Chapter II: Part 2

From Resaca we followed up the rebel General, Johnston, and came very close to his rear guard at a place called Calhoun, Georgia. We crowded them very closely. The next day Johnston had his advanced troops stop at Adairsville and build breastworks of logs and earth, and located themselves in the houses, while the main army passed through and formed ready for battle. We followed them right up, but we suddenly came to a halt. They were ready for us. Johnston managed his retreat with good generalship from Resaca. We could not budge them. We marched across the road into a field by the right flank, right in front, towards the rebels' left, when Col. MacArthur gave the command "By the left flank, charge." When I was in the act of executing the command I got a broadsider in the left jaw bone. The bullet struck me in the lower angle of the jaw, breaking the bone at that place, and coursed downwards, inside the collarbone, and lodged in the cavity of the chest. Dr. Hasse, our regimental surgeon, treated me on the battlefield. I remember he cut my accoutrements with his knife and left them on the ground, cut the string of my blanket, spread it out and laid me on it.

Our regiment advanced and was stubbornly resisted, but held their ground by inch until the rebels withdrew. A great many of our boys bit the dust that day. It was a very severe fight for the time it lasted, just a few hours. It was estimated that the loss was 500 killed and wounded. Such was rebel General Johnston's fighting tactics on a retreat. He punished his pursuers very severely. General John Newton had charge of our division in the absence of General Sheridan. It was thought at one time during the fight that our side would have to give way, and an order came from headquarters to the surgeons in the field to move their wounded a certain distance to the rear. There were four rebel bullets dropped on my blanket while I lay there. We moved to where there were a lot of small houses and a large mansion. In going along the turnpike road the rebel bullets and cannon balls came fast and lively. This was the trying moment. It was desperate, as I could plainly hear, and very well understood the situation. The brave boys began coming in wounded thick and fast, as the battle raged on. But at last victory was ours. The battle was won; but a high price was paid for it; the loss of life, limb, health and blood. I remember in going to the rear, as ordered, a Union captain was with us. He had his nose shot off, or all but a part of the skin near his forehead, which was holding it from falling. It was swinging on his face like the pendulum of a clock. The rebels sent a cannon ball down the road. As it passed by, this captain turned around, and, with much emphasis, said, "You rebel sons of guns, I hope you will get your belly full before night," and at that instant a rebel bullet took him right in the abdomen and went through his body. He fell dead where he spoke the words. We arrived at our new hospital off the battlefield. Dr. Hasse placed me in a chair on the porch and ran a probe down in my neck.

"Ah, Ford," he said, "the bullet has passed downwards; it is in your chest; perhaps I can find it," and I began to faint away. He pulled out his probe and turned around his canteen, placed it in my mouth and told me to take a swallow. I took hold of the canteen and held it until I had three good swallows.

The doctor took the canteen and said, "Do you think you can stand it now?"

"Yes, doctor, probe away now all you mind to." And he did, and said it was no use in punishing me. He could not locate the bullet, and even if he did, it could not be removed without loss of life; it may never injure me, but he could not tell now what the result might be in the future.

I was assigned to a place to lie down on the floor. I soon fell asleep, and when I awoke my neck, face and breast seemed to be one thickness. Well, I thought I would get up, but no, my head would not rise by my will. I thought if I just had somebody to lift my head for me I would be all right, when, seemingly by instinct, my right hand raised and caught myself by the hair of my head, and I was on my feet.

An order came to the surgeons to send the wounded to Chattanooga. All who were shot in the legs and not able to walk would be carried in ambulances to Resaca and there take the train for Chattanooga. I came under the order of able to walk, as the meaning of that term is applied in cases of emergency, where transportation is limited, as it was in that case. We struck out, a lot of us that had to walk, but soon commenced trudging along according to our strength, until there were hardly two together. Every stream I would cross I would dip my head in the water and then fill my old Kossuth hat full and put it on my head. Arriving at Calhoun early in the afternoon, I stopped at the first house. There were two rebel ladies standing on the porch looking at the wounded as they passed by. I was very weak and wanted some milk, as I could not eat or chew anything, my mouth being nearly closed. By a great many signs and mutterings I succeeded in getting one to understand what I wanted, but she said they had no milk; that there was a Union woman in the next block over there that had two or three cows and she most always had some milk.

"You got hit, did you?" she asked. "Well, we don't like to see you'uns get hurt, but we do like to see you'uns get licked. You'uns killed my true love when you went by here the other day. He stayed behind his command to bid me good-bye and to have a little talk, when you Yankees came onto him and three others of our boys. They ran into the brush down there," pointing in the direction that she wanted me to know, "and there you killed my true love."

