EDITOR TIDINGS:--The following is submitted as a matter of general and local interest:
    In pursuance of the advice, and at the earnest solicitation of Gen. John F. Miller, of Klamath County, who has been recognized as a wise counselor upon public affairs in Oregon for the last thirty years, Hon. E. L. Applegate has tendered his services to the governor of the state as a commissioner of railroads. This is done under the apprehension that it is the purpose of the governor to appoint one of the commissioners in Southern Oregon, a purpose which would be gratefully appreciated and unanimously endorsed by the people of all parties in this section of the state. This move on the part of Applegate is seconded on the part of the people here in the following recommendation:
    To His Excellency, Sylvester Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon:
    Understanding that it is your intention to appoint one of the railroad commissioners from Southern Oregon, a purpose we greatly approve, we, the undersigned, citizens of Ashland and vicinity, would most respectfully recommend Hon. E. L. Applegate as a person eminently qualified for that office.
    This document is signed by about one hundred and fifty citizens of this city and vicinity, representing every business and industrial enterprise and occupation in this country, carrying practically with these names every store, mill, office, shop and manufacturing establishment in and about this city. His endorsement here for that important position is essentially unanimous.
    The fact is the General is popular in this country, both with the Republicans and Democrats. A couple of years ago, for instance, when he ran for prosecuting attorney in this district, this county and Josephine gave him a handsome majority notwithstanding the usually relied upon Democratic majorities of two or three hundred. But we are told that this popularity is founded far back upon an old tradition among the old pioneers, to the days when the General was a soldier in the service of the United States, having volunteered into the service to come to the defense of this country. That one awful stormy night, of rain, wind and lightning, the worst ever experienced in this country in the memory of white people, he performed a brave and heroic service that may have averted a great disaster to the army upon which the safety of the settlements wholly depended. There has been for years a standing promise on the part of the General that at some pioneer reunion he would get up and narrate this traditional episode for the entertainment of those who take an interest in pioneer reminiscences. But the incident was appreciated by the officers at the time; and by the instance of Gen. Lane, who was then the Delegate to Congress from Oregon, seconded by the sanction of Maj. Alvord and Col. Hooker of the U.S. Army, Applegate was tendered a commission in the army, as his reward. Yet, let this be as it may, over and above it all, there is a firm conviction upon the part of the people that by natural ability and acquired knowledge Gen. Applegate is just the man for a railroad commissioner.
Ashland Tidings, March 25, 1887, page 3  If anyone out there knows what Lish did that "awful stormy night," please let me know.


    The following abstract is from notes taken by the Tidings reporter during the delivery of the oration. Gen. Applegate spoke in substance as follows:
    Ladies and Gentlemen. I come before you today at the invitation of your committee to attempt the delivery of an extemporaneous address. In doing so I am aware that I violate a custom, a habit which has almost reached the point of inviolability, and yet people say they prefer extemporaneous speaking. To argue or advocate a matter in which specific questions and issues are involved is far less difficult than to make a Fourth of July speech extemporaneously--you all understand that--and to attempt to speak thus on this day I consider the highest possible compliment to any audience--so largely does the success of an oration of this kind depend upon the character of the audience. If the speaker sees intelligence, sympathy and comprehension, it assists and stimulates him.
    When the farmer has not time to regularly prepare his fields for seeding, he is compelled to harvest a volunteer crop. Today I go out into the field to mow a volunteer crop. Sometimes it happens that a volunteer crop is the best crop we have. Let us hope for a fair yield this time. The field which spreads out before me is so extensive that I am able to cut only a part of the crop, and will therefore mow about and across where the grass is the best.
    To understand and fully appreciate that great event--the birth of American liberty in the Declaration of Independence--we must consider the condition of the world at that time. From time to time, since the earlier ages, the best part of our race had attempted to establish a republican form of government--a government founded in justice and equity. From time to time a people, living on an island or in some partially isolated region, would attempt to form a government based thus upon the justness of the case, but the monarchs and despots about them, recognizing their mutual danger from the encouragement of liberty, political and mental, would combine and crush out the republic. This is the record of history, and this is the condition of affairs in the old world today. Great Britain desired and determined to make America a servant to minister to her business interests. The colonies might dig the iron ore from the ground and smelt it into pigs, but were forbidden by strict laws to take any steps whatever toward manufacturing it into the many articles needed here--no machinery whatever, not even a trip-hammer could be erected, or used upon the iron. The same was true of wool--they might grow it for export, but dare not manufacture even their own hats. The design was to keep the country tributary to Great Britain. The vigorous and ambitious sons of the New World saw they could never avail themselves of the boundless opportunities and resources spread before them, hampered as they were--and the result of their restless citing was the Declaration of Independence, which embodies the vital principles of liberty, civil and religious. These are the solemn auspices under which the Declaration of Independence was made. The sequences of war, sacrifices, doubt, suspense and final triumph are circumstances familiar to every American boy and girl. It is a historic fact that while this momentous struggle was in progress, the lovers of liberty throughout the world were looking on with profound interest, and the discontent became so great in Europe that England was largely influenced by its menace in her determination to acknowledge the independence of the colonies, which she did, Sept. 3, 1783.
