66 NAST CARTOON FROM "HARPER'S Men of the South, there is a road to peace, and there is but one road. In it lies a peaceful solution of all our difficulties. May I point you to it? Behold it here. Strip the hideous masks from your outlawed Ku-Klux; disband your White Leagues; visit swift and condign punishment upon your unarrested and untried felons, and enforce State and Federal law with a firm hand. Give to human life some security and to property protection; recognize the equality of all men before the law, and their right to its fullest guardianship; put out the fires of your burning churches and school-houses; make the freedom of the ballot so secure that there shall be no intimidation; let free speech be recognized; let ostracism be unknown; renew your allegiance to the Government; extend a generous welcome to Northern labor and Northern capital; abandon all hope of the lost cause. In a word 'accept the situation' in good faith and in the highest sense, and you will have a peace universal." (From speech of Representative J. C. BURROWS, February 27, 1875.) the highest sense, and you will have a peace universal. Do this, and your barren fields will stir with a new life; your desolate cities will echo with the hum of returning industry; your spacious harbors will choke with the tide of commerce. Do this, and the whole South will spring from her baptism of blood into the fullness of a new life, redeemed and regenerated forever. All hail that auspicious day!” The condition in which the country found itself as a result of the panic of 1873 proved an important factor in the Fall elections. During the four years immediately preceding there had existed an unprecedented industrial activity and a corresponding expansion. Particularly was this true in the case of railroads, which had been built far in advance of present requirements, and therefore failed to yield returns on the invested capital. The Republican Party was held responsible for these unsatisfactory conditions, and the plight of the Party was made worse by its failure to produce campaign material from the outrages in the South, inasmuch as many of the statements were shown to be overdrawn and untrustworthy. It was simply one more straw on top of a long accumulating mass of unsavory evidence which produced a tidal wave, sweeping Democratic officials into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Massachusetts, weaking Republican predominance through out the country, and defeating so many Republican candidates for Congress that the coming House of Representatives had a Democratic majority of nearly seventy. For the first time since the Southern States seceded the Democratic Party found itself placed in a position of equality in legislative administration. The Republican Party was in the throes of demoralization, and Burrows went out of office not through any loss of personal popularity or prestige, but because the people of Michigan, in common with other Republican States, were determined to place their protest on record. As a result, the GreeleyDemocratic candidate, Allen Potter, was elected to the Forty-fourth Congress. The four years between the Forty-third and the Forty-sixth Congresses offered Burrows the longest consecutive period for the practice of his profession since entering the field of National politics; but even these years were filled with political activity. No doubt existed in his mind as to the certainty of his return to Washington, and each day's work was in preparation for the larger activities which he felt were sure to come. The reputation of Burrows as a campaigner came strongly to the front during these years. His ability in this direction was well known to his constituents, and his Party leaders were now beginning to realize that these talents should be given National expression. In March, 1875, Burrows made a brilliant campaign for the Republicans in New Hampshire; in May of the same year he spoke in Philadelphia from the front of Independence Hall; and in July he made a stumping tour in California, speaking with great effectiveness in every large city of the State. The early speeches made by Burrows in Congress continue to strike one as being overloaded with florid expression and grandiloquent oratory, and it is interesting to note how the style of the orator changes as the years advance and as the demands of the people become different. Burrows, in common with other orators, gave the people what they wanted, and the style of oratory may be followed with accuracy in determining, during any period, the nature of the people's spirit. Take, for example, the following report of one of Burrows' speeches from the Oakland (Cal.) Transcript, and note the fervid expression of the daily press of that period: "Cold type and printers' ink cannot convey the fiery words and glowing apostrophes of the eloquent speaker. It would require the inspired pen and glowing imagery of an Ezekiel to paint the descriptive word-panorama of the orator. He moved his audience as the changing winds move the great ocean— |