to 
 school. And still voters are howling round the 
 streets that if you vote for consolidation it will 
 result in having one or two schools of a high grade 
 and dispensing with the great number of depart- 
 ments in the smaller schools. That is just what 
 ought to be done. The smaller schools are graded 
 to death. The men who bring up such arguments 
 belong to the past generations. Consolidation has 
 worked well wherever adopted. The few men 
 who desire to defeat it are circulating a lot of 
 foolish stories of what will be done if this law is 
 passed. All these stories are false, and they know 
 it. They have more fears and foolish imaginations 
 than any woman ever had at childbirth. 
 
 Tax-payers of Meriden, friends of poor men and 
 patrons of schools, vote for consolidation next 
 Monday ! A Tax-payer. 
 
 294 
 
NEW HAVEN COUNTY COM- 
 MISSIONERS 
 
 From the " Meriden Republican" 
 
 The report of the majority of the Committee 
 appointed to investigate the affairs of New Haven 
 County, as a specimen of political prejudice and 
 perversion, is without parallel in the history of this 
 State, Failing to prove the surreptitious appro- 
 priation of a single dollar of the county money, 
 the majority of the Committee seek by false in- 
 nuendoes and unfair influences to injure the reputa- 
 tion of these county commissioners, and ask for 
 their removal on evidence on which no decent man 
 would hang his dog, 
 
 1. As to the removal of August Williams, the 
 report of the minority of the committee — R, W. 
 Newhall, Esq., of Middletown, law-partner of Judge 
 Culver — shows that there were many reasons for 
 his removal ; and it recommends that the question 
 of the legality of his removal be tested by the 
 courts to which Williams has already appealed. 
 
 2, It is not claimed that the evidence shows 
 that Commissioners Birdsey and Lake ever ap- 
 
 295 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 propriated a dollar dishonestly ; but the majority 
 of the committee say that a certain record-book is 
 missing, and that therefore it is fair to presume 
 that these men have stolen it to cover up their 
 defalcations. It is just as fair to presume that 
 some of the men who for twelve months have pur- 
 sued the commissioners with bloodhound ferocity 
 have taken it away (for it was within their reach) 
 and then have charged it on the commissioners ; 
 we have heard of such things being done before. 
 The height of Commissioner Birdsey's offence is 
 that for three months he deposited small sums of 
 county money in his own name in the bank ; but 
 he refunded every dollar of it four months before 
 any investigation was ever proposed. Dr. Hatch, 
 all the time he was superintendent of the Reform 
 School, kept and deposited the State's money in his 
 own name in the bank. As to all the charges for 
 services, these commissioners followed in the foot- 
 steps of their Republican predecessors, or took 
 the legal advice of Judge Stoddard of New Haven. 
 If they sinned, they sinned unwittingly and not 
 wittingly; and to punish Birdsey for their action 
 is akin to that infernal doctrine which robbed 
 heaven of the presence of unbaptized infants. We 
 do not believe that the Republicans of this Legis- 
 lature can be induced so far to [ignore their man- 
 hood as to remove these commissioners upon mere 
 inference to satisfy the relentless animosity of a few 
 men whom they have offended by their official 
 296 
 
NEW HAVEN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS 
 
 action, and it remains to be seen whether honest 
 men propose to indulge in this scalping warfare. 
 
 The Constitution has provided a way to remove 
 dishonest officers of the State ; to wit, by impeach- 
 ment. We know of only two ways by which they 
 can be removed : one is by impeachment, and the 
 other is by abolishing the office. It is a fair infer- 
 ence that when the State has provided a way to 
 remedy a wrong, you are to pursue that way. 
 
 In two States of the Union a resolution similar 
 to the one submitted in this case, and under 
 similar constitutional provisions, has been declared 
 by the Supreme Courts of those States unconsti- 
 tutional and void, and nowhere can be found a 
 case that supports the legality of this proceeding. 
 We have no doubt as to what will be the decision 
 of our Supreme Court if this question ever comes 
 before it; for if this action is legal, it opens the 
 door to political anarchy and unhinges the safe- 
 guards of society. If all officers of the State — 
 like bank, insurance, railroad, and county com- 
 missioners — hold their offices subject to removal 
 by every recurring Legislature, without a repeal of 
 the law under which their offices were created and 
 by the mere force of the prevailing argument of 
 eight to seven, then the corner-stone upon which 
 rests the safety of our political institutions is under- 
 mined. The majority are never obliged to give a 
 reason for their action ; and it only needs some 
 exciting cause, like another rebellion, to bring into 
 297 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 play the use of this most dangerous and uncon- 
 stitutional power. In my humble judgment there 
 is only one claim on which this proposed action 
 can be sustained ; it is the claim of the highway- 
 man, that might makes right. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 298 
 
SHALL SUPREME COURT JUDGES 
 BE EXCUSED FROM CIRCUIT 
 DUTY? 
 
 To THE Editor of the Hartford " Times " : 
 
 I READ in your paper of the 8th a report signed 
 by Mr, Hammersley, which was unfavorable to the 
 proposed exempting of the Supreme Court judges 
 from circuit duty. As I had the misfortune to 
 introduce this resolution, I want to say a word in 
 its defence, — not that I expect at this time to ac- 
 complish the desired result, but because I want 
 to set the faces of this generation towards one ^of 
 the improvements which, though defeated to-day, 
 is sure to come in the near future. Let me then 
 summarize some of the arguments in favor of this 
 proposed change. 
 
 I . Our Supreme Court is overworked. To hear 
 and investigate patiently two hundred cases yearly 
 is all that it can do conscientiously. To read the 
 record, the briefs, and examine the authorities in 
 two hundred cases, — that is, about one case in 
 every working-day in the year, — is all that any 
 court of five men can do. Besides this, the mem- 
 bers must write their opinions, every word and 
 299 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 every line of which are to be subjected thereafter 
 to the most critical analysis. 
 
 2. Every year adds immensely to the labors of 
 a judge in the multiplication of authorities and 
 text-books. To be a good judge in the days of 
 Zephaniah Swift, whose library consisted of a 
 dozen books, and to be a good judge to-day is 
 like the difference between a college one hundred 
 years ago and a college to-day. One hundred years 
 ago law was a matter of common-sense. To-day it 
 is a question of analogy and of authorities. 
 
 3. Our present system necessarily causes great 
 delays. The judges are often unable to investigate 
 a case and prepare the opinion in less than a year 
 after it is argued. This of course suspends the 
 case for all that time, and entails great expense 
 and trouble upon clients and attorneys. All such 
 delays tend to bring the administration of law in 
 this State into contempt with the driving business 
 men of to-day. 
 
 4. We all want an unprejudiced court. We 
 want every case to come to the Supreme Court 
 untried and unheard by all its members. We do 
 not want that judge who has tried our case on the 
 circuit, and done what we believe to be an injustice 
 to our clients, to sit on the Supreme Court bench 
 or in the lobby or in the consulting-room when 
 our case is being finally disposed of. 
 