    Then comes the adoption of the national idea--the circumstances of which every American citizen should carefully consider and fully comprehend. When the independence of the colonies was recognized they were the "Confederate States of America"--a league or confederation modeled upon that of the Achaean League--the government of the Athenians. This answered admirably for purposes of mutual assistance and protection during the war, but after a brief trial it was discovered to be wholly inadequate to carrying forward the business of government in time of peace. Thus did the Greek government fail after the necessities of war declined and the test of peace came. The Romans had the example of the Greeks as a guide six hundred years afterward, and, improving upon the original design of democracy, modeled the Roman Republic which endured for solid centuries with a power and success unequaled in the world. Our forefathers early saw the confederacy was a failure and wisely determined to establish a government on the constitutional basis--the republican mode.
    After the new government--the United States of America--got under way, the first thing to produce a jar in the smoothness of its progress was the development of the phenomenal demagogue. The demagogue is one of the universal phenomena of government throughout the world. He made it impossible to maintain the Grecian democracy and finally destroyed the Roman republic. He is powerful always in proportion to the ignorance of the people--and the success of a republic depends upon the intelligence of its citizens. This is our hope in America. When the United States began their new government with Washington in the chair, assessments were necessary to meet the expenses. Whiskey was deemed a fit subject for taxation, and here the demagogue saw his opportunity to make a successful attack on the government. He stimulated and sided with the discontent--made the best use of it to get votes--and openly advocated revolt, insurrection, rebellion. But Washington was President. He had been in the field seven years, and couldn't afford to sit in the executive chair and fumble over the Constitution to see if he couldn't find that he had no power to put down rebellion. He promptly sent Gen. Lee with his battalions and wiped the rebellion out. [The victories and triumphs of the American flag upon the high seas in defense of the rights and liberties of the young republic, against interference and attacks by British and French were here sketched with attending circumstances; the punishment of the pirates of Algiers and Tripoli was recalled, and the speaker eloquently characterized the glory won by the Flag upon the classic waters of the Mediterranean--the scene of the historic contests of the Carthaginians and Romans.] He said:
    It was glory enough for the stars and stripes to float triumphant over this classic sea, but more awaited it. When the American commander sent an army a thousand miles up the valley of the Nile to find the legitimate king of Algiers and seat him upon the throne--there were Arabs, Mahomedans and descendants of the ancient Greeks marching and fighting under the American flag--something worthy of our pride--that our banner led victorious the people of historic valor in the old world.
    In 1812 we find the history of our government encountering the most sinister and villainous thrust of which malevolence is capable. Suppose a thrifty farmer has 40 acres of choice land well cultivated, clean and in perfect order, with fences high enough and strong enough to keep out the aggressor and trespasser. The meanest and most diabolical act that an enemy could do would be to sneak up and throw villainous seed over the fence--cockle and cheat--which would only thrive by the cultivation of every effort made by the farmer to eradicate it. England and France couldn't break the fences of the young republic, and England crept up and threw a handful of cockle--free trade cockle--the direct logic of which was that the United States had no right to enforce its tariff laws. That this diabolical act is properly charged against Great Britain there is no room to question. Clay, Webster, Jackson, Calhoun, said these things were cultivated by paid minions of Great Britain. Soon the poisonous seed blossoms. South Carolina wakens from a Rip Van Winkle sleep of thirty years--thinks the confederacy is still in existence--doesn't like the tariff laws, and says she will nullify them; will nullify the compact of the confederacy. She will paralyze 'em, she will. She concludes that this will stop the government of the United States and just end things right there. And all the demagogues began howling like dervishes about this "compact" that had been set aside 30 years before. They got office by it, too, the demagogues. They even got the offices when they howled for the whiskey rebellion. They get what they are after nearly every time. But they didn't wreck the government. There was a brave man--a sensible man--in the executive chair. The hero of New Orleans was President of the United States. He said, Madame Carolina, you seem to have just wakened up from a long sleep. That old compact was set aside long years ago, when you were a mere girl. Just rub your eyes and take in the situation as it is--and muzzle some of your blatant demagogues, or, By the Eternal, I'll hang 'em for you." They were muzzled.
