The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-09
The Democratic Soldier Dodge.

THE Democrats are taking great credit to them
selves for having nominated upon their local
tickettw or three officers, who were on the Union
side during the war. If this were meant as an
indication of sympathy with the cause for
which our Union soldiers fought, or of respect
for these men as soldiers, there might be some
ground for parading the fact before the world
But, notoriously, it is not. Everybody knows
that the Democratic leaders in this State were
bitterly opposed to the war; that their sympa-
thies were with those who fought on the Rebel
side; and that they did then and have con-
tinued to do since, all that they could to de-
grade that great struggle in the eyes of the
world, and to rob it of all its glory. There is
nothing that these leaders, in their hearts,
more thoroughly despise and execrate than
the true Union volunteer soldier. They be-
leve him to have been, what they used to de-
Light to call him, "Lincoln hireling;" they
look upon him as having been the voluntary
instrument in expressing and degrading the
Rebels, and as having waged war against a
just cause. In their eyes the South-rneaning
by that term not the people, but the aristo-
craoy that lorded it over the South-were
oppressed, and did right in going to war.
They look upon Lee, and Johnson, and Beau
regard, instead of Grant, and Sheridan, and
Sherman, as the true heroes of the late strug-
gle. At the present time their sympathies are
avowedly with Andrew Johnson and his Cop
perhead advisers, in their efforts to persecute
and degrade some of the noblest and bravest
men that the war produced.
The nomination, therefore, of few officers
upon the Democratic ticket in this city, will
instantly be recognized by every true Union
soldier as mere desire to obtain votes for a
bad cause. 1t is an attempt to entrap honest
men into giving their votes in support of An
drew Johnson and his insane and wicked
policy. The very platform upon which these
officers are running endorses Andrew John
sons administration. Do our Union soldiers
desire to say that Johnson is right, and that
Grant is wrong that the gallant Sheridan
deserved to be removed from the command
which he had so honored or that Sickles
should have been made the victim of Presiden-
tial persecution and malice And yet this is
what they are asked to say, in order that
few chronic ofice-seekers may get the snug
berths for which they have long been
hankering.
This device cannot succeed. The Demo
cratic party this fall is the same party that
last tslsll attempted to defeat the gallant Union
soldier, General Geary, and to elect in his
stead the COpperhead Clymer. 1t is the same
party that declared the glorious struggle in
which our Union soldiers were engaged fail
ure; the same party that deprived them of
their votes when in the field; the same party
that sought to cripple them by discouraging
enlistments and opposing the draft; and the
same party that noD seeks to defraud the
nation of the just fruits of our victories in the
field. The greed of Office holding may induce
some officers to become the standard bearers of
this party, but the masses of the Union SOL
dierS will be seduced by no such trick of the
enemy.