 5. We want in every case the independent 
 investigation and judgment of five judges. That 
 
 300 
 
CIRCUIT DUTY 
 
 is the number which the wisdom of the State has 
 fixed upon, and that is the number we are entitled 
 to and demand. Let the law create no excuse for 
 the want of a full bench and a separate investiga- 
 tion in every case by five men. To be sure, you 
 can call for a full bench ; but it is almost an insult 
 to the four men sitting on the bench, and always 
 causes delay. Most lawyers hesitate to do it. 
 
 6. The multiplication of courts — the creation 
 of common pleas, district, and city courts — has 
 in the last ten years largely increased the duties of 
 the Supreme Court judges. 
 
 7. Practically the Supreme Court judges held 
 only a criminal term, or some unimportant civil 
 term, recognizing among themselves that they 
 ought not to be expected and do not desire to do 
 circuit duty. 
 
 8. This change is demanded to-day; and if on 
 trial it shall be found that our Supreme Court 
 judges suffer for the want of circuit duty, we can 
 very easily return to the old antiquated custom. 
 
 I have heard only two arguments against the 
 proposed change. One is that it is a great benefit 
 to the judges to do circuit duty. I believe that 
 that is all a humbug. No man knows as well as 
 the judge himself whether or not he is benefited by 
 circuit duty. Now, I think if this matter were left 
 with the judges of the Supreme Court, they would 
 vote unanimously that to do circuit duty is an 
 intolerable nuisance, and of no appreciable benefit 
 to themselves. 301 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 The only other argument I have heard is that it 
 tends to make them civil ; that to do circuit duty 
 serves as a sort of instigation to keep the spirits of 
 our Supreme Court judges humble, submissive, and 
 peaceful. 
 
 Such arguments go well with a weak case. 
 
 R. H. 
 
 302 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY PRIZES 
 
 New York, Jan. 28, 1891. 
 
 Rev. E. B. Andrews, 
 
 Brown University, Providence, R. I. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have been thinking of offering 
 prizes, amounting to fifty dollars each year, divided 
 as follows : thirty-five dollars for the first, and fif- 
 teen dollars for the second, — for excellence in 
 Junior Debating Competition. There is a similar 
 system in Yale, which has recently, I believe, been 
 opened to all members of the Junior Class. 
 
 I thought I would offer this for one year ; and 
 if on trial it proves a success, I would offer to the 
 University money enough to insure a continuance 
 of the prizes in the future. 
 
 Please give me your impressions in this matter, 
 and then I will decide what I shall do. 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 Providence, Jan. 30, 1891. 
 My dear Mr. Hicks, — Your valued communi- 
 cation of the 28th inst. is at hand. Your proposi- 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 tion is a most welcome one. Our young men 
 need precisely the inducement which you suggest. 
 The plan would give a support to the Junior work 
 in speaking which is much needed, and which 
 could not be secured in any other way. It will 
 give me great pleasure to hear from you further 
 in the premises. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. Benj. Andrews, 
 President Brown University. 
 
 President's Room, Brown University, 
 Providence, R. I., June 12, 1891. 
 Received of Ratcliffe Hicks one New York and 
 New England Railroad Company six per cent one 
 thousand dollar bond (second mortgage). No. 
 4414, which he presents through me to the Cor- 
 poration of Brown University, as the foundation 
 of two yearly premiums or prizes for excellence in 
 debate. 
 
 E. Benj. Andrews. 
 
 304 
 
GIFT TO MERIDEN HIGH 
 SCHOOL FUND 
 
 Meriden, Conn., March 23, 1894. 
 Hon. Ratcliffe Hicks: 
 
 Dear Sir, — In behalf of the High School Com- 
 mittee I beg leave to thank you for your muni- 
 ficent gift of fifty dollars to be applied to the High 
 School Fund. 
 
 Thirty-six essays are now in the hands of the 
 Committee, from which seven will be selected to 
 be read on Commencement Day for prizes. 
 We trust that you will be able to be present. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Chas. H. S. Davis. 
 
 Saratoga, Sept. 15, 1894. 
 Dr. C. H. S. Davis, Meriden, Conn, : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I wish to transfer to the proper 
 Committee or person one thousand dollars in the 
 Gold and Stock Telegraph Co., bearing six per cent 
 interest, guaranteed by the Western Union Co. for 
 ninety-nine years, in order to make permanent the 
 20 305 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 prizes I have been giving from year to year to the 
 Meriden High School. If you will tell me exactly 
 to whom and how to transfer the bond and who 
 will receipt for the same, I will instruct my secre- 
 tary at Bridgeport to attend to the matter at once. 
 You may answer my letter to the address of 73 
 Warren Street, N. Y. City, Hicks Building. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 306 
 
THE RATCLIFFE HICKS PRIZES IN 
 THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 
 
 Saratoga, Sept. 15, 1894. 
 
 Treasurer Agricultural College, Storrs, Conn, : 
 
 Dear Sir, — In order to make permanent the 
 prizes I offered, I propose to transfer to the Treas- 
 urer of your College one thousand dollars in the 
 Gold and Stock Telegraph Co., bearing six per 
 cent interest, guaranteed by the Western Union 
 Co. for ninety-nine years. This is to make per- 
 manent the Ratcliffe Hicks prizes. 
 
 Would it be proper if I had the bond transferred 
 to the Treasurer of the College without mention- 
 ing any name as Treasurer ; and if not, how should 
 the bond be transferred? As soon as I get a 
 reply, I will instruct my Secretary to attend to the 
 matter ; and I suppose that he can send it by 
 express to Storrs, if it is not convenient for the 
 Treasurer to call at my office in Bridgeport to 
 receipt for same. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 307 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Storrs, Conn., Nov. 3, 1894. 
 Mr. Ratcliffe Hicks, New York : 
 
 Dear Sir, — The bonds which you directed the 
 Canfield Rubber Co., Bridgeport, to send to the 
 College are received, and I have placed them in 
 my safe, and will communicate with the Trustees 
 and place them at their disposal. I suspect that 
 they will want to put them in some safer place 
 even than our supposed fire-proof safe. 
 
 In behalf of the institution and all concerned, I 
 express to you our gratitude for this timely help to 
 stimulate our young people to better work in the 
 lines indicated. I understand that you received a 
 copy of one of the prize essays of last summer, 
 and shall make inquiries of the other competitor, 
 — the young man receiving the second prize, — 
 and if he has not already sent you a copy, I shall 
 have one made and forwarded to you. 
 
 I believe you have never visited this institution, 
 and I now give you a cordial invitation to do so. 
 When you are in Tolland County, at your con- 
 venience, I should be glad to have you come and 
 look over the work for yourself. 
 
 We found ourselves before the opening of the 
 fall term with about thirty more applicants than 
 we had accommodations for. By removing all single 
 beds from rooms intended for but one pupil, and 
 putting in double folding-beds and other devices, 
 we were able to accommodate those who wished to 
 308 
 
PRIZES IN THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 
 
 enter. We find ourselves very much crowded 
 with our present accommodations, but are manag- 
 ing to get through the year, hoping that the com- 
 ing Legislature will do something to relieve the 
 pressure and give us means to do our work here. 
 Again, let me thank you for your help in our 
 work. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 B. F. KooNS, 
 Pres, Storrs Agricultural Col. 
 