    The Mexican War was briefly sketched and then, said the speaker:
    This brings us down to one of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of the world. We had a country reaching across the continent, embracing the greatest variety of climate, soil and productions to be found under any one government on the globe; a government fitted to carry out the idea of democracy. Democracy is not a form of government, it is a sentiment; not a mode, but a force. To express its voice it must adopt the republican mode. And when democracy turns against the republican form of government, it is seeking to destroy itself. While Britain threw cockle over the fence, the "infernal triumvirate" of France threw other poisonous seed--it all blossomed into the same noxious weed--a right of nullification or secession. Washington said: "This is sedition." Genet said: "This is democracy." In 1860 the American people elected a plain, honest man President--a working man, who had become great from an humble beginning. A great concourse of assumptive gentlemen in one part of our country pronounced this preposterous. A working man President of the United States! They declared that the government had gone to the dogs, and their next step was to begin to pull down the temple of liberty.
    We laughed at South Carolina asleep--but, lo! twelve states again wake up and declare that the old "compact" doesn't suit them and they will nullify it--will secede. The seed that Washington said was sedition had grown, and when it blossomed and fructified it was secession--rebellion. Our noble boys went to the front and fought the grandest series of battles ever fought on the face of the globe, and preserved the grandest government--the greatest boon ever given to man--and they are entitled to our eternal gratitude.
    No matter who is killed--no matter how terrible the contest--mistakes must and will be forgiven; and it is expected as well that they shall be admitted--these two conditions inevitably go together. But, ah, if the mistakes could only be prevented! Suppose that in 1860, as in the time of the whiskey rebellion, there had been a few good men in the South who loomed up above the crowd like tall cliffs above the monotony of lower hills--a few men like Alexander Stephens. If they had stood up and faced the crowd and said: "You are making a mistake, a fatal mistake" they could have arrested it and prevented the sanguinary struggle. But there seemed to be only a sort of dead level of hills down there then, and the storm clouds rolled on and burst upon the country. These things have been freshened in our memory recently by the flag episode at Washington. One episode out here against the American flag is worthy of our notice. The flag was threatened with an indignity that would have been one of the unfortunate mistakes of our history--but a tall cliff loomed up against the storm and caught the tempest and hurled it back.
    Our little army of seven or eight hundred men was drawn up in a hollow square one afternoon at headquarters on the north branch of Rogue River upon a day appointed for the presentation of flags. I was standing then in the ranks there as a soldier in the service of the United States and deeply interested in the proceedings. At the conclusion of a sweep of thrilling martial music an officer stepped out in front of a company, unfolding to the breeze a beautiful flag. Standing beneath its waving stars and stripes he spoke substantially as follows:
    Fellow Soldiers:--I have the honor, upon this important occasion, of presenting to you this magnificent American flag. Upon its proud folds you will behold a beautiful and impressive inscription. Those silken letters were embroidered there by the delicate fingers of lovely women--God bless them! That inscription expresses their sentiments--we shall accept them and make them ours and bravely bear them aloft before the world until there is not a red devil in human form to be found in all this land. These fiends that we have fed at our doors have repaid our kindness with ingratitude, treachery and murder. They have swept out settlements all along the road stretching between Oregon and California, from the Umpqua canyon to Rock Point, a distance of more than fifty miles. At one fell swoop, in the dead hours of the night, they murdered all these people--men, women and children--and left their homes and property in ashes. Their blood calls to us from the ground. We mean to avenge this awful, ghastly outrage. Nothing short of the sentiment emblazoned upon this flag will answer the requirements of the case. Our situation here is well calculated to try the hearts of brave men. Here we are with our little army less than a thousand strong--we stand here on the banks of this beautiful river. With its clear waters shaded with beautiful trees it winds its way between the homes of civilized people and the war camps of savages. We are on guard. We send our boys up the river and down the river and they are on the alert night and day to keep these savages from crossing above or below us and falling upon and exterminating the settlements in a single night. We hold the enemy at bay. Like a crouching tiger he is ready to spring past us, to the right or the left of us and bathe his jaws in the blood of his victims, or, else boldly charge us upon the front. There is no flinching. We are ready--let him come! As near as we can ascertain by our scouts there are in front of us, just back of this Table Rock--this grand landmark that majestically looks down upon us today--there are no less than three thousand painted warriors, thirsting for our blood, armed as well as we are and ready to descend upon us, like an overwhelming avalanche at any hour. If the worst comes to the worst we expect no quarter. We shall give none! Read our motto on this flag! It spells Extermination! This is a war of races--a war of extermination. If they can they will exterminate us. If they could they would. But thank God they cannot. The wild man must pass away before the white man. Extermination is the final end and that motto we shall carry upon our banner until this great work is finished! Therefore, brothers in arms, here is your flag.