I listened very attentively, with my eyes fixed on a picture that she wore on her breast. I recognized the picture and muttered out to her as best I could that if she thought so much of her true love she ought to see about it and have him buried. He was lying down there a little ways from the turnpike road, swelled up as big as a two hundred pounder.

The circumstances concerning my knowledge of this incident are: Those four rebels ran from the brush to a small log-house about fifteen or twenty rods from the road where we were marching, and were firing from their hiding place. A squad was sent out there and surrounded the little log-house. This true love escaped by jumping through the window, and was shot and killed. The other three were taken prisoners.

I made my way to the Union woman in the next block. I saw a dozen wounded men go into the house. Thinks I to myself, "There is no chance there for me to get any milk," but before I reached the house they came out again, and I went in. She was a fine, clever-looking woman, with three little girl children. I made known my wants.

"Yes," she said, "I have plenty of milk for you, although I have been refusing it all day; so many came together that the little I had would do them no good." At the same time she poured the milk out into a cooking utensil and placed it on the stove and said, "As you came alone I have plenty for you; and indeed you need it more than any one who has come in here to-day."

She broke some round crackers into the milk, inquired about my wound, said it smelled bad, took off the bandage, washed it and dressed it with new linen and threw my old bandages out doors. By this time my milk and crackers were cooked. As I could not chew or open my mouth to take in coarse food, she fixed it so it was thin, like gruel; cooled it sufficiently, spread a table cloth on part of the table where I sat, and I felt just ninety-nine per cent. better than when I first entered that house. Her cheerfulness and willingness to do good made me feel so much better that I could not express it by words. I drew that food through my teeth with such force that it did not take a very great length of time to put it where it was much needed for a nourishment.

I will say right here when you found a Union man or woman in the Southern States, you found them as loyal and as true as steel. I was now ready to go on my journey to Resaca. The train was to leave there at 8 o'clock. Before I left Adairsville hospital I changed a $5 bill and gave half of it to a comrade of mine, John Howard, who was shot in the elbow. Twenty-six pieces of bone were taken out of his elbow. Dr. Hasse wanted to cut it off, but Howard said he would rather die with it on than live with it off. The doctor thought possibly that he might save it. The weather was very warm. Gangrene set in. His arm was cut off three times, and the poor fellow, after a long season of suffering, went to the other shore. Changing the $5 bill, which was all the money I had, left me with two dollars and a half in fifty cent shinplasters, as we called that kind of money. In bidding good-bye to my good Union woman, with tears in my eyes I offered her all the money I had. She would not take any. She said it did her so much good to do something for a Union soldier that she only wished she could do more. I took her address and bade her good-bye. Her three little girls followed me out to the gate leading on the sidewalk, and I slipped fifty cents apiece in their little hands. I felt so much better, and my heart was so filled up with the kindness that I received from that good Union woman in the very heart of the Confederate States, that if I had had it I could have given those little ones one hundred dollars apiece as willingly as I gave them fifty cents each. That woman saved my life, for gangrene was beginning to show itself, and I never could have reached Resaca without that nourishment and the cleansing of my wound. I reached Resaca just as the train was pulling out, grabbed hold of the side door of the last box-car and the boys pulled me in while the train was moving quite fast.

It commenced raining very hard and the night was as dark as pitch. Our train jogged along at the rate such trains usually do. We came to an up-grade, when all at once there came a crash and a smash. I was in the hindmost end of the rear car and was jerked up to the front end in a shorter time than you could say Jack Robinson. A trainload of new recruits was coming to the front, the cars being full inside and many on top. The engineer should have stopped at the station and switched until the train with the wounded went by. He paid no attention to the signal and went right ahead to the top of a grade, where he pulled the throttle of his engine wide open and let her go. Jumping off his engine, he made his escape. He was a rebel, and took advantage of his first opportunity to apply his vengeance. It was a terrible sight to look at. Many of the wounded were killed and some of the new recruits and many were disabled. It took till late next day to get fixed up for our destination. There I lost my diary, with the address of that good Union woman that did so much for me at Calhoun, Georgia.

After I recruited up some, and others the same as myself, who were supposed not to be fit for duty within a certain time, we were sent farther north to make room for new-comers. I was sent to New Albany, Indiana, where I remained two weeks, when a general order was issued that all not fit for duty inside of sixty days should be sent to their respective state hospitals. An examination was made by the surgeon in charge, and I was sent to Madison, Wisconsin. After I was a few weeks in Madison I called on Governor J. T. Lewis in regard to my commission. It was then the tenth in order on file in his office, but he would give me one then and there. There were vacancies in my company. I refused to take it. There were others higher in rank than I, and I did not want to jump over them; and, in fact, we came home without a commissioned officer, an orderly sergeant in command of the company, John N. Keifer, who received his commission dated back, as captain, as brave a boy as ever lived to draw saber. Ed. Blake, a corporal in my company, carried a commission in his pocket that he received from the Governor, but never reported for duty as an officer. Such was the honor the old boys had for each other in rank.