 309 
 
STATUE TO FREDERICK S. 
 BROWN 
 
 From the Hartford ^^ Daily Times, '^ Thursday, 
 May 31, 1894. 
 
 Mayor Brainard received the following letter 
 to-day, which he will submit to the Common Council 
 for appropriate action : — 
 
 Midland Grand Hotel, London, 
 May 17, 1894. 
 Hon. Leverett Brainard, Mayor of Hartford, Conn. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I read in the " New York Herald " 
 of May 7 of the death of Mr. Frederick S. Brown. 
 With the approval of yourself and the authorities 
 of the city of Hartford, I should be pleased to 
 erect a monument to his memory, to cost not less 
 than ^5,000, provided the same can be erected in 
 one of the public parks of the city, — a cause in 
 which he was so deeply interested. An early reply 
 will oblige. Please write me, care S. S. Morgan 
 & Co., Bankers, London. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 R. Hicks. 
 310 
 
STATUE TO FREDERICK S. BROWN 
 
 The Mayor referred the letter to the Park 
 Commissioners. 
 
 At a meeting of the Park Commissioners on Wed- 
 nesday, the offer of Mr. Ratcliffe Hicks to erect a 
 monument on the park to the memory of the late 
 Frederick S. Brown was considered. Mayor Brainard 
 was requested to write to Mr. Hicks acknowledging 
 the offer, and asking for information as to the style 
 and plan of the proposed memorial. Before a reply 
 could be received, Judge Sherman W. Adams, Presi- 
 dent of the Park Commissioners, wrote to Mayor 
 Brainard in behalf of the Board, giving its conclusions 
 respecting the offer of the Hon. Ratcliffe Hicks to 
 erect at his own expense a memorial in the park to 
 the late Frederick S. Brown. The letter is given in 
 full : — 
 
 Hartford, Conn., June 4, 1894. 
 Hon. Leverett Brainard, Mayor : 
 
 Dear Sir, — The Board of Park Commissioners 
 to whom you were pleased to refer the letter of 
 Ratcliffe Hicks, Esq., containing his generous offer 
 to erect a monument in one of the parks of this 
 city in honor of the late Frederick S. Brown, Esq., 
 has had said letter under consideration, and, as a 
 result thereof, this Board hereby announces its 
 conclusions as follows : — 
 
 First, a memorial of the kind in question, on, 
 public grounds, here at the capital of the State 
 would be a mark of great honor such as should be 
 dedicated to the memory of Connecticut citizens 
 who have rendered eminent services to the State 
 311 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 or nation only, whether these services were ren- 
 dered on land or on sea, in the interests of science, 
 beneficial legislation, alleviation of distress, or by 
 benefactions in behalf of humanity in general. 
 
 Second, on the public grounds now in charge of 
 this Board only two memorials have been erected, 
 aud each of them is in honor of a citizen whose 
 services were of national importance. In the mil- 
 itary service, such heroes as Mason, Treat, Lyman, 
 Wooster, Spencer, Parsons, and others, of Colonial 
 and Revolutionary fame, and Lyon and Sedgwick 
 of the late war, are still without memorials. In 
 the naval service, Hull, Chauncey, McDonough, 
 Foote, and Ward are without such public recogni- 
 tion. So are such statesmen and jurists as John 
 Winthrop, Oliver Ellsworth, Chauncey Goodrich, 
 William Samuel Johnson, Zephaniah Swift, and a 
 score of others who might be mentioned. Noah 
 Webster, a native of Hartford, has not been thus 
 honored. And there are sons of Connecticut who 
 have been famous as poets, writers, scientists, or 
 inventors who have deserved equal honors. So 
 there have been distinguished theologians and 
 physicians. It is not probable that more than a 
 very few of these eminent men will have costly 
 memorials or monuments erected to their honor 
 on the public grounds of this city. Indeed, it is 
 not desirable that there be many such works ; 
 otherwise those areas would have too much of the 
 appearance of a cemetery. 
 312 
 
STATUE TO FREDERICK S. BROWN 
 
 Third, the principle involved is one that should 
 not be encouraged by a precedent of this kind. 
 If it come to be understood that a person may 
 cause a monument to be erected in honor of some 
 personal friend of his, in one of our parks, on the 
 ground that it is to cost the city nothing, how long 
 will it be before others will be coming forward with 
 like proposals? And where may the procession 
 end ? If it be Mr. Hicks's idea to do honor to Mr. 
 Brown as a former park commissioner, then we 
 doubt the propriety of the erection of a public 
 monument to the memory of any member of this 
 Board, as such ; and we think that if any person 
 is to be honored by such a memorial because of 
 great service in connection with our public parks, 
 that person is the late Horace Bushnell. 
 
 Our friendship and esteem for Mr. Brown was 
 quite equal to that of people in general ; in fact, 
 we were admirers of his many good qualities, and 
 we duly appreciated his services to the public. 
 But this is not a question of private friendship, 
 and our deliberate judgment is as above set 
 forth. 
 
 In behalf of the Board, 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Sherman W. Adams, 
 President. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks writes Mayor Brainard from Carls- 
 bad, Germany, under date of June 21 : — 
 
 313 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Carlsbad, June 21, 1894. 
 Hon. Leverett Brainard, Mayor of Hartford, Conn. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your polite letter of June 7 is just 
 at hand. I regret the action of the authorities of 
 your city. I had no thought of erecting the bust 
 or monument as a memorial of a personal friend, 
 but as a public testimonial to a man who had lived 
 for fifty years and more in your own community, 
 and who was without a superior in all those years 
 in personal integrity, in urbanity of manner, in 
 good common-sense, in all that rounds up and 
 makes a perfect man. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 314 
 
GIFT 
 
 To the Congregational Ecclesiastical Society of 
 Tolland. 
 
 Tolland, Conn., August i, 1894. 
 
 Sir, — At the last Annual Meeting of the Con- 
 gregational Ecclesiastical Society of Tolland, it was 
 unanimously voted that the thanks of this Society 
 be extended to you for your very generous gift of 
 fifteen hundred dollars towards repairing and re- 
 modelling their church edifice, and also for your 
 services as a member of the Building Committee. 
 
 The clerk of the meeting was instructed to com- 
 municate to you the above vote, and to enter the 
 same upon the Records of the Society. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 Edward E. Fuller, 
 Clerk. 
 To Mr. Ratcliffe Hicks, 
 
 Tolland, Conn. 
 
 315 
 
COUNTY REFORM 
 
 New York, Nov. 15, 1894. 
 To THE Editor of the "Courant" : 
 
 I AM very glad to see that you are urging a 
 revision of the laws governing the issuing of 
 licenses and the conducting of county affairs. I 
 introduced a resolution looking to that object at 
 the last session of the Legislature, but seeing that 
 the time was not ripe for such action I let the 
 matter drop. I am firmly convinced that there 
 are many radical changes needed. 
 