    Three or four of these presentations took place; and the presentation speeches, though made by different orators, were all of about the same general style. When these exercises had concluded and the fierce and wild cheering had subsided and all became quiet, I saw some of the officers take hold of Gen. Lane, who had all this time been sitting in a chair towards one corner of the square surrounded by a group of officers and quietly observing the proceedings as they took place before him. They assisted him to his feet, and in a loud, clear and smooth voice he began to address the army. He looked uncommonly tall to me that day, and venerable and commanding. He was pale from the loss of blood, for he had received a severe wound in his shoulder but a few days before, so he had therefore but one arm to wave in emphasis of his impressive remarks. He substantially said:
    Fellow Soldiers:--First of all we should never forget, under any circumstances or on any occasion, that we are citizens of the United States of America. Whatever public occasion we participate in, whether in the crowded cities or on the borders of civilization or far out among the savages--wherever we may be, first of all we are under obligations as American citizens to maintain the dignity, the justice and honor, the mercy and humanity of the most civilized people on the face of the earth.
    Much has been said about the American flag. I say that the American flag is the most glorious banner ever unfolded to the light of heaven or gazed upon by the eye of man. It represents protection. It represents defense. It represents fight and knowledge and honor and courage and civilization, and every good and great aspiration of the human soul. It is the badge of our nationality and of the Union. If we make war under the American flag it is for the defense of the rights of man and the protection of our people. This flag knows no race, no tribe, no creed, no particular order of men--it stands for all our people, here and everywhere. Our glorious flag represents no war of races--no extermination of any people! That declaration is against the doctrine of the American flag. We as American citizens cannot accept any such a principle. That it is the doctrine of savages, not of civilization. Any man who accepts any such a motto as that does dishonor to the Christian mother that gave him suck! It is with great pain--it is with humiliation and shame that I behold any such inscription emblazoned upon our American flag!
    It is a mistake--a great mistake. The ladies--God bless the ladies--they have made a mistake. We owe it to them, we owe it to everybody, we owe it to the civilized races and nations of all mankind--we owe it fellow citizens of the United States of America--we owe it to our ourselves, right here and now, to correct this great mistake and most painful blunder.
    We simply have our duty to do here; but I am proud to know that I address brave men. Behind us are the women and children of these settlements, before us are collected the fierce warriors of all this surrounding country. If they assault us we shall repulse them with great loss. In the meantime reinforcements are on the way, and from hour to hour the Indian's mind is grappling with a greater fact--that his attempt to eradicate the white man is hopeless and futile. In less than fifteen days he will realize it. Then we will reach an understanding with him; we will make a treaty of peace. Stop the effusion of blood and the accumulation of expenses against the government. This secures the happiness and the prosperity of the settlements. This is success. This is what the people of the nation have a right to expect of us. This we can proudly and gloriously do in the carrying out of those great and humane principles of which the immortal stars and stripes are the imperishable emblem. So my fellow soldiers--companions in arms--we have camped together, we have fought and bled together, now take the advice of as good a friend as you possess on the face of this earth. Take those flags that are marred and spoiled by a grievous mistake--take them quietly and fold them up, lay them silently away and let them be forever forgotten as deeply buried in the bottom of oblivion!
