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Rush, Decatur, and Delaware counties, Indiana, contributed fully five thousand visitors on the 15th of August. Rush County sent twenty Republican clubs, mainly township organizations, led by one hundred veterans of 1836 and '40. The prominent Republicans of the delegation were Hon. John K. Gowdy, John M. Stevens, A. L. Riggs, W. J. Henley, John F. Moses, T. M. Green, J. C. Kiplinger, J. W. Study, and G. W. Looney, of Rushville; R. R. Spencer and J. A. Shannon, of Richland. Judge W. A. Cullen was their spokesman.

General Harrison, responding, said:

Judge Cullen and my Rush County Friends—I am glad to see you here—glad to be assured by him who has spoken in your behalf that your coming here in some measure is intended as an evidence of your personal respect for me. The respect of one's fellow-citizens, who have opportunities to know him, is of priceless value.

I cannot in these daily addresses enter much into public questions.

You are Indianians, some of you by birth; some of you, like me, by choice. You are Republicans; you have opposed always the doctrine of State's rights; you have believed and gloried in the great citizenship that embraces all the people of all the States. You believe that this Government is not a confederation to be dissolved at the will of any member of it, but a Nation having the inherent right, by arms, if need be, to perpetuate its beneficent existence. [Great applause.] Many of you who are here to-day have aided in vindicating that principle upon the battle-field [cries of "Plenty of us!"], and yet these views are not inconsistent with a just State pride. We are proud to be Indianians, proud of the story of her progress in material development, proud of her educational and benevolent institutions, proud of her Christian homes, proud of her part in the Civil War. If there has been any just cause of reproach against our State we will all desire that it may be removed. We may fairly appeal to all Indianians, without distinction of party, to co-operate in promoting such public measures as are calculated to lift up the dignity and honor and estimation of Indiana among the States of the Union. [Great applause.]

I will call your attention to one such subject that seems to me to be worthy of your thought. It is the reform of our election laws. [Applause and cries of "That's it!"] A constitutional amendment, to which a great majority of our people gave their sanction, has removed the impediments which stood in the way of progressive legislation in the protection of an honest ballot in Indiana. Formerly we could not require a definite period of residence in the voting precinct. Now we may and have. The same amendment authorized our Legislature to enact a just and strict registry law, which will enable the inspectors properly to verify the claims of those who offer a ballot. Every safeguard of law should be thrown around the ballot-box until fraud in voting and frauds in counting shall receive the sure penalties of law as well as the reprobation of all good men. [Great applause.] The Republican party has always stood for election reforms. No measure tending to secure the ballot-box against fraud has ever been opposed by its representatives. I am not here to make imputations; I submit this general suggestion: Find me the party that sets the gate of election frauds open, or holds it open, and I will show you the party that expects to drive cattle that way. [Applause.] Let us as citizens, irrespective of party, unite to exalt the name of Indiana by making her election laws models of justice and severity, and her elections free from the taint of suspicion. [Great applause.] And now, as I must presently speak to other delegations, I am sure my Rush County friends will allow me to close these remarks. [Applause and cheers.]

The visitors from Decatur and Delaware counties were received together. The Decatur delegation numbered fifteen hundred, led by B. F. Bennett, John F. Goddard, V. P. Harris, J. J. Hazelrigg, Geo. Anderson, Edward Speer, A. G. Fisher, F. M. Sherwood, and A. S. Creath, of Greensburg. Their spokesman was the Hon. Will Cumback. Delaware County sent twelve organizations, conspicuous among which were the Tippecanoe Club, the Veterans Regiment, and Lincoln Colored Club. Among the leaders of the delegation were ex-Senator M. C. Smith, A. F. Collins, Hon. James N. Templer, Major J. F. Wildman, Rev. T. S. Guthrie, J. D. Hoyt, Geo. F. McCulloch, W. W. Orr, Joseph G. Lefler, Lee Coffeen, C. F. W. Neely, Ed. R. Templer, W. H. Murray, W. H. Stokes, John S. Aldredge, J. R. Shoemaker, Jacob Stiffler, Web S. Richey, T. H. Johnson and others, of Muncie. Rev. N. L. Bray spoke on behalf of the Lincoln Club, but R. S. Gregory delivered the address for the delegation as a whole.

In reply to these several addresses General Harrison said:

My Friends—The man who does not believe that the issues of this campaign have taken a very deep hold upon the minds and upon the hearts of the American people would do well to come and stand with me and look into the faces of the masses who gather here. I know nothing of the human face if I do not read again in your faces and eyes the lesson I have read here from day to day, and it is this: That the thinking, intelligent, God-fearing and self-respecting citizens of this country believe there are issues at stake that demand their earnest effort. [Applause.] A campaign that is one simply of party management, a campaign by committees and public speakers, may fail; but a campaign to which the men and women of the country give their unselfish and earnest efforts can never fail. [Great applause.]

It is no personal interest in the candidate that stirs these emotions in your hearts; it is the belief that questions are involved affecting your prosperity and the prosperity of your neighbors; affecting the dignity of the nation; affecting the generation to which you will presently leave the government which our fathers built and you have saved. [Applause.]

One subject is never omitted by those who speak for these visiting delegations, viz.: the protective tariff. The purpose not to permit American wages to be brought below the level of comfortable living, and competence, and hope, by competition with the pauper labor of Europe, has taken a very strong hold upon our people. [Applause.] And of kin to this suggestion and purpose is this other: that we will not permit this country to be made the dumping-ground of foreign pauperism and crime. [Great applause.] There are some who profess to be eager to exclude paupers and Chinese laborers, and at the same time advocate a policy that brings the American workman into competition with the product of cheap foreign labor. [Applause and cries of "That's it!"] The disastrous effects upon our workingmen and working-women of competition with cheap, underpaid labor are not obviated by keeping the cheap worker over the sea if the product of his cheap labor is allowed free competition in our market. We should protect our people against competition with the products of underpaid labor abroad as well as against the coming to our shores of paupers, laborers under contract, and the Chinese labor. [Enthusiastic applause.] These two thoughts are twin thoughts; the same logic supports both; and the Republican party holds them as the dual conclusion of one great argument.

Now, gentlemen, to the first voters, who come with the high impulse of recruits into this strife; to these old men, seasoned veterans of many a contest, and to these colored friends, whose fidelity has been conspicuous, I give my thanks and hearty greetings. [Applause.] There has been a desire expressed that the reception of these delegations should be individualized; that Delaware should be received by itself, and Decatur separately; but that is not possible. You are one in thought and purpose; and if I am not able to individualize your reception by counties, I will, so far as I can, now make it absolutely individual by greeting each one of you.