 First, I would have the county commissioners 
 elected by the people, and take the miserable con- 
 test of their appointments out of the hands of the 
 Legislature and away from the influence of the 
 lobby. 
 
 Second, I would also have the county treasurer 
 and county clerk and county auditor elected by the 
 people instead of, as now, being appointed by the 
 county commissioners. They are elected in all 
 the cities and towns of Connecticut, and why 
 should they not be in our counties ? 
 316 
 
COUNTY REFORM 
 
 Third, I would provide for the licenses being 
 issued by the clerk of the counties, a distinct 
 ofifice from the clerk of the courts, and that the 
 money should be paid direct to the treasurer of 
 each county by the licensees. 
 
 Fourth, I would have these licenses issued upon 
 the approval of the selectmen of the town, and 
 have no other hearing, — the same as is done in 
 the case of the United States licenses. 
 
 Fifth, I would provide that the representatives 
 of each county should meet at the shire town on 
 some fixed day annually, instead of meeting at the 
 Capitol at odd times, to listen to the written re- 
 ports of the county commissioners, of the county 
 treasurer, of the county clerk, and of the county 
 auditor, and make such appropriations as they 
 may deem wise from time to time for the repair 
 and care of the county property and for all county 
 expenses. 
 
 Sixth, I would provide that the county clerk 
 should act as clerk at all the meetings of the rep- 
 resentatives of the county, and keep correct records 
 of all the doings of the county commissioners. The 
 records of the doings of the county commissioners 
 and of the transactions of county business for the 
 past ten years are in most counties in a horrible 
 condition, and in some counties there are no 
 records at all. 
 
 Seventh, I would provide that the district at- 
 torney of each coimty should act as the legal 
 317 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 adviser of the county officers, and if necessary I 
 would increase his salary for that purpose, and 
 take away from the county commissioners the 
 power of hiring one or half-a-dozen lawyers as 
 they see fit, and pay them whatever they ask. 
 
 Eighth, I would take away the power of appoint- 
 ing prosecuting agents from the county commis- 
 sioners, and create the office of assistant state's 
 attorney. He should be appointed by the courts, 
 the same as state's attorney ; and he should have 
 charge of all liquor prosecutions before the justice 
 courts, and assist the state's attorney when the 
 cases come to trial in the superior court. His 
 services would be invaluable. 
 
 The county commissioners of Connecticut are 
 more absolute than the autocrat of all the Russias. 
 They contract and pay their own bills ; they are 
 responsible to nobody, and handle annually some- 
 where from half a million to a million dollars, — 
 nearly as much as the entire receipts of the State 
 of Connecticut. The governor is an infant in 
 power compared with the patronage and authority 
 vested in the absolute will of these county commis- 
 sioners. They always have been an injury to any 
 political party to which they belonged and which 
 they attempted to serve, whether Republican or 
 Democratic. It is time that this old, worn-out, 
 antiquated, and cumbersome system of transacting 
 the legitimate business of the people was modern- 
 ized and methodized, and made in harmony with 
 318 
 
COUNTY REFORM 
 
 nineteenth-century ideas. By my vote and by my 
 voice, if necessary, I will do what little lies in my 
 power to help on this reform which you are so 
 ably advocating. 
 
 Ratcuffe Hicks. 
 
 319 
 
RETRENCHMENT 
 
 Letter published in the '^ Meriden Record." 
 
 Hartford, Conn., March 6, 1S95. 
 
 The State of Connecticut took the first step in 
 the matter of administrative economy to-day when 
 Ratcliffe Hicks's resolution for the appropriations 
 committee to investigate the expenses of the differ- 
 ent departments of the State government, with a 
 view to retrenchment, was taken from the table 
 and passed unanimously. Mr. Hicks made an 
 able speech in favor of his measure, in which he 
 said that the business men throughout the country 
 are at present cutting down expenses, and it 
 would be well for the State of Connecticut to do 
 the same. He cited several instances wherein it 
 seemed to him unusually large expenditures of 
 money in different departments had been made. 
 The contingent fund of the senate, he claimed, 
 has heretofore been altogether too large, and 
 should be looked into. 
 
 Judge Cowell of Waterbury seconded Mr. Hicks's 
 remarks. Mr. Cowell's speech has set some of the 
 members from New Haven County to thinking. 
 Judge Cowell is one of the warmest advocates and 
 supporters of the Waterbury court-house measure. 
 320 
 
THE BRIDGEPORT RAILROAD 
 PROBLEM 
 
 Hartford, Conn., May 9, 1895. 
 To THE Hon, E. W. Marsh, Representative of Bridgeport : 
 
 Dear Sir, — You were kind enough to ask me 
 on Thursday last for my views on the Bridgeport 
 grade-crossing bills. At that time I had not given 
 the matter much attention, as I had been awaiting 
 the action of the railroad committee, besides being 
 occupied with pubUc and private business. But 
 since then I have been reflecting on the matter, 
 and have settled in my own mind what will be my 
 position, although I have had no opportunity to 
 consult with any person, and therefore express 
 only my own views. 
 
 First, I am earnestly in favor of a new lay-out, 
 which shall carry the track of the Consolidated 
 Railroad Company to the north of the city of 
 Bridgeport. This, in my opinion, is the only route 
 the company should ever adopt, thereby straight- 
 ening their track, avoiding many curves and a 
 drawbridge, and establishing a route which can be 
 called permanent, and which will accommodate 
 the people of Bridgeport and the travelling public 
 in the near future, if not to-day, far better than the 
 present lay-out. 
 
 21 321 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Second, I cannot conceive how it is of any 
 benefit to the tax-payers of Bridgeport to have a 
 milUon people, more or less, hurled annually 
 through the air thirty or forty feet above the street 
 levels and looking down on them. 
 
 Third, I think the elevated track would be a great 
 blot and blur on the good looks of Bridgeport. 
 
 Fourth, I think the smoke, the noise, and the 
 dust from a railroad of four tracks, doubling and 
 trebling its business every ten or twenty years, 
 would become in the end a great nuisance. 
 
 Fifth, I do not think there is a single piece of 
 property in Bridgeport which in the opinion of a 
 fair commission will be benefited one dollar by 
 reason of the elevation of the track. 
 
 Sixth, if the arguments of the Hon. William D. 
 Bishop as to the failure of Bridgeport to contribute 
 money towards the construction of this railroad 
 company are to be considered or have any weight 
 (and his social, financial, and political standing 
 must necessarily give them great weight), then it 
 follows necessarily that if Bridgeport is to con- 
 tribute a large sum of money, it shall contribute it 
 in the same manner and in the same way only as 
 was the case with all the other cities and towns 
 in Connecticut ; to wit, by a majority vote of the 
 people. And I am in favor of submitting the law 
 to the approval of the voters of Bridgeport. No 
 one has any right to bind or speak conclusively for 
 them in this matter. The tax-payers of Bridge- 
 322 
 
THE BRIDGEPORT RAILROAD PROBLEM 
 
 port have never elected or selected any man, be 
 he mayor, senator, representative in the General 
 Assembly, or member of the Common Council, 
 to act for them in such a weighty and important 
 matter. It would be the greatest assumption of 
 authority, and without a parallel in this State, for 
 the present city officials or representatives in the 
 Legislature to force upon the city of Bridgeport 
 an indebtedness of five hundred thousand dollars, 
 more or less, without leaving the matter to the 
 decision of the voters, and without any direct 
 authority to make such an arrangement. 
 