I stayed in Madison about two months and could have had my discharge given me by Surgeon-General Swift, medical director of the Western Department, with headquarters at Milwaukee, but would not take it. I wanted to go back and take my chances of coming home with the rest of the boys. I had the use of my limbs all right and could shoot, but had to be very careful how I bit the cartridge. There were six pieces of bone taken from my left lower jaw, and it hurt very much to bite off the cartridge.

My memory now takes me back to my regiment, with which I was in several battles after my four months' absence on account of my wound. And now this brings me to the last battle of Nashville, December 15th and 16th, 1864. We fought the rebel General Hood, who had followed us from Franklin and fortified himself in our front, near Nashville. We marched out to them and made the attack. They held us back. We were relieved by a brigade of colored troops. While we were cooking something to eat the colored troops made a charge on the rebel works and got as far, or to a distance where the rebels had fallen trees towards us, as an obstruction to our advancement. There the colored brigade fired one volley and then lay down. The rebels peppered it to them so thick and fast, they even stood up on their breastworks and took aim at that black cloud, as they called them. We were marched down there again, in double-quick time, the rebels shouting and shooting and waving their hats like so many demons. When they saw us coming for them right through and over the colored troops and tree branches they ceased firing and had their arms stacked when we climbed their breastworks, took off their hats and surrendered, saying, "Hello, Jack; hello, Tom; hello, Jim. Say, Yanks, never send a black cloud to take our breastworks. We were retreating when we saw them coming. When some one said, 'It's a black cloud, boys; let's every man stand fast; never be taken prisoners or surrender to them darkies, or give them our breastworks while there is a man of us left alive.'"

And then we commenced shaking hands with each other. There were some of them who were nearly barefooted, with pants ripped nearly up to their knees; tall, fine-looking, good-hearted fellows, from Georgia. This ended the battles of the war, so far as we were concerned, and old Pap. Thomas drank the health of the old Army of the Cumberland. We stayed around Nashville for some time, got our discharge, and, on the 10th day of June, 1865, broke ranks in Milwaukee. I bought a suit of citizen's clothes for $85 that could be bought to-day for $25.

There was a strong Fenian movement in Milwaukee just about that time, with the object in view of taking Canada. I happened in to Melm's, a saloon where the new Pabst building now stands, if my memory serves me right, and I think it does. There was a big crowd of men in there talking war, Fenians and Canada, all feeling good. Of course, I had a say about the war and other topics of conversation that were sprung into discussion as well as anybody else had, and seemed to interest some of my hearers. They wanted me to get up on a round table near by. There were two or three rows of tables in there. I would not get up on the table. I was taken hold of and placed on the table. Well, I talked a little while, and then came down to war matters. I said the Battle of Stone River lasted seven days and it cost this government nine millions of dollars a day, and asked, "What would we do if we didn't have a government to back us? Do you think we could carry on a war by some one of us having a few dollars in our pockets? Foolish idea; that is your predicament, gentlemen." Of course, that was disparaging the movement, but I did not intend it for that particular purpose. I was simply telling the truth as well as I knew how, when somebody hit me. I jumped off the table, lost my hat in the row and never found it.

I went to Illinois to work as a farm hand for $1 a day for every day in the year, wet or dry, hail, rain or sunshine, board and washing free, and with what money I had saved up, bought a piece of land at twenty dollars per acre, with a mortgage of $1,500 on it, payable in gold coin, but it was paid off with the greenback dollar. I lived on that farm for twenty-six years and brought it to a very high state of cultivation. I sold it out seven years ago, at one hundred dollars per acre, the first $100 acre land that was ever sold in my township, and came to Milwaukee, the scene of my boyhood days. I have been a delegate to state and county conventions and held offices of trust in the township where I lived; but, commander and comrades, I can say to you, with candor, that I never saw an assembly of men that act more gentlemanly with each other, and that I felt more proud of, and that I felt more at home with than I do with the members of E. B. Wolcott Post.

PULPIT AND PRESS.

An Argument in Favor of the Power of the Press as Compared with that of the Clergy.