    We silently bowed our heads. We were deeply touched--subdued. One man had subdued an army! He presented a splendid picture as he stood there surrounded by his officers and men, his iron gray hair drifting about his head in the passing breeze. I thought of the giant oak that lifts itself above the common trees of the forest. I thought of the
    Always after this circumstance I regarded Gen. Lane as a great man: This was the end of the furor of extermination. The plan of the general was carried out, and according to his request the flags seemed to be forgotten. I never heard a man from that day on mention them. But I had occasion in 1878 to call the circumstances up. It occurred in this wise:
    During the political campaign of the spring of 1878 the Democrats of Lane County invited Gen. Lane to come and deliver a speech at the Court House in Eugene City; I was invited by the Republicans to meet him there. The General made a great speech upon this occasion, occupying some three hours; and, I think, this was the last political speech he ever made. In answer to his strictures on the Republican Party in regard to its national Indian policy I called up this flag affair of 1853. I recalled in his presence this sample speech upon the presentation of the flags of extermination; I also recalled his speech upon that occasion asking him if he would verify my statements. He got up before that great audience and said that every word I had stated was true and that "what the General says I said upon that occasion I said."
    Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe this settles a precedent in regard to the American flag and flags generally in this country, and suggests a proper disposition of those that express an antagonistic principle to that of the American flag. They should not be received. If this had been observed there had been no rebel flags to be taken on the field.
    Congress enacted a law, in regard to the disposition of captured flags by the army or the navy, approved April 18, 1814. See revised statutes:
    Sec. 218. The Secretary of War shall, from time to time, cause to be collected and transmitted to him, at the seat of government, all such flags, standards and colors as are taken by the Army from the enemies of the United States.
    Sec. 428. The Secretary of the Navy shall, from time to time, cause to be collected and transmitted to him, at the seat of government, all flags, standards and colors taken by the Navy from the enemies of the United States.
    Sec. 1554. The Secretary of the Navy shall, from time to time, cause to be collected and transmitted to him, at the seat of government, all flags, standards and colors as shall have been or may hereafter be taken by the Navy from enemies.
    Sec. 1555. All flags, standards and colors of the description mentioned in the foregoing section; which are now in the possession of the Navy Department, or may hereafter be transmitted to it, shall be delivered to the President for the purpose of being under his direction preserved and displayed in such public places as he may deem proper.
    The application of this law to the rebel flags is clinched by the following decision of the Supreme Court, in the case of "The Venus" (8 Cranch, 253-284):
    The national character of the owner at the time of the capture determines its legality, and no future circumstances changing the hostile character of the claimant to that of a friend of subject can entitle him to restitution.
    Consequently the President of the United States is plainly directed what to do with such trophies of war. He has simply to follow the directions of the statutes--to carry out the laws of the United States. He is a sworn officer of the government--under oath to execute the laws. There is no need of any shuffling in the business. The American doctrine is that when an executive officer finds that he cannot execute the laws, he steps down and out. The 4th of July, ladies and gentlemen, is not wholly a day of fun. It is our duty to review the history of our country and call attention to the mistakes and blunders that its pages record as lessons and warnings. Blunders are the most costly thing in the world, and the first thing for American citizens to do in carrying on their government is to hunt for men to occupy the offices who have too much sense to commit egregious blunders. Listen to the following extract from Cleveland's letter admitting his blunder in the flag order:
    "I have today considered with more care than when the subject was orally presented to me the action of your department directing letters to be addressed to the governors of all the states, offering to return, if desired, to the Loyal States the Union flags captured during the war of the rebellion by the Confederate forces and afterward recovered by Government troops; and to the Confederate States the flags captured by the Union forces, all of which, etc."
    Here are stupendous blunders which need more letters of explanation. "Confederate States,"--"Loyal States." Cleveland doesn't understand that there are no "Confederate States"--there have been no confederate states since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The questioning of this fact was settled twenty years ago, and this is the first recognition by the head of the United States government of any confederate states since Washington's inauguration. Through all his letters and papers of war and diplomacy Lincoln referred to the states in rebellion as "the so-called Confederate States," and Cleveland is the first executive since to break the precedent. I do not call attention to this blunder as one of a mere form of words with no import but choice of expression. It is heavy with portent of grave consequences to the country. The European holders of the bonds of the central government of the late rebellious states are watching every chance to recover the losses in the investment, and they will quickly seize upon the fact that the chief executive of the United States has recognized the "Confederate States" in a state paper. It is this recognition they want from the United States government. But the terms used by Cleveland are also an insult to the people--north and south--to speak of "loyal" states is to imply that there are disloyal states. The South doesn't accept the imputation and certainly the North will not--and all citizens--north and south will resent the insult and disclaim any shadow of disloyal sentiment.