 Seventh, I think no business property in Bridge- 
 port will be damaged by the new lay-out. I think 
 Bridgeport will need, as time goes on, all its water 
 front for other purposes than railroads. I think 
 Bridgeport must necessarily grow northerly, and 
 that in fifty years Bull's Head will be far nearer 
 the centre of population than the present post- 
 office or station. I think the railroad is of no 
 benefit to adjoining property, — except, possibly, 
 to a few factories with a side track. I think the 
 railroad has no effect on the centre of business, 
 and has made no difference in New Haven, Hart- 
 ford, or Springfield. Chapel Street in New Haven 
 and Main Street in Hartford and in Springfield 
 have remained entirely unaffected by the loca- 
 tion of the station; and so it is in ninety-nine 
 cities out of a hundred throughout the United 
 States. 
 
 323 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Eighth, there has never been any man con- 
 nected with the ConsoUdated Railroad Company, 
 except the Hon. Charles P. Clark, — with possibly 
 one bare exception, Mr. Bishop, — who has been 
 able to grasp the future of this railroad and to look 
 twenty-five years ahead. In my opinion, he is 
 about the only man whose descendants in fifty 
 years from now can point to a single act of con- 
 struction or lay-out by their ancestor which will 
 meet with the admiration and approval of the men 
 then living. 
 
 I advise, then, both as a tax-payer of Bridgeport 
 deeply interested in its future prosperity, and as a 
 friend of the Consolidated Railroad Company, that 
 they shall establish a lay-out which will have plenty 
 of grounds for stations, side-tracks, express offices, 
 electric-car connections, carriage grounds, and 
 which will accommodate Bridgeport fifty years 
 from now, with its quarter of a million of inhabi- 
 tants ; and to reach that limit, the growth of 
 Bridgeport in the next fifty years will not be as 
 marvellous as it has been in the last fifty years. 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 324 
 
LETTER TO GOVERNOR 
 COFFIN 
 
 Hartford, Conn., May 29, 1895. 
 Hon. O. Vincent Coffin, Hartford, Conn. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I think it is not in many years 
 that we have had a Governor more conscientious 
 and more faithful in attending to the duties of his 
 ofifice than yourself, and I especially commend 
 your course in the matter of the Whipple School. 
 But I fear you little know the true condition of 
 the public affairs in Connecticut relating to our 
 beneficiary institutions, if you think that this is 
 the only matter which deserves your serious and 
 careful attention. 
 
 I will not in this letter attempt to explain fully 
 all I know, but I will give you a few illustrations ; 
 and whatever I state I am prepared to indorse as 
 truthful. 
 
 First, within the last two years the executive 
 committee of one of our great public institutions 
 sat down to examine the bills of that institution. A 
 bill was presented for ten barrels of sponges. No 
 one on the committee seemed to know what it 
 meant ; the clerk said he did n't either ; but finally 
 the manager of the institution came in, and the 
 question was referred to him. He replied that it 
 325 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 was for ten barrels of flour which his own family 
 had used ; and he said he did n't propose to eat 
 the flour furnished to the inmates. He said it was 
 the first time since his connection with the institu- 
 tion that his bills had ever been questioned, and 
 that he would at once give in his resignation. He 
 instructed the secretary to make it out. 
 
 Second, within the last three years a gentleman 
 was selected as a manager of one of our public 
 institutions, and at the close of his first month he 
 had many checks sent to him, amounting to nearly 
 $500, all which he returned. On inquiry he found 
 that they were intended as commissions on the 
 purchases made by the institution. The parties 
 said they had been regularly paying these com- 
 missions for many years. How true this may 
 be of other institutions I have not the means of 
 knowing. 
 
 Third, in the files of the Treasurer's office at the 
 Capitol can be found correspondence which will 
 prove that a five per cent commission has been 
 demanded and received for loans made out of the 
 funds belonging to the School Fund office. 
 
 These instances will prove to you that you have 
 a task to perform which involves the greatest 
 amount of knowledge and intelligence, — which 
 some of your predecessors never possessed, or, if 
 possessing, never exercised. 
 
 Is it not, my dear Governor, about time to intro- 
 duce honest business methods into the manage- 
 326 
 
LETTER TO GOVERNOR COFFIN 
 
 ment of all the institutions and departments of the 
 State government, — the same business methods 
 which have given Connecticut manufacturers and 
 business men their present successful standing 
 before the people of this country? 
 
 I think you are equal to the occasion, and I 
 look for good results from your further investiga- 
 tion into the unfortunate condition of the public 
 affairs of the State of Connecticut. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 327 
 
RESOLUTIONS OF THANKS 
 
 From the Hartford Equal Rights Club. 
 
 At the meeting of the Hartford Equal Rights 
 Club, the following resolution was read and 
 adopted : — 
 
 Whereas, The political rights of one-half of the 
 adult citizens of this nation, the women, have been 
 persistently ignored and their participation in pub- 
 lic affairs denied, even to a voice in the education 
 of their children, — and this wrong has been so 
 long continued that men have become unconscious 
 of its injustice and its injurious effects upon man- 
 kind, till only the more enlightened, just, and fair- 
 minded realize that it is a wrong to woman and to 
 society that should no longer be suffered to exist : 
 therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That the Hartford Equal Rights Club 
 tenders its thanks to the Hon. Ratcliffe Hicks for 
 his earnest and admirable address in support of the 
 woman's school suffrage bill and in favor of the 
 political rights of women ; and the Club extends 
 its cordial thanks to every member of the General 
 Assembly who in good faith voted for the bill. 
 
 32S 
 
INTERVIEWS 
 
AN OPINION ON CONGRESS 
 
 An Intetview in the " New York World" 
 Nov. 5, 1893. 
 
 Bridgeport, November 4, 
 
 Mr. Ratcliffe Hicks, Representative in the Gen- 
 eral Assembly from Tolland, besides being one of the 
 wealthiest manufacturers in Connecticut, is an in- 
 fluential politician. He has served several terms in 
 the State Legislature, and in addition to being urged 
 to accept the nomination for Congress from the First 
 District, which includes Hartford, is prominently men- 
 tioned as a Democratic candidate for governor in the 
 next election to succeed Governor Morris. He is 
 the President and practically the sole owner of the 
 Canfield Rubber Company, and as a successful busi- 
 ness man has interesting opinions as to the cause 
 of the recent financial depression. To a "World" 
 representative to-day he had this to say : — 
 
 Congress has voted away the people's money 
 without stint, for pensions, for public buildings, for 
 harbor improvements, for the army and navy, 
 never thinking that every dollar they voted repre- 
 sented one man's day's work. Some man had to 
 toil one whole day to supply every dollar which 
 they have wasted like water. 
 331 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 It is economy at Washington ; it is economy in 
 State, in city, and in town affairs ; it is economy in 
 the management of factories, railroads, stores ; it is 
 individual economy in living, — that will make this 
 country rich and prosperous. You cannot eat 
 your cake and have it. The Jeffersonian, the 
 Jacksonian, the Tilden system of administrating 
 public affairs is the only one that will bring 
 permanent and lasting prosperity to this country. 
 