Delivered at Phenix School House, Towanda Township, Ill., February 8, 1877, by Thomas J. Ford.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Honorable Judges: In choosing a side on the question before you I am influenced by nothing save conviction, and, in saying what little I do, to show that the press has more influence than the pulpit, I am not guided by a desire to detract from the merits of the pulpit, but simply by a wish to have the press estimated at its proper value. In discussing the question we must seek effects, and, by comparing them, arrive at a correct decision. And right here I wish, honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen, that you would remember that all examples of times past are not fair ones. When we consider that preaching has been practiced from the earliest ages, even from before the time of Christ, the great Preacher, down through the Middle Ages, when there was no such thing as printing even, and that printing itself was invented as late as 1441, while the press, as we now know it, is a product of the latter part of the present century, all examples of the power of the pulpit, therefore, that are taken from olden times are unfair, and the question must be considered as it is framed, "Which has the most influence at the present time?" And even now your decision must be arrived at by cool, patient investigation, and you must set down Bible banging and pulpit shouting at their proper worth and estimate the influence of the press, which acts like the still small voice of conscience, at its real value; you must bring scales, more delicate than Fairbanks cattle scales, and be prepared to weigh small pigs one by one as carefully as your Christmas beeves, for you may be assured if we bring enough of them the sum of their weights will be greater than that of the monster cattle. Here is where the advocates of the pulpit have the advantage. Anyone can see the effect of the conversion of a sinner or the result of a revival, but to measure the silent influence of the paper requires greater judgment. The most casual observer can see the dust of the threshing machine, but the man must be right there who sees the number of bushels threshed. So, gentlemen, if the sum of all the influence of the press outweighs the influence of the pulpit, then must you decide for the press.

They may point you to revival preaching and show you how Moody converts his thousands; but you must consider how much he is helped by Sankey and the daily papers that create a kind of spiritual atmosphere about him, because a force acts at an instant of time. You must not infer that its effect is greater than if it acts through ages. Constant dropping wears the rock, and mechanics teaches us that a force creates the same result, whether acting in a moment or at length. You may burn a cord of wood in the open air, but because its blaze is seen the farthest you must not infer that it has a greater effect than if burned in the furnace that makes the steam that grinds your daily bread. In England, where the pulpit has an influence in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, they speak of the third estate of the kingdom, and enumerate those estates or classes of men, such as the lawyers, the Parliament, the clergy, the crown. They call the houses of Parliament the two estates, and the third is not the clergy or even the crown, but the press. There the whole kingdom bows before the utterances of the London Times, which is called the Thunderer. The papers there influence finance, legislation and the policy of the government. The press there is recognized as having more influence than the pulpit or the clergy, and, why? Go with me to our own legislature, and you will see the reason, and you will see also how much the press has to do with the laws that govern us. You will see before each member his pile of newspapers, and can notice how eagerly he scans the columns to see words of commendation or condemnation. You can see how much he is influenced by his little home papers in his votes and speeches. Some years ago the financial editor of the London Times was indicted and removed from his position because he wrote articles that influenced the money markets. It shook the money centers when corruption was shown in a newspaper editor, but it scarcely causes a ripple of excitement when a minister is corrupt. The church itself concedes the power of the press and supports them accordingly. In simple numbers it is plain that the papers have the greatest power.