    In every government there is of necessity a leading--a first policy. In its early days the Roman Senate had a case before it involving the first policy of the nation. It was in the days when the "Eternal City" had to fight for its existence. The Etruscan armies came down from the northern part of the peninsula, invincible in their superior equipments--they had the best soldiers, the best weapons and the best armor in the world; and as the Roman hosts were sent out to stay the invasion one army after another was hewed down, and the Etruscans marched right on toward the fated city. The city fathers held a called meeting, and "hemmed and hawed," and didn't know what to do. Then the invading hosts appeared on the plain before the city their arms glittering in the rays of the dazzling sun--and something had to be done. The city fathers were paralyzed, and the Roman matrons were permitted to come up to the council and offer advice. At this crisis a big man came to the front--a blacksmith--history knows him now--Horatius. Horatius said: "The only thing left us now is to meet the army on the bridge across the Tiber. I'll hold them till you have time to cut the bridge." And then some of them cried: "How'll you get back, Horatius?" But Horatius didn't stop to answer or consider that question then. He met the Etruscan giants on the bridge and laid them in cross piles while the Romans cut the bridge, and held them till the bridge fell, then plunged with his armor on into the boiling Tiber and swam ashore. He saved the city. And now this question before the Roman Senate was, "What shall we do for Horatius?" and the venerable senators wisely said: This is the question of the "first policy" of Rome; it involves the nation's destiny on the earth. Whatever we are able to do for Horatius it is for the interest of Rome to do. So they asked Horatius what they could do for him--what he wanted. He replied that he would like to own some of the choice corn land that belonged to Rome--and they declared in unanimous resolution that he should have as much land as he could plow a furrow around in a day with a yoke of oxen--about 20,000 acres according to the best authority. This determination to do the best they could for Horatius was the turning point in Roman history. It fixed the policy that developed the armies which subdued the world. Our boys who saved the nation in the war of the rebellion were all actuated by the patriotism that inspired Horatius. The first policy of the government should be to recognize gratefully their services and sacrifices; and to stop and palter about how much should be given to the defenders of the nation is too small and mean for characterization. Suppose some mean man in the Roman senate had risen and offered an amendment to cut off most or all the land given to Horatius? Is there any niche in history small enough to fit him?
    To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, I will call out the American Eagle. I have not introduced the noble bird, but I did not intend to quit--if I starved to death talking--till I had brought out the eagle. There once existed a little republic, about the size of Douglas County, surrounded by despotism that combined to crush it out. As the assembled armies closed about it and approached its citadel the patriots of the republic stood waiting with their forces for the time to arrive when they should meet the invaders at the river and give them battle in defense of home and country and liberty. Quietly biding their time they stood, when suddenly a shriek pierced the air above their heads. They looked up and saw an eagle with a serpent in his claws. The struggling reptile would wind about the eagle's wings and impede his flight, and the bird would tumble toward the earth--then, tearing the serpent from his wing, he would strike his talons deeper and mount upward again. Thus the struggle went on till finally the eagle mastered the serpent and bore it away upon triumphant wing. The gray-haired priests and priestesses were called in council to interpret the augury. They said it represented the struggle between the cause of human liberty and despotism--that ultimately liberty will triumph and Despotism go down. As in the omen presented to their gaze, the victory will be on the side of the eagle.
Ashland Tidings, July 15, 1887, page 1


    Since writing last, we of Gold Hill have been entertained by lectures on prohibition, pro and con. Saturday evening Gen. E. L. Applegate spoke against prohibition. The basis of his argument was that men should be educated to be temperance men so that they should be able at all times and in all places to guard their own appetite and be temperate under all conditions. The speaker believed that mental convictions have more power than human laws in the government of mankind. He showed by illustrations from ancient history that whenever man has been coerced in anything he has always resisted, and the reactionary force of nature has been brought into play, causing him to act directly opposite to that intended by the coercionists. Among other arguments he cited the fact that the Indians of this continent were not originally an intemperate people, but that just as soon as they came in contact with spirituous liquors they became the most intemperate people imaginable and simply because they had never been taught to govern their appetites. The General held his audience just two hours. Everyone seemed pleased with his witty and logical remarks.
