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Mr. Morton reported the resolution from the committee on foreign affairs to appoint commissioners and have the United States well represented at both the Australian exhibitions.

He also introduced a bill to make cable telegraphy free with respect to equal rights for all about landing cables on our coasts, and pursuant to that bill additional cables were soon put down, so that for the past year or two cable rates to Europe have been a New York shilling a word instead of four English shillings a word.

In one of his addresses before his constituency Mr. Morton used the following language:

"Republican financial policy, despite Democratic abuse, has achieved the successful resumption of specie payments and restored confidence and brought renewed prosperity throughout the land, reduced the national interest-bearing debt from twenty-four hundred millions in 1865 to eighteen hundred millions, and the annual interest charge from one hundred and fifty-one millions to eighty-four millions. Will the Democrats of the North, who stood by Abraham Lincoln and the army of the Union, under the heroic leadership of Grant, now consent to place the control of the national government in the hands of the men who sought its destruction? Will they support the financial policy of the Democratic party, controlled by a solid South? I believe not. Let the Democrats and Republicans of New York unite

once more and declare in loud tones on the fourth of November that the Republic of the United States is a nation and not a confederacy of States; that every citizen of the United States shall have a free vote, and that the honor and good faith of the republic shall be held sacred for all time."

Mr. Morton introduced bills in Congress to facilitate the negotiation of bills of lading, to relieve the sugar refiners from a dubious standard of color as the sole basis of dutiable value, and many other measures.

He advocated the appropriation of twenty thousand dollars to make the fine exhibit of American fish and fisheries at Berlin, where the Americans captured the main prize. This speech was replete with figures on the fishery question. The rapid propagation of fish in American rivers and bays and their consequent cheapening, especially to the people of the interior, are largely due to Mr. Morton's efforts in Congress.

The regulation and purification of the foreign immigrant system was of Mr. Morton's moving in Congress, and hence at the present day the government returns to the countries guilty of the inhumanity of shipping them to us, the infirm paupers, criminals and idiots who were formerly turned into the body of American citizenship.

Among the numerous newspaper bits bearing upon the record of Mr. Morton I find that when five hundred mechanics on the big hotel at Rock

away, Long Beach, were unable to get their wages and their families were absolutely without bread, the new receiver of the property stated the case to Mr. Morton, who drew his check for the relief of those mechanics, buying the certificates at par without discount, though he probably felt that they might be so much moonshine. Mr. Drexel had an equal part in this generosity.

MAN OF PEACE.

Coincident with Mr. Morton's second marriage the newspaper files show that he was before the Committee of Ways and Means in the early part of 1873, making a statement on the subject of the new funding bill and of the syndicate to impress the conviction that the 6 per cent. bonds could be funded at 5 per cent.

The first syndicate, that of 1871, omitted the Drexels, the Barings, J. S. Morgan & Co. and Morton, Bliss & Co. These firms came into the second negotiation, with a proposition to take at least one hundred million dollars of the new bonds. Ultimately, the several bankers, old and new, harmoniously took the whole three hundred millions.

It was this low funding of our bonds in 1873 which prepared the way for Mr. Sherman to resume specie payments a few years afterward.

As a prominent member of the Union League Club, Mr. Morton was one of the signers of the

majority report at the time of the Louisiana interference by the administration. A frantic attempt had been made at that time to disparage General Grant, and the club was being pressed by certain of the papers to formulate such hostility, of which the Republican party was constantly the object of persecution from within. The majority report expressed the view that:

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Military interference with the organization of any body of men being or claiming to be entitled to exercise the legislative sovereignty of such a State is most dangerous to republican institutions. While we thus condemn the principle of military interference in the affairs of the State, it is due to truth and justice to say that no evidence appears of the action on the part of officers in command in Louisiana to favor either one or the other of the contesting political parties, or to interfere for any purpose other than to restrain physical violence and preserve the peace; and that the people of the United States owe a debt of respect and gratitude to Lieutenant-General Sheridan for his great services during the Rebellion, to balance and cancel a much more serious fault than any he may have committed while performing duties of great delicacy at a distance from the Commander-in-Chief and his constitutional advisers, and in the face of persons and interests whom but lately he had met in a state of war and been compelled to conquer as enemies."

The sequel proves all things. In June, when Mr. Morton was placed on the Republican ticket for Vice-President, General Sheridan was the national invalid, having had the endorsements of the political conventions of both parties during the present year without a dissenting voice. As General Grant, who was so often traduced and the endeavor made to segregate him from the public support, passed to his tomb amid universal lamentations, so the death of his trusted and chosen friend in August has evoked equal expression of the nation's loss.

The New York World, of April 12, 1878, said: "Secretary Sherman yesterday afternoon succeeded in accomplishing the object of his present visit to New York, and arranged for the disposal of $50,000,000 bonds, from which sale he is of the opinion that he will obtain enough gold to carry out his scheme of resumption on the 1st of January, 1879. The last of a number of conferences that the Secretary has had with bankers and bank officers relative to this matter was held at the Sub-Treasury yesterday."

It appears that there were about half a dozen callers upon the Secretary that day, and at the conclusion of the interview the agreement was published. Ten million dollars were at once to be put up and during the rest of the year five million dollars per month. The new bonds, bearing 41⁄2 per cent. interest, were sold at par and ac

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