If you consider how each man's thoughts and actions are controlled by what he reads you must say that the influence of the press is greater than the pulpit. It has been well said that the pen is mightier than the sword, and it might be added or the pulpit either.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is another argument worthy of your attention, and it is a well-settled fact that the eye assists the mind in remembering anything. Can you say that the words of the preacher have the same effect on the memory as the printed page? Test it yourself, gentlemen; let any one read a book aloud and see who has the freshest recollection of the subject--he who reads it or he who simply hears it read. I think that not even the affirmative will contend that the hearer understands the matter as well as the reader, and, this point conceded, it must follow that as the press has the greatest audience it has more influence. More money is spent for papers than for preachers. Now, ladies and gentlemen and honorable judges, in the argument of this, as in the discussion of all other questions, we can arrive at no final decision. It is not like telling which of two small objects weighs the most, but as though you were to attempt to tell which of two sections of land had the most black soil in it. Each one must at least decide for himself, and yet there are some clear and strong facts from which we can form a judgment, and from those facts that I have given you I am constrained to say that the press has more influence than the pulpit. Look how universal is the force that the press exerts from the highest to the lowest far and wide. Where is the family in McLean County that does not see and read the weekly paper? There is no one here who cannot tell of scores of families that scarcely ever see the inside of church. What was it that passed the pension bill? Nothing but the united voice of the press speaking the will of the people educated by the press. Go into Congress or any of your legislatures and you will see papers read and quoted; and the papers actually dictate legislation. Look at the amount invested in newspapers and in churches in the United States. It is fixed by the last census at three hundred and fifty millions of dollars. And the amount paid to preachers will run it up to five hundred millions invested directly for the pulpit, and this, too, is aside from the amount invested in seminaries. The amount invested in newspapers does not reach half this sum, yet the number of people reached by the papers is immensely greater than that reached by the pulpit. Let us come down to familiar instances. The Pantagraph, for instance, has a circulation of 13,700 papers per week. Each paper is read by five persons and you have an audience of sixty-eight thousand persons reached every week by the Bloomington Pantagraph. The sum invested in the First Methodist Church is more than is invested in The Pantagraph, but it would be idle to say the influence exerted by the preacher in that church is equal to the influence exerted by The Pantagraph. Each issue of the daily contains as much and each issue of the weekly four times as much as he gives to his hearers each Sunday. And so it is all over the land. Clearly, then, for the money invested the press has the greatest influence. Suppose as much money were invested in papers as there is in churches. Would not the effects be wonderful? What is printed in the papers may be read time and again, what is uttered from the pulpit may be heard only once, and then lost forever. It is not reasonable to suppose that the pulpit has as much influence as the press. What is it that influences legislation, the pulpit or the press? Undoubtedly the press. Did you ever hear of a congressman or legislator quoting a preacher in support of a measure? Never. Yet the law is something that affects each individual. Did you ever hear of the pulpit controlling the market? Never. Yet this is what the press is doing daily. What was it that brought the rebellion upon us? Nothing but the continual howling of the Southern press. In war, in peace, in money matters, in everything and everywhere, the press has the greatest influence. Educate by the press, bring pure, good, sound papers into your family, and be assured you are throwing around them the greatest protection. Elevate the standard of the press, and may there always be a fearless, independent press in our land that will not hesitate to apply the goad to those in high places.

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention.

THAT LEXINGTON IMPUDENCE.

An Arraignment of the Democratic Party on Account of its Platform During the Garfield Campaign.

Written on a Bed of Sickness by Thomas J. Ford, and Published in the Newspapers of Bloomington, Ill., November, 1880.

To the Editor: In your account of the Democratic rally at Lexington I noticed that mention is made of the delegation from Merna carrying a banner with the inscription "Irish of Merna all for Hancock." I assume the authority to say that the "Irish of Merna are not all for Hancock," although the Democratic speakers of Bloomington have made several speeches at Merna, telling what distress the country is now in under the bad management of the Republican party.

About the surplus. They say that there are one hundred millions of dollars in the United States treasury, and bring that in as an act of stealing from the people. Where is the nation, where is the state, county or town, where is the church, the school or one of the different societies that does not boast of it when they have money in their treasury? Should Democracy get control I fear the money would not be in the treasury very long. How much money was in the treasury when Buchanan and his Democratic cabinet left the White House and turned over this government to the Republican party, all tattered and torn and nearly in a state of insurrection?

Should the Democratic party get into power this fall the reins of this government will be peaceably placed in their hands, with the ship of state sailing in a clear channel. About the tariff. The Democratic speakers tell their audience that boots and shoes are too high, and that a change in the administration will be the adoption of free trade, which will compel the manufacturers of this country to bring down their prices or close up business. The Republican party don't want to close up the manufacturing business of this country by adopting any such measures, for England can undersell any other nation on the globe. Her labor costs little or nothing, and I believe that I know that the majority of the people of the United States do not want to give England a chance to bring her old store goods and land them on our shores free from tariff for the purpose of under-selling our own tradesmen.

