The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-10

necessity of applying relentlessly the pruning
| knife to all those forms of corruption and
recklessness which naturally attach them
| selves to a great party in power. They will
divest us Of those false local issues which are
inappropriate to the hour and inconsistent
with the proper settlement of great national
questions. We shall thus be fully prepared
for the great struggle of next year over the
Presidency-a struggle from which we shall
emerge with victory perched upon our banners.
Our Duty Now that the Battle is Ended
THE political battle, and with it the attendant
excitement, is past, and until nearly year
from now there will be no occasion for any
general popular devotion to political issues.
A foreigner-Alexis de ocqueville-comment-
ing on the American system of government,
concluded that we held elections too often,
and that by their continual recurrence the
minds of the people were diverted from bust
ness to the serious detriment of trade. There
is much force in this suggestion, and it would
amount to a positively national evil, did not
our people possess a wonderful mobility of
temperament, which enables them to get up
| to a height of wild excitement one day, and on
| the next descend to the ordinary routine of
domestic life. De Tocqueville judges America
by France; and it is certain that had the
French people an annual election such as we
have, they would waste six months previous
| in preparation and probably repose six months
| following the event, to calm down their enthu-
sasm. With us, however, it is different The
election is past. The decision is made by the
| people. Nothing we can do will for a year
alter that decision, and accustomed to bow to
the majority, we say with the Mohammedan,
Allah IL Allah! and get to work at our private
affairs.
We hope that the present year this charac-
teristic feature of our citizens will be more
strongly marked than usual. When our
readers shall this evening read what we write,
the election will have been thoroughly and en-
tirely past. 1t has no connection with our
actions to-day, and the duty we now owe is not
to our country; it is to our families and our
selves. We must drive all election excite
ments out of our minds, and get to work at
our business. The trade of the country has
been languishing for the last few months be-
cause of the absorbing interest taken in the
contest. The fall trade has not been such as it
ought to be. 1t has not frightened up things
SO much as was anticipated. The cause is
plainly the general abandonment of business
for politics, and we hope that the remedy will
now be return to business with devotion
sufficient to make up for lost time. Under
any circumstances, the great interests
| of the people rest in their private for
tunes, and it is not probable that
f there will ever be a party in power which
. will endanger the possession of individual
; wealth. The talk made before the election,
, in which one party accuses the other of re-
pudiation, and the other retaliates with the
cry of agrarianism, must be viewed rather as
an electioneering document, and must be given
a wide margin of allowance. There are really
not a dozen Republicans who for
moment entertain any serious belief of
a possibility of any attempt at a gene
raj apportionment of property. The laws
of nature render any such scheme ridicu-
lous, and will make all who propose it objects
of contempt. While we confess that we do
; not believe that any considerable portion of
the Democracy would, if it could, repudiate
} the national debt, some of its leaders desire
= it, beyond doubt but they dare not propagate
their doctrine for fear of inevitable defeat, for
the mass of the party are, we believe, opposed
| to any such infamous breach of public faith,
so that we do not believe that the stability of
the investments in Government loans can be
} shaken, by the success of either party in the
t late election.
r There is no other country in the world in
8 which property is more secure than in America.
t We have no traditOnary wrongs for the peo-
? pie to redress. We have no aristOcracy which,
d as it is wealthy by inheritance and boasts of
=. fortunes for which it did not work, naturally
t causes the eyes of the poor to be turned with
d envy and rage at those whO without striving
: half as hard as the laborer, yet enjoy all the
r luxuries while he works daily for his bread.
8 In this country the people respect the man of
wealth, because in nine cases out of ten he was
at one time as poor as the rest of mankind.
He made his money for himself; and whatever
may be the faults of the labOring classes, they
are not disposed to detract from the credit
J which a man has acquired by his own acts
There is therefore, little or no danger in any of
the reactionary and revolutionary prophecies
of either party. We have fields of advance
,,I mill oil