 A majority of the members of Congress glory in 
 the fact that they are not worth a dollar, that they 
 do not know how to make a dollar, and that 
 they never expect to be worth a dollar; and yet 
 these men propose to show other men how to 
 make money ! If any man has money, they are 
 ready to attribute it to luck or chance rather than 
 to economy or industry and good judgment. 
 
 It is disgusting to read how this man and that 
 man, this company and that company, have spread 
 themselves out, borrowing money to promote or 
 engage in hazardous business enterprises, hoping 
 they can pay six per cent interest on borrowed 
 capital, and still have a sure profit for themselves ; 
 and the moment the business lulls, and the banks 
 call for their loans, then they turn round, and 
 instead of acknowledging their own want of busi- 
 ness sagacity they lay all the blame on John 
 Sherman and his little Silver Bill ; or perhaps, if 
 they are Democrats, they lay the blame on the 
 Republican maladministration; or if they are 
 332 
 
AN OPINION ON CONGRESS 
 
 Republicans, they lay all the blame to the " horrid 
 Democratic blunders." The wealthiest manufac- 
 turer in Connecticut was Henry H. Hubbard of 
 Middletown ; and he told me some years before 
 he died that he had not given a note in twenty-five 
 years, and that in a business career of fifty years 
 he had not paid one moment's attention to any- 
 thing that Congress was doing ; that he had run 
 his factories on business principles, and paid no 
 heed to political legislation, and that before doing 
 so he would go out of business entirely. 
 
 What the people of this country want is an 
 honest and economical government. Congress has 
 been altogether too extravagant with the people's 
 money, and they want a government that will keep 
 its hands out of class legislation, whether you call 
 it silver or iron or tin or wool or coal or sugar, and 
 let the people of this magnificent country — the 
 richest the sun shines on — work out their own 
 destiny ; and then they will come out all right. It 
 will never do to run this government to please 
 Wall Street or government parasites. Wall Street 
 howls for Congressional action. What for? That 
 they can put on a confiding public more cordage, 
 more lead, more sugar trusts, more schemes full of 
 water or gas, or both. There has got to be a 
 panic ; and panics are healthy. They bring busi- 
 ness down to a normal level, and men to their 
 senses ; they teach a lesson to men who are float- 
 ing on financial bladders; they kill the wicked 
 332 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 schemes emanating from Wall Street, wherein 
 honest people are led by dividends paid but never 
 earned, and by false statements, to take bonds and 
 stocks in its swindling schemes, and thereby with- 
 draw millions from honest enterprises to make a 
 few rogues rich at the expense of the vast public. 
 These are two terrible elements that prey upon the 
 public. They produce nothing, they do not add a 
 dollar to the values of this country, and their wishes 
 are no more to be consulted than the inmates of 
 an insane asylum. 
 
 I believe in the Washburn Bill. I believe that 
 no man should be permitted to sell what he cannot 
 deliver. I believe that gambling in Wall Street is 
 no better than gambling on a horse-race ; and in 
 fact I believe it is more injurious to business inter- 
 ests, for in Wall Street they gamble upon the neces- 
 sities of life and upon the materials on which 
 manufacturers must work; they speculate and 
 make false values in corn, in wheat, in pork, in 
 iron, in lead, in cotton, and in sugar, thereby both 
 robbing the producer of the fruits of his honest 
 toil, and harassing and confusing the manufacturer, 
 who is unable to make any satisfactory calculation 
 for the future. 
 
 It is not political speeches nor editorials that 
 the common people of this country need, but a 
 few tracts, — like those issued by Franklin under 
 the name of " Poor Richard," condensing the wis- 
 dom of Franklin ; like those of John Stuart Mill, 
 334 
 
AN OPINION ON CONGRESS 
 
 of Adam Smith, of Thomas R. Malthus, of Francis 
 Wayland, — showing that wealth and prosperity 
 are not to be gained from or through the govern- 
 ment, but by every man and every business concern 
 observing certain cardinal principles in living, in 
 expenses, and in the conducting of business. It 
 is in this way that the working-people of France 
 have become so wealthy. I have seen them stand- 
 ing all night in the streets of Paris to be ready to 
 subscribe for a new government loan the next 
 morning ; and they subscribed for fifty times the 
 amount the government required. 
 
 I believe that all the currency of this country 
 should be issued by the Government. I believe 
 that the examination of banks should be taken out 
 of politics, and should be under the supervision of 
 men appointed by United States judges, and they 
 should hold their place during life or good be- 
 havior. There should be no more politics in the 
 management of a bank than in that of a factory. 
 
 I believe that the United States government 
 should be responsible for all deposits in a national 
 bank. This would not be such a serious under- 
 taking for the Government, and its very assurance 
 or guarantee would prevent runs and unwholesome 
 withdrawals of deposits. Or, if this system is not 
 adopted, then the government should make the 
 results of its investigations known publicly, the 
 same as is done in city and town affairs. National 
 banks secure the confidence of the public because 
 335 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 of the fact that they are subject to examination by 
 the government, and countless millions are in- 
 trusted to them every day for this reason. And 
 yet these confiding depositors have no means of 
 knowing the character of the bank or the safety 
 of their deposits; for whatever the examinations 
 made, the results thereof are not disclosed to the 
 depositors, the men above all others who should 
 know. They are made to the Comptroller of the 
 Currency at Washington, and to the President and 
 Cashier of the bank in the way of reprimands or 
 cautions ; but all information as to the weakness 
 or bad management of a national bank is relig- 
 iously withheld from the only disinterested party 
 in the whole transaction, — the depositor, who is 
 left to shift for himself. Let the government adopt 
 the plan of making public the results of bank 
 examinations, and there would be no more runs 
 on banks, and no more hoarding of money by 
 frightened depositors. Three hundred million 
 dollars of currency was withdrawn from the banks 
 and hidden in stockings and safes this summer, 
 for want of this very confidence. A bank should 
 mail to every depositor (in justice also to their 
 stockholders) a copy of each report of the govern- 
 ment examiner, and thus keep the depositors 
 aware of the condition and standing of the bank 
 in which they have deposited their money. You 
 cannot blame the public for losing confidence in 
 the banks when they are kept in ignorance of 
 336 
 
AN OPINION ON CONGRESS 
 
 their true condition, and in many cases are grossly 
 misled by the statement of bank officers. 
 