The effect on Ireland. In or about the year 1800 Ireland was one of the most prosperous manufacturing countries in Europe. She continued such until about the year 1820, when England succeeded in persuading the Irish Parliament to adopt the free-trade system. As soon as that was accomplished, England unloaded her cargoes of goods free from tariff on Ireland's shores, and down went Ireland's manufacturing establishments. Look at the condition in which the Democratic party left this country in 1860-61. It took fifty bushels of good sound corn (not soft whisky corn) delivered in Bloomington to buy a pair of $5 boots; farm hands husked corn for 50 cents a day; thousands of farms were under mortgage; there was no money to pay with; the situation was terrible in the extreme until the Republican party, fully competent to meet the emergency, issued the greenback dollar that was welcomed by the laborer and the farmer and drove out the Democratic stump-tail currency, but was despised by the capitalists, who had their money loaned on farms and on other real estate on mortgages drawn payable in gold coin. They refused to take the greenback for a dollar, but the Republican party said this is a dollar and you must take it, which filled with joy the hearts of many a father, wife and mother. Men that I know, and many of them who had very close picking to live under the Democratic administration, are now, by industry, close attention to business, and with the Republican flag of freedom floating over their heads, marching along unmolested in their business, yes, protected in their industries and enterprises until they are now wealthy. If they had to pay off their mortgages in gold coin money a poor man would have lost his home, for it took about three dollars in greenbacks to buy one gold dollar. I am one of the many that once went to pay off a mortgage of that kind, the amount being five hundred and fifty dollars, including interest, due to a well-known capitalist of Bloomington. I tendered the money to him in greenbacks. He said, "No, sir, I want about sixteen hundred dollars of them things or five hundred and fifty in gold." I insisted that he should take the greenbacks. He said he would see his attorney, George O. Robinson, a well-known lawyer of Bloomington, and after so doing he accepted my money and released the mortgage. And this is only one instance in thousands of such cases all over the United States. When the Southern majority of the Democratic party rebelled against the Union they took what gold they could get hold of to Richmond and left us but very little to meet our obligations. And now, after twenty years of Republican administration, faithful and true to their trust, and to the people of all sections and classes, they, by economy and good management, have succeeded in being able to place in the treasury of the United States the sum of over four hundred millions of gold dollars to the credit of the people of the United States, ready when called upon to be paid out to the just claimant. That is the way every honest man meets his just debts. He always has it ready if he possibly can. There are a great many first voters and other young men that, of course, have no personal knowledge of how a Democratic administration would suit them, because they have had no experience with the party. They have never seen the party in control of the government. If they would look back just as far as they can remember and notice the progress this country has made for the last twenty years they must say that the Republican administration was good, was a great deal better than good, taking into consideration the deplorable condition that the Democratic administration had left it in: Shooting down loyal men in the South, tearing the Stars and Stripes, the flag of this country, into pieces and trampling it under their feet, while the riotous Democrats of the North formed into howling mobs against the Federal Government, and by so doing gave the rebel cause more encouragement than if they were in the rebel ranks fighting for the rebel cause. These are incidents in the history of the Democratic party; with all these facts in view and facts that they know to be true, they have the cheek every four years to come to the front and claim that they are the party that should hold the reins of this government. It remains for the voters of the United States to answer at the coming election.

Now, Mr. Editor, in answer to that false inscription displayed at Lexington. I have been ill in bed for seven weeks, but am now able to be out-doors, and if I am alive on election day I will be one of the many Irishmen of Merna, Towanda Township, McLean County, Illinois, that will vote for Garfield and Arthur, for they are the nominees of the party that has always proved itself true to the people and the nation and the nation's credit. The time has not yet arrived when a change of administration would be best for the public good, and the voters of the United States will see to it at the coming election that the reins of this government will be held and guided by its friends and not by its enemies.

SHOULD EDUCATION BE COMPULSORY?

Why a Liberal Allowance Should be Made for our Schools, while Leaving Attendance Optional.

Debate at Smith Grove (Illinois) School-House, February 4, 1878, Participated in by Thomas J. Ford.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Honorable Judges: The question before you, "Should Education Be Compulsory?" is a question of much importance, both to the citizen and the public. To insist that every child in Illinois should attend school a certain number of years would require that much of our legislation and many of our customs should be changed. We can safely say that any interference with a man's private affairs is contrary to the spirit of our American institutions, and for this reason any attempt to introduce an argument from the practice in Europe is not a good one, for the reason that man has been more completely governed in the Old World. We must look at the case as it will affect our own condition, and not as it affects others. It is illogical for me to say to my neighbor, have your child educated, and he must be, although you are in bed sick and that child is your only support. Only the greatest reasons will justify that interference with the rights of the individual citizen. Every parent is naturally constituted the guardian of his children, and is most capable to tell what is for their benefit. Every father by nature seeks the welfare of his children, and any attempt by law to make him do it is apt to prove useless. But we are met with the argument that the good of the state requires that each citizen be educated. Granted, but let the state furnish facilities for education, and there its duty stops. The last speaker told us that ignorance is the cause of crime and that most of our jails and prisons are filled with ignorant and uneducated people. You cannot prove this to be true, for it is utterly exploded by facts. The inmates of our jails and prisons are in the majority educated people. You cannot say that each one of the inmates of our jails and prisons has no education any more than you can say that ignorance is the cause of crime, for most of the expert criminals that are in our jails and prisons are educated men. Herbert Spencer, one of the best Social Science philosophers living, has shown this to be true, and has shown that the educated criminal can stare you out of countenance every day in the week. You can no more prove that ignorance is a cause of crime than the neglect to use soap is a cause. The truth is, deviltry is born in a man, and you cannot educate it out of him one time in a hundred. You must look for a better argument, for that is utterly exploded by facts. Should education be compulsory, then, for the benefit of the child? The welfare of posterity is a great question and worthy of your consideration. But we can safely assume that in this day and country everyone that wants an education can get it; and when you come right down to the facts in the case, the man who is educated is the man who thirsts for knowledge. All the cramming you can give will not make an educated man. Many a man who has never been inside of a school-house is better educated than some who have gone through college and hold diplomas. But the minute you say that the youth of the land must be educated, you involve yourself in absurdity. You cannot logically say that he must go to school till he is fourteen years old, as the law is in Germany, for it is clear to all that some will learn much more in that time than others. Some may be sick so as not to be able to keep up with their grades. If education should be compulsory then it is manifest that you should have a certain amount. For instance, the pupil should understand the common school learning, to make a good citizen under the compulsory law; he should understand the constitution of his state and the United States and the laws and spirit of American institutions. He should understand the laws of health, so as to preserve his own life and the life of others. Church people might insist that the welfare of the state and the individual demands that he understand how to preach. Here you have the student that is through our public schools, a lawyer, a doctor and a preacher, or three learned men rolled into one. It would take a pretty good lifetime to make a complete citizen under the law of compulsory education. You may say that what I propose is an absurdity, but it is an absurdity into which your own argument leads you; it is the natural conclusion of your own logic. The fact is, that the same reasoning that will justify compulsory education will justify a state church and compulsory attendance at such church. In both cases the good of the citizen and the safety of the state are the objects sought, and both are illogical, un-American and tyrannical in their tendencies. If you have compulsory education who shall say how far it shall go--you have no more right to say than I have. Now, I want you to understand that I am not opposed to general, universal education. I am in favor of it, but to compel it is improper and unjust. By adopting compulsory education you take away the support of the widow, even if she be in bed sick with her bony fingers unable to support herself. Adopt compulsory education then and you begin to rob the citizen of his liberty. If you can say how much or whether he shall be educated, then you can say what she shall eat and wear. All arguments for compulsory education are dangerous to individual liberty, and for these reasons, while I am in favor of liberal and general education, I am utterly opposed to its being compulsory.

WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN.

The Memory of the Father of His Country More Lasting than that of the Defender of Liberty.

Discussion at Phenix School House, Towanda Township, McLean County, Ill., February 12, 1878. Affirmative taken by Thomas J. Ford, in whose favor the judges awarded their decision.

Ladies and Gentlemen and Honorable Judges: The question before us is, "Resolved, That George Washington has done more for the American people than Abraham Lincoln." My feelings for Abraham Lincoln will not allow me to say anything that would have a tendency to deprive him of the merits which he deserves.

Abraham Lincoln was a good, honest old gentleman, but my heart is with George Washington, the Father of this country, who was "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Whatever I shall say on the subject before you, I will say, not from a desire to win the decision of the judges, but from a sincere belief of the truth of the resolution, that Washington has done more for the American people than Lincoln. Whatever I say will be without malice toward Abraham Lincoln, but with greater reverence for George Washington, for, in common with all citizens of the State of Illinois, I admire the merits of the grandest man Illinois ever furnished; and right here, honorable judges, I want to ask you to cast aside that prejudice that must be in the heart of every resident of this state. Let your mind be as equal between the two men as a delicate balance, for unless it is you cannot reach a valid conclusion and whatever either side would say would be useless.

Another thing. You must forget the tragic end of Lincoln's life to arrive at a correct decision, for that martyrized him and gave him a martyr's fame and a martyr's crown, and threw a hallowed glamour over every previous act of his life. You must separate what he actually accomplished from the stage effects surrounding what he did. The play that is read to you in the parlor leaves no such impression on your mind as the same play presented to you on the stage with fine scenery and blue and red lights; the one is a kind of a dream, the other a living actuality. So with the two great men whose works we are discussing to-night, the history of one is a misty recollection of the past, the history of the other some of us helped to make. I have for one, and have reason to sigh for the blood that I lost and the pain that I endure at times. One of the men we have never seen; the other some of us have clasped by the hand. Washington lived nearly a thousand miles from here, and nearly a hundred years ago. Lincoln lived within a few hours' journey, and but a few years ago. Washington lived in a time when the steam printing press, the daily papers and the telegraph were not dreamed of, while the great facilities for gathering news have made us familiar with every incident in Lincoln's life. We must divest ourselves of the unconscious prejudice we possess from our more intimate acquaintance with Lincoln. Future generations must and will form the correct estimate between the two men; future generations will see the difference between the man who hewed out a new road in the forest and the one who merely kept it in repair. Be assured, ladies and gentlemen, they will give palm to the pioneer. In the one case you see a man at the head of an army, sparse in numbers, ill armed, poorly fed and clothed and confronted by the army of the strongest nation on earth. George Washington was at the head of an army whose soldiers too often sighed after the flesh-pots of their homes and firesides that they had left, an army whose generals were tempted by British gold and English honors, an army only kept together by the faith, enthusiasm and moral courage of its leader. And on the other hand you see Abraham Lincoln at the head of a nation, the commander-in-chief, by virtue of his office, of an army far outnumbering that of the Rebellion, with a land full of plenty and wealth, with a people enthusiastic in the defense of their homes and cherished institutions. Washington had supplies grudgingly voted him by the factious Continental Congress, while Lincoln had a treasury filled with funds supplied to overflowing by a willing people and a united Congress.