"Gold Hill Items," Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, September 15, 1887, page 3


    Following is a brief abstract of the speech of Gen. Applegate at Granite Hall last Saturday evening:
    Ladies and Gentlemen:--I wish to remark in beginning that this prohibition movement belongs to the category of mistakes. It is a grave question, and one that involves the fundamental principles of our republican form of government. It is undoubtedly taking the form of an issue before the American people. I want a record made of the discussion of this question in Oregon, so that when we shall have voted the amendment down (as I hope we will) the people of Maine may know that we did it with deliberate purpose and after due consideration--not from mere, blind prejudice against temperance legislation.
    If a great national enemy should appear on the borders of our country, sweeping down upon us to destroy our government, I am satisfied that people of all parties--Republicans, Democrats and Prohibitionists--would unite as one man to resist the invasion. There are fundamental grounds on which all unite. I am an old surveyor, and in making a survey in any field my first care is to find the starting corner. In our country we have a great party which we can agree to be a hundred years old--the Democratic Party--a party which has powerful convictions and sets forth claims to the performance of many important services to the country. We have another great party--the Republican--a third as old as the other. Their differences about where the stake should be set in the survey have cost much, but have been settled. When we go back on the lines of survey, we find a point where the two parties come together on common ground--where the Democrat and Republican meet and shake hands. Many people have been puzzled by the oft-quoted expression of Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address: "We are all Democrats; we are all Republicans." If we follow back the lines of survey, take the bearings from the witness trees and dig down where the lines converge we shall find the corner--the rock planted by the fathers of the Republic. We can always make a correct start here for our survey. That corner is the declaration that the citizen is capable of self-government. To be a sovereign people we must accept this principle. For ages kings, hierarchs, despots have denied the principle--and have based on their denial, the divine right of kings and the authority of ecclesiastical potentates. When we abandon this we give up the fundamental principles of our government. If man is incapable of self-government, there can be no republic, and the strongest man can gather and rule as many as he can handle.
    Individual sovereignty must be exercised in order to exist in force, and it must have opportunities for exercise. The prohibitionists would settle a man so low in the scale of sovereign citizenship that they would take away from him even the right to refuse to drink. They would take away the opportunity to exercise his manhood and develop his character.
    The Democratic and Republican parties are together at the great cornerstone of our government, but there is another great party that is spreading and is already as wide as the Republic. I don't want to abuse it. I am with it in its purposes for good, but at war with its methods. It is called the National Reform Party, and it wants to remodel the Constitution of the United States upon an ecclesiastical plan. Its great left wing is the Women's Christian Temperance Union--active, persistent, powerful. Its right wing is called the Great Prohi organization. It is organized in three-fourths of the states and is spreading its literature broadcast over the land. It is speaking from thousands of pulpits every week. Their corner stake or starting point means that the citizen is not capable of self-government. The revolutionary fathers saw that safety required the government to be founded upon a purely secular basis--the state entirely divorced from the church. They establish man's government to do man's work. This new party sets its stake away down in Judea, following back on an old survey which our Revolutionary fathers declared to be radically erroneous. Their survey from this stake carries them inevitably--not to a republic, but to the conversion of this republic into a vast Indian reservation with clergymen for agents. This would suit the clergy. They have put the governments in that situation all through the ages whenever they had the power. The citizen is asked in this amendment to vote that he is not capable of self-government--to vote himself an Indian on a reservation, with an agent to keep him from getting drunk.
    Mental convictions are stronger, greater, more lasting than anything else in the world. Castles and monuments may crumble, kingdoms and nations rise and fall--mental convictions outlast them all and live down through the ages. Mental and moral convictions have never been established by force, by prohibition. The fall of Adam and Eve shows the principle. Only the apple was prohibited--and they ate the apple, and we have no account of their eating any other kind of fruit. The reactionary effect of prohibition must be considered. Take the instance of the Missourian and his favorite coon dog, "Old Yaller." He had a pack of forty big hounds, and the boys used to ride them around. One day he told them they could ride any of the dogs but "Old Yaller," but they must not ride him. Next day he went out to the barnyard to find twenty boys riding "Old Yaller," turn and turn about, and riding "Old Yaller" exclusively. Boys tied up with the utmost strictness at home always go to excess when they get away from home. The Maine boys when they go to New York proceed to "lay themselves out" the first thing. Notwithstanding the existence of prohibition in Maine for thirty years, it is reported that in the city of Bath there were four hundred drunken men last Fourth of July.
