The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-07-20

Politics q the Dsy-PsaAtseal Parties and tAs
IndepsnAent Press- eFsgrsss - tAs Rsvstu-
tton.
The establishment Of the indepande news
paper press in this country was the insugura-
ton of great revolution in America politics
and political parties. At first its advances
were slow and imperceptible; but as the new
system Of independent newspaper enterprise
developed Its strength with the xtensiou Of its
circulation, the old party cliques, party buck
sters and party organs Of the day, lost their
infue nc lost caste, lost their unity their Ell
cheney and their power over the people an the
public plumber. Thus, they have continued los
ing, until er volution is complete; and TIE
independent press is universally recognized as
the exponent of an independent action of pub
Lie opinion In al the great political movements
of the day.
A host of our readers will remember tina.
when the New York HERALD was established,
the manifestoes of the central organ of the ad-
mihistration, and of It's echoes at Albany, Rich
mond, Concord and elsewhere, were the su.
preme law Of the land. At that day the Alba
ny Regency and the Kitchen Cabinet at Wash
ington. and the oligarchy of Tammany Hall,
were all powerful in their dispensasions of re-
and local measures of public policy,
and in their supreme control Of the
spells. But with the administration of
Van Buren, the independent press began to de-
velope its power, and the tremendous financial
revulsion and general Bankruptcy brought
about by the pet bank system, gave to the
Independent journals of the day footh0ld
against regencies, and wigwams, and cliqaes,
and organs, and kitchen cabinets, which has at
length resulted in scattering them to the four
winds of heaven.
The power of the Independent press was first
strikingly manifested in the campaigns which
resulted in the election of Gen. Harrison; and
in every subsequent Presidential canvass the
cause and the ticket Of the Independent press,
unshackeled by party afRnities and free from
all sorts of forgeries and corruptions for the
spoils, has been invariably successful In like
manner every administration, and every Cabi-
net, which has departed from the honest AMI
straightforward policy which it was chosen 10
carry out has been broken down and broken
up, and very largely through the influence Of,
an unfettered and unpurchaseable press. Take,
for examples, the Cabinet and administration Of
General Taylor, and the still more applicable
administration and Cabinet of Gen. Pierce, and
look at the results: Sustained by the Ameri-
can people, the NEW YoRK HERALD, of ITSELF
has proved more than q match for the
President, Cabinet, organs, Office holders,
and central and local juntas, backed
up, though they have been, by the sinews Of
war to the extent Of some seventy.fve millions
Of dollars per annum Of the spoils. The trim
mings and lodgings of the administration,
the Ingenious devices of Gushing, the brutal
policy of Guthrie the cunning expedients Of
Marcy, have all signally failed of their objects.
Abandoning the broad national policy which
the people SO forcibly decreed in 1852, the ad-
ministration has simply been abandoned And
standing by the people as the exponent of pub
lie opinion, the independent press Yields this
day the power which the administration has
forfeited, aud has taken its place in the general
direction of public sentiment. The central
organ Of the administration at Washington b IS
become even more contemplate in the public
estimation than the jackdaw .Madisonian
of Captain Tyler; and It's echoes lind no echo
among the honest masses of the country.
Briefly, through the progressive spirit of the
age and the facilities of railroads, steamships
and telegraphs, in connection with the inde-
pendent press, the clique which controlled the
democratic party, and fattened upon the
spoils Of victory, have been scattered like
the den Of thieves from the temple
And If, from the corrupt and homogeneous
affiliations oft managers, the national demo-
cratic party is broken to pieces upon the wheel
Of largely enlightened public opinion it is
but the judgment Of justice, which, with an in
flexible impartialty, has melted the same penal
ty to the late formidable organization known
as the national wing party. The one has filled
up the schedule Of its utilities both have ex-
hausted public forbearance with their corrup.
tons, and both are essentially defanct As the
lines between the old federal and republican
parties were oblterated in 1923, and in the
scrub race of 1924, go now we enter upon new
epoch from the decline, the fall and dispersion
Of the two great national parties of the hast
twenty-five years.
The coincidence between the year 1928 and
the present, is remarkable in this-that all the
existing indications, the demolition Of old party
landmarks, the noise and confusion among all
the old cliuucs and hucksters and nolitical
thimble-riggers Of the day, admonish US to pre-
pare for the contingencies Of another scrub race
for the new epoch which is to be formally rati-
fed in 1856. The administration has become
utterly impotent-the central Cabinet organ Is
but sorry humbug-Tammany Hall has be-
come standing joke among the unbu,tered
democracy John Cochrane and Elijah