Washington lived in a land of poverty; Lincoln lived in a land of wealth. Washington was beset by obstacles, danger, poverty and the uncertainty attending all new ventures, while Lincoln, though confronted by dangers, merely kept the ship of state running in the same channel. Washington was the Columbus who discovered the new nation, who built, manned and navigated a new ship of state over an unknown sea, while Lincoln was merely the captain of the onward steamer, which is as certain of reaching its post as we are of going to Bloomington when we start in times when the roads are better than they are now.

Washington was the creator, Lincoln merely the engineer who kept the machine running. If Lincoln deserves the laurel wreath, Washington deserves the crown of honor.

AS TO PENSIONS.

Veterans of the Late War Should be Rewarded, but the Pension List Should not be Published.

A Letter Addressed to the Editor of the Evening Wisconsin, Milwaukee, by Thomas J. Ford, December 13, 1897.

Editor Wisconsin: The statement in your article on publishing the pension list that "the influence of the Loyal Legion and of many members of the Grand Army of the Republic is said to be back of the measure," may or may not be true. But it is true that there seems to be considerable agitation in the minds of many as to the propriety of granting pensions to those who periled their lives and lost their health and limb and received wounds that shadow the light and intellect, that otherwise might have shone forth in its splendor and glory. The loss of a man's health, whether it be caused by wounds or other disabilities, is a very sad affair to the good soldier, who bears his sufferings in quiet; and, like everything else, the older the soldiers get the more reason they have to complain, and the less sympathy there is for them. The fact is, Mr. Editor, every soldier that went through active field service ought to have a pension. There is not one man in a thousand in that class of soldiery but is physically disabled in some way or other.

Think of it--an army wading rivers up to their breast in water at sundown in the months of December and January, and lying down in their wet clothes on the bare ground, with an allowance of one-quarter rations, already eaten up the day before! Think of the Battle of Chickamauga, when, hemmed in in the Valley of Chattanooga, for two months and four days with railroad and river communications cut off by rebel forces, men forced by hunger ate horses and mules that had actually died for the want of food. Think of the many good men and soldiers that lost their health in rebel prisons. And then ask yourself if it is right to post them up in printed form for the public gaze and the calumny of men who would rather sympathize with a rebel than to give a Union soldier a pension. Look at the generous pension bill passed some few years ago under a Democratic administration--a sweeping pension bill giving every soldier that served in the Mexican war a pension of twelve dollars a month--no proof required only proof of service; no examining board--just send in your discharge with proof that you are the man, and you got your pension without further trouble. But to please the calamity-howlers and the rebel cause sympathizers you must post your good men and true that saved your country for you. They must be posted up for public inspection. You say the pensions are paid by taxation. I pay a few dollars taxes. I never saw anything in my receipt for pension taxes. Your Washington correspondent says a pension is a badge of honor. It ain't much honor for a soldier to get a pension and have his name published to be unjustly criticised by men who have no knowledge of the fact of his being worthy to receive a pension or not. With my experience in getting a pension I don't see how there could be one single impostor on the pension rolls; and if there is it is the duty of the government to hunt them up and prosecute them for falsifying, forgery and perjury, as any citizen should be prosecuted for such a crime, and not be harassing and annoying your good old boys who wore the blue to save this country and protect our country's flag for you.

I heard Paul Vandervoort, ex-Commander-in-Chief of the G. A. R., say that the pension pay roll was the purest pay roll in the United States to-day, and I believe him, and I also believe that they got the least pay for the work done of any men that were ever or are now in the United States employment. And now they must be posted up because they get a few dollars pension.

Let Congress hunt up the deficiency in other branches of government business and employes and not be tantalizing the old warriors with publishing documents. Be more liberal with the pensions and if you want to economize cut off 10 per cent. of the big salaries of all our high officials, and if you do that you will come more in line with justice and honor than by publishing the pension list. Yours,

THOMAS J. FORD.

DEPARTURE OF THOMAS J. FORD.

The Well-Known Farmer and Politician will Make Milwaukee His Home.

From the Bloomington Bulletin, December 21st, 1891.