other monuments, it attracts attention by its vast proportions and excites disgust by the falsity of its inscriptions. The casual observer, knowing nothing of the previous life of the deceased, who reads this eulogy upon the tomb, might imagine that all the virtues, the intellect, and the genius of the age were buried there. But to him who knows that the life had been a living lie, an incessant pursuit of base ends, the stone is a mockery and the panegyric a fable. It is my purpose to show, sir, that this Democratic platform is mockery of the past, and that its promises for the future are hollow, evasive, and fabulous; that it disregards the sanctities of truth and deals only in the language of the juggler. It is like the words of the weird witches, who wrought a noble nature to crime and ruin, and then, in the hour of dire extremity

Kept the word of promise to the ear
And broke it to the hope.""

At the short closing session of the Fortieth Congress, General Logan continued his interest in the questions which he had previously supported or opposed, especially the operations of the pension laws and the bill to strengthen the public credit. He was not in favor of a bill retaining officials in office, as he considered it class legislation, and he spoke at length against granting subsidies to the Denver Pacific Railroad. "Sir," said General Logan, on the latter point, "I am in favor

of the great march of improvement, of civilization, and a general development of all the wealth and resources of this country. But, sir, that is no reason why, as a representative of my constituents, I should stand by and see the Treasury every day growing leaner and leaner by the inroads made upon it by these railroad and other corporations. I am not willing to do it. I say to my friends in this House; I say to my Republican friends— although I do not regard this as a political measure by any means-that we pledged ourselves to our constituents in the convention that nominated our President-elect that economy should be our watchword. If we are true to the men that elected us we shall stand by that pledge to-day."

G

CHAPTER XII.

THE LEGISLATOR-THE GRAND ARMY.

ENERAL GRANT was inaugurated President on the 4th of March, 1869, and on

that day General Logan took his seat in the House of Representatives, having been reelected as a member-at-large from Illinois by a splendid majority. On the first day of the session he aided in the election of James G. Blaine for Speaker, and a few days later he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. The reduction of the army had not been completed, and General Logan diligently continued the work, lopping off supernumerary staff officers, retrenching unnecessary expenses, yet providing for the enlisted men and protecting the colored veterans against the swindling claim agents.

General Logan also looked after the interests of his constituents as affected by proposed tax legislation and boldly denounced those engaged in robbing the Government. "Gentlemen," said he, "are always talking here about a 'Whisky Ring;' but one-half of them do not know what that phrase means. I will tell what it means. It means an association of whisky men leagued to

gether in a secret organization, with a president, with an attorney, with agents sent here to this Congress; and the members of this association subscribe money, not for the purpose of hiring anybody, not for any declared object, but they subscribe money, which their attorney and agents take; and they never know what becomes of the money. I made an investigation of this matter when I was a member of the Committee of Ways and Means, and I know what I state. The very same association of men by whom this is done are the men who are to-day demanding that this proposition shall be passed. And if this measure be adopted it will be in the interest of the same rotten 'ring' that has already robbed the Government of millions of dollars."

General Logan opposed retiring a colonel in the regular army, who had at one time during the war commanded a division, with the rank and pension of a major-general. He did not believe that the regular army officers assigned to generals' command at the first battle of Bull Run should all be retired with that rank.

At the second session of the Forty-first Congress General Logan took an active part in breaking up the existing practice in which some Representatives had indulged of selling their rights to appoint cadets at West Point. In one of these cases where a Representative had asked and received five hundred dollars for

appointing a young man resident in a distant State as a cadet from his district a good deal of sympathy was manifested for the offender. General Butler, who was his personal friend, defended him with his well-known legal ability, but General Logan was inexorable. “What we shall do," said he, "will not be done in any spirit of ill-feeling or revenge, or from a desire to punish any man, but because we are impelled by a sense of justice, by a sense of propriety, by a determination which should be felt by every offi cer of the Government to perform our duty faithfully, without fear, favor, or reward, or the hope of promise thereof. Charity should find no home, mercy find no proper abiding place, leniency no place of rest where justice may thereby be thwarted. Justice claims the highest place in the mind and heart of every man; and it claims the right to have judgments, though tempered with leniency and charity, based upon a legal and proper basis." The guilty member was expelled by a vote of 187 yeas, no nays, and 35 absent or not voting.

General Logan was also prominent during this session in advocating legislation opposing polygamy, on the revival of American navigation, on the Southern contested election cases, on the appropriation bills, and especially on the reduction of the army. He showed the great abuses that had sprung up during the war, and demonstrated that the saving effected by the bill reported by him by