    Take from history an instance of the working of the reservation philosophy. In the time of Henry VIII the church prescribed certain forms of ceremony, apparel in the pulpit, etc. Non-conformity was punished first with loss of privileges. It continued still. Then more privileges were cut off--then the "living" of the non-conformist clergyman was taken from him--then came confiscation, the dungeon--the gibbet and the stake, and still the prohibition of non-conformity was a failure. Reactionary force was stronger than the penalties. The result was countries were ruined--people fled to the wilderness. William Howard, the Quaker philanthropist, said that the attempt to enforce the prohibition of non-conformity cost 3,000,000 lives, and the result was the formation of 300 different forms of Christianity. Our forefathers knew these facts, and said we will divorce human affairs from God's affairs, and establish a purely secular government. They had then seen the blue laws on the statute books of one of the colonies, and concluded that in the light of history there was no limit to the extent to which such evil might be carried if not kept out of our government. We do not want to make war on the church, but it must keep within its own field, which is to teach and to preach. This new party, however, intends to force things. Proposes to crush first one great party, then the other, and take possession of the republic. Let us consider some of their fallacies.
    They urge a parallelism of this movement with that of abolitionism. There is no parallel. In the first place, the abolitionists didn't free the slaves, and in the next place there is diametrical difference in the movements. The doctrine of the old abolitionist was that the scope of liberty should be widened. The prohibitionist would narrow it.
    I heard Prof. Campbell speak twice on prohibition. He is a teacher, and taught logic, but he hasn't the first conception of what logic is. He began both speeches with the remark: "Alexander conquered the world: wine killed Alexander." The inference was that wine should be prohibited to save the Alexanders. It was not wine that killed Alexander. It was excess--the violation of natural laws--he violated his manly sovereignty of self-control. Prof. Campbell might have been neatly answered by the quotation: "He that governeth himself is greater than him that taketh a city." The sophistry he and other prohibition speakers perpetrate is absurd. Two boys tried to see which could eat the greater number of eggs. The boys died. Would you prohibit eggs? A man on a hot day in a harvest field, overheated, drank a great quantity of water from a cold spring, and the water killed him. Shall we prohibit water? The American citizen is expected to govern himself. An old toper in Oregon who had not drawn a sober breath for twenty years was sobered up and reformed by a visit from his sister who came out from the East. He felt the responsibility of maintaining his old home character in her eyes. The true solution of the whiskey question is to make the individual feel personal responsibility. This is working out the question for itself. It is not true that drunkenness is on the increase. It is decreasing. The great temperance reformers in this land are steam and electricity, with the exacting business responsibilities they bring. A man must let drunkenness alone when he has anything to do with steam engines and electric agencies. Drunkenness was respectable among the people in feudal times--the men of rank had nothing to do but eat and drink themselves under the table every day. It was almost universal in this country a hundred years ago. The statistics show that 100 years ago one dollar in every four was spent for alcohol, while now it is one in every twelve. Yet prohibitionists say this is their last resort to save the race from the "fast increasing evil" of intemperance. I hope the people will get rid of this fustian. They say moral suasion is a failure. Preposterous! The hope of all future progress depends on moral suasion. Only through it are mental convictions formed. They rule the destiny of the race. Way back in the ages a people in Asia became convinced that it is wrong to kill animals and eat their flesh. Not one of those people will eat meat today, though many of them have been tempted in every possible way in Europe. The Mohammedans were taught that alcohol taken voluntarily into the mouth will damn the soul of the drinker. They have carried their mental conviction for a thousand years--and they won't touch alcohol now. Temperance--not prohibition--is the true philosophy of the Christian religion. If it was God's will that alcohol should not exist in the economy of the universe, no distillery, no brewery, no chemist could make alcohol, though they might try for a thousand years.
    If you convince a prohibitionist that moral suasion is making progress in the question, then he says, "But it will take so long--so long!" That is a beautiful tradition embodied in the declaration. "The lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them." The lion shall eat straw like an ox. The author of it, reflecting on the power of love, saw in his prophetic vision the time when carnivorous instincts and needs shall have been entirely outgrown, and all the people and animals shall be at perfect peace--none to prey upon another. Your prohibitionist says: Well, if it is to be the final condition that the lion shall eat straw like an ox, we'll just make him eat it now. We'll force him to eat his straw. We'll apply the pains and penalties to him if he doesn't. That's the size of your prohibitionist.
Ashland Tidings, October 7, 1887, page 1


    John Beeson will reply to Gen. E. L. Applegate's lecture on prohibition at the U.M.L. Hall in Talent next Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock.
"Here and There," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, October 14, 1887, page 3


Last revised August 30, 2026