 What the business interests of this country de- 
 mand is that Congress shall stop legislating for 
 classes as against the masses; stop legislating in 
 the interest of the bankers, and legislate a little more 
 in the interest of the depositors ; that it should stop 
 legislating in the interest of a few pet manufacturers, 
 for of all the industries of this country none are so 
 dead to-day as the pampered industries, like silk, 
 woollen, gun, cutlery, wooden screws, and iron, and 
 a host of others that were unjustly protected until 
 they became so profitable that hundreds of people 
 engaged in the same line of business, — so that 
 finally it was no longer foreign competition which 
 they feared, but the competition at their next 
 door, necessitating trusts, combinations, and pool- 
 ing schemes to keep up profits and prevent over- 
 production. 
 
 Let Congress adjourn for five years, and go 
 home and stay there, and the business interests of 
 this country will take care of themselves. If Con- 
 gress will only go home, we prophesy that Grover 
 Cleveland will never again call it together. Presi- 
 dent Harrison was not far from right when he 
 called Congress " Cleveland's wild horses." 
 
 22 
 
 337 
 
A TRIBUTE TO NEW ORLEANS 
 
 From, the New Orleans ^* Picayune,* 
 March i6, 1894. 
 
 Hon. Ratcliffe Hicks is one of the wealthiest men 
 in New England, and one of the most successful busi- 
 ness men of the day. He is the president of the Can- 
 field Rubber Works of Connecticut, a member of the 
 Legislature, and prominent in politics. Mr. Hicks 
 has made some investments in New Orleans, and 
 expresses himself as delighted beyond all expecta- 
 tion with the city. He said to a reporter of the 
 " Picayune " last night in his rooms at the Grunewald 
 Hotel : — 
 
 I HAVE been all over the world, but I have never 
 seen an avenue or a public thoroughfare of any 
 kind that equals St. Charles Avenue. I desire to 
 say that it is the prettiest street I have ever seen. 
 It possesses a uniqueness that charms ; and the 
 vegetation and the lay of the grounds, as well as the 
 style of the buildings which line the street, please 
 the eye and suggest to the observer the delight 
 that one must feel to reside in such a community 
 and on such a street. 
 
 To say that I am delighted with New Orleans 
 would be to express myself mildly. This is a 
 338 
 
A TRIBUTE TO NEW ORLEANS 
 
 wonderful city, presenting to any American who 
 resides in the North or the West an individuahty 
 that is unknown to any other metropoUs in the 
 United States, or anywhere for that matter. New 
 Orleans needs to be advertised in the North, and 
 the advantages of the city as a winter resort set 
 forth. The death-rate ought to be shown up and 
 compared with other cities in order to disabuse 
 the public mind, for there certainly exist erro- 
 neous opinions of New Orleans in the North. A 
 great many people there believe that the city is 
 unhealthy. I know it is not, and every one ought 
 to know it. These matters should be published to 
 the world, and repeated until the belief becomes 
 general, that instead of having here an unhealthy 
 city you have one of the healthiest in the United 
 States, or in any other country, with a death-rate 
 lower than can be found almost anywhere else, all 
 things compared. I have found that in the winter- 
 time this is a good city to come to when one is 
 sufifering with a bronchial trouble. Your average 
 yearly temperatures should be published during 
 all the seasons. I myself don't think the summer 
 here is half so disagreeable as the summer in New 
 York or Chicago. New Orleans can be com- 
 mended as a summer resort as well as a winter 
 resort. Another thing : you have all along the 
 gulf coast suburban watering-places that surpass 
 similar places in Florida or anywhere else. People 
 throughout the country have very little idea about 
 339 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 it because it has never been advertised. I am 
 afraid you people down here don't use enough 
 printer's ink in speaking of your own greatness. 
 I have been along the Mediterranean. There the 
 monsoons which come about four o'clock in the 
 afternoon drive the pleasure-seekers indoors, and 
 the clear and beautiful sea is turned into a boister- 
 ous one. 
 
 New Orleans and its suburbs are much better 
 than any place in Florida for winter resorts. There 
 is nothing in Florida to interest people. California 
 is too far away. Here are amusements of all kinds, 
 and a great diversity of interesting things to be 
 seen. You have a great many novelties that please 
 the eye. I have been in Paris, and I am frank in 
 saying that I have found the surroundings here 
 preferable. There is however one thing which 
 you lack : you should have better drainage. Then, 
 too, you need more hotels, for nothing brings peo- 
 ple to a city like good hotels. You have not near 
 enough here to accommodate the people who want 
 to come, or who will come. It is a fact that more 
 hotels bring more people. This is a nice one to 
 stop in, but you should have more like it. With 
 better accommodations and facilities for the enter- 
 tainment of strangers, there is no reason in the 
 world why this city should not become the greatest 
 resort in the United States. You have the opera 
 and the races ; and then there is the vegetation and 
 the foliage and the flowers ; and the people are hos- 
 340 
 
A TRIBUTE TO NEW ORLEANS 
 
 pitable and kind. The city is full of social life 
 and pleasure, and the business men don't wear 
 themselves out making money to the exclusion of 
 all other duties of life. The people are interest- 
 ing, educated, and refined. The clubs are not 
 excelled an3rwhere. I have gone down to some 
 of the clubs here, and found men playing chess at 
 three o'clock in the afternoon. They will talk to 
 you about the opera, the drama, politics or factory 
 or anything, but they seldom speak of business in 
 social life. Now, in New York you go into a club, 
 and the men are talking about the exchanges and 
 the rise and fall of stocks. They eat a lunch in 
 three minutes, more or less, and are gone again. 
 Not so here. 
 
 There is a prejudice against New Orleans which 
 a free use of printer's ink should eradicate. It is 
 groundless. I believe so much in New Orleans 
 that I propose to buy some more property here, 
 and shall probably move my family here in the 
 future. 
 
 Another thing I should speak of, and that is the 
 great commercial advantages afforded by Nature 
 to this city. Situated as it is at the mouth of the 
 greatest river in the world, it becomes at once a 
 metropolis, with an incalculable commercial future. 
 Your cotton and sugar and rice are products which 
 keep up trade and business, and are not dependent 
 upon legislation altogether for their existence. 
 They are three of the necessaries, and will of 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 course find a market. This keeps up business, 
 and renders values less liable to fluctuation. Your 
 business interests don't vary so much with tariff 
 changes as those in the New England States do. 
 Too much cannot be said of New Orleans. 
 
 342 
 
A TARIFF COMMISSION 
 
 Interview published in the " New York World,* 
 April S, 1894. 
 
