The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-09-08
Correspondence Of the Exchange. ]

Correspondence Of the Eechange.1
New YoRK, Sept c.
1t is needless to say to you, that the Reform
movement which is going in Baltimore is looked
to, with intense anxiety, by all of your fellow
citizens who are away from home at this moment.
That their solicitude is largely shared by the peo-
pie at the North, the tenor of the newspaper COM
ments, generally, has no doubt fully shown YOU
have myself encountered manifestations Of deep
and general anxiety, in regard to the condition of
our city, in all my personal intercourse during an
absence of some weeks from home, and always in
quarters where it was impossible that it could be
9th erwise than perfectly disinterested and sincere
1t is simply idle and absurd, to say, that any such
interest as the subject has created is Fictitious or
that it has been the result of exaggerated state
ments made by our own press. The information
upon which it rests has been derived from the IN
vanished reports contained in the telegrarhic de-
spatches, and it is the facts themselves without
note or comment, which have impressed the
intelligent and order-lovng people, at distance
with the serious nature of the crisis towards
which Baltimore has been for some time past, so
rapidly and certainly tending. When a primary
political meeting, in a single ward, requires the
presence OF seventy-ve policemen, with the acting
Mayor at their head, to secure the public TRANQUIL
ty, and political Convention, composed of mem
bers OF one and the game party, cannot proceed to
nominate a single candidate, without riot and the
imminent danger of battles and blood-shed, except
under the guard of one hundred and fifty picked
police officers, it requires impartial men to be Judi
caly blind, not to see that the social and admins
trative system, under which such things exist is
rotten from core to surface. What confirmation is
given abroad to the moral of such notifying spec
taces, by the official presence of the Chief Marshal
of Police from day to day in one of the chambers
OF the City Council-caed and kept there not
merely to maintain order, but to preserve the peace
between members, who are ndulging in the grossest
cnfh 4
tween themselves, with a running interchange of
similar indecencies between the floor and Hobbies
every sensible man can determine for himself If
the people of Baltimore can submit to such
things, 1t is no injustice or harshness to say
that they deserve them. If they do submit
and the result of the pending movement will settle
that question-they may make up their minds to
worse. Every man who has read the history of
lawlessness, knows that it has unfailing char
acteristic, all the world overland that is an ap-
petite which grows with indulgence. Anarchy was
never known to get, spontaneously, sick of its own
chaos. 1t never voluntarily arrested its own march,
1t never failed in the end, to become the master of
even those who thought it their slave. 1t never
was reduced to subsection anywhere, and never
will be, but by bold front and determined hand.
1t is this last fact which renders the present aspect
OF things with you serious. That the moral force
of the great mass of the community restore the
outraged laws to their supremacy there is no Doubt
provided that moral force be universally developed,
and be backed by the resoute determination not to
fail The Law and Order movement, therefore,
while based upon peace, and con6dng in the law
and calling honestly and fairly upon the officers of
the law to aid and support it, must develop an in
flexible determination to triumph, if it intends to
triumph. No hard words no reproaches--no aggres-
sive denunciations-are needed to that end. Nor,
on the other band, will heightened resolutions or
eloquent conciliatory speeches, or large assem-
blies, or the mere union of good men, with common
purposes of good, suffice to bring that end about.
The movement must display willing strength and
CHI ttDr lat IL -
is in earnest-in solemn, grave, and absolute ear
nest. With the law its side, and the good wishes
of all who love peace, decency order and free govern
meut, it will then command and enforce an influence
which cannot fail to be success. But not otherwise
That success, no one wishes it more heartily than
Yours, &C.