 Bridgeport, April 7. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks, a leading manufacturer of this 
 city and one of the leading politicians of the State, 
 returned yesterday. He has been on an extensive 
 trip through Brazil and Central America, Mexico and 
 Lower California. Mr. Hicks has always taken an 
 active interest in politics. For four years he has been, 
 a legislative representative from Tolland, and has 
 been identified with many State reforms. He is also 
 mentioned prominently as a candidate for governor in 
 the fall elections on the Democratic ticket. It is gen- 
 erally believed that in the contest for this election the 
 nomination will be between Ratcliffe Hicks and E. C. 
 Benedict. Neither is anxious for the nomination on 
 account of the unsettled condition of the tariff, but 
 probably either will accept the nomination if the inter- 
 ests of the Democratic party of Connecticut demand 
 it. When Mr. Hicks left last fall. Congress was just 
 beginning to discuss the tariff question, with every 
 prospect of speedily settling it. Most of the time 
 since Mr. Hicks has been out of reach of the daily 
 papers, and was surprised on his return to find that 
 
 343 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Congress had done so little. His remarks on the sub- 
 ject are interesting. To a "World" representative 
 he said : — 
 
 I THINK the Wilson Bill is probably as good a 
 bill as can be drawn by politicians. They are 
 swapping jackknives down in Washington ; that is 
 all : " If you vote for my scheme, I will vote for 
 yours." This is without regard to the interests of 
 the tax-payers and the consumers of the country. 
 Politicians have been fighting over this tariff ques- 
 tion seventy-five years, and they will probably con- 
 tinue to fight over it seven hundred and fifty years 
 longer if the people will let them do it. The 
 tariff should be taken entirely out of politics, and 
 be committed to a board of the most intelligent, 
 non-partisan, disinterested men that can be found 
 in the country. They should hold office for a 
 term of ten years, and should receive the same 
 salary ar- judges of the United States Supreme 
 Court ; all interested parties should have a right 
 to appear before them and present their claims, 
 and the decision of the board should be final 
 for a given number of years. This is what 
 the business interests of the country demand, 
 and what they will some day have in spite of 
 the politicians ; for politicians thrive on this tariff 
 question. 
 
 I think the Income tax is the most just and 
 reasonable tax ever proposed. It is the tax of 
 344 
 
A TARIFF COMMISSION 
 
 the world, for every nation has it ; and if left to 
 the people, it would be voted by a majority so 
 overwhelming that the opponents would be in a 
 contemptible minority. I am glad that the Demo- 
 cratic party has taken up this issue. My only fear 
 is that the Republicans will not dare to make it a 
 party issue. 
 
 Upon disposing of the tariif question, Congress 
 ought to adjourn and go home, after cutting down 
 the appropriations from fifty to one hundred mil- 
 lions at least. The people of this country pay 
 more tax per head than any nation in the world, 
 and have the least to show for it. Our army costs 
 as much, practically, as any of the armies of 
 France, Germany, Russia, or England, and in 
 comparison looks like a fly on an elephant. Our 
 navy costs us about as much as the navy of France 
 or England, and is a picnic party compared with 
 the naval armament of those countries. We have 
 the most extravagant and most wasteful govern- 
 ment in the world. What we need at Washington 
 is a business men's government. We have a busi- 
 ness man for President of the United States, and 
 what we want in Congress is more business men 
 and fewer lawyers. We want more voting and less 
 talking. We want business methods applied to 
 the administration of the affairs of this govern- 
 ment. We are living under a system adopted 
 one hundred years ago by a few planters from 
 Virginia, and it no more meets the requirements 
 345 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 of the age than would a stagecoach for transport- 
 ing passengers from Boston to New York. We 
 want the same businessUke method in the manage- 
 ment of government affairs as is applied to vast 
 railroad interests like the Pennsylvania road, or 
 the New York Central, whose annual receipts and 
 disbursements far exceed those of the United States 
 government prior to the War of the Rebellion. 
 
 I asked W. H. Barnum once why he did not, 
 with all his political influence, get some govern- 
 ment contracts. He said that this United States 
 government would make any man dishonest who 
 had any business to transact with it. You had to 
 go to Washington, he said, and lie round hotels 
 for weeks to get a contract. Then you had to sit 
 in the anteroom of some bureau officer and wait 
 his time for approving your vouchers; and after 
 you had waited weeks for this man to act, who 
 worked with no vim and was green to his business 
 (probably some broken-down politician), the 
 chances are that you would be at last told that the 
 appropriation was exhausted, and you would have 
 to wait until the next session of Congress. Finally, 
 you would give up in disgust, and put your claim 
 into the hands of some attorney who had the run 
 of the Department. Consequently, every con- 
 tractor had to ask from twenty-five to fifty per 
 cent more than he would of an individual, in order 
 to reimburse himself for his time, trouble, and 
 expense. 
 
 346 
 
A TARIFF COMMISSION 
 
 The Post-office building at Hartford cost the 
 government about ^700,000. The wealthiest con- 
 tractor in Connecticut has repeatedly informed me 
 that he would build one exactly like it for $300,000. 
 So it has been all over the country in everything 
 that the government has attempted to do. Why 
 the elevator in the Post-office at Hartford has not 
 been running, so I am informed, because the 
 appropriations are exhausted 1 Ex-Collector Byx- 
 bee informed me that he could not get money 
 enough to buy either a broom or a snow-shovel 
 while he was collector of the port of New Haven 
 for four years, to clear off the snow from the 
 sidewalks in front of the Custom House. These 
 are only a few of the hundreds and thou- 
 sands of instances that are occurring every day 
 all over the country (the newspapers are full of 
 them) which show how the entire system of run- 
 ning the business affairs of the government needs 
 remodelling. 
 
 The hope of this country is that some day a 
 man like S. J. Tilden will come to the front ; and 
 it will make no difference whether he is a Demo- 
 crat or a Republican, so long as he and his party 
 shall remodel the affairs of our government, bring 
 order out of chaos, stop corruption and stealing, 
 and prevent the awful waste of the tax-payers' 
 money, which in my opinion has done more to 
 bring on the present distressing state of business 
 in the United States than any other one thing. 
 347 
 
RATCLIFFE HICKS 
 
 Remember always that every dollar the govern- 
 ment expends costs some man one whole day's 
 work to earn, as a dollar is the average daily 
 wages throughout the United States ; and remem- 
 ber, also, that economy is the only royal road to 
 national or individual wealth. 
 
 To THE Editor of the "Times": 
 
 As more or less has been said in the newspapers 
 in regard to my candidacy for the Democratic 
 nomination for Governor next fall, permit me to 
 say through the columns of your paper that I am 
 not a candidate for that or any other office. Un- 
 der no circumstances will I accept the same. I 
 write this letter in justice to the many good men 
 whose names have been mentioned. Whoever is 
 nominated will receive my cordial support. 
 
 A friendly reporter overstated my position some 
 months ago. Those who have known me long 
 and well will bear me witness that at no time has 
 it been my intention or desire to force my candi- 
 dacy upon the party. 
 
 To those who have spoken kindly of my nomi- 
 nation I tender my thanks ; and their kind words 
 are better to me than an election. Permit me to 
 add that there are certain important changes in the 
 administration of public affairs in Connecticut, and 
 348 
 
DECLINES THE NOMINATION 
 
 certain great economies in the public expendi- 
 tures of the State, in which I became interested 
 during my service in the last two sessions of the 
 General Assembly, and which I hope to see ac- 
 complished in the near future. They have no 
 
 political bearing. 
 
 Ratcliffe Hicks. 
 
 New York, April 6, 1896. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 349 
 
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