The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-09-07
vermont and west VIrEInla.

ptner states. The gain OF 10000 Is
something so remarkable considering
the small vote OF State like Vermont
that it must be taken to indicate very
unusual feeling among her people
touching the great campaign through
out the country. West Virginia is the
Vermont of the border. She casts pre-.
cisely the same electoral vote. Like
the Green Mountain State, her people,
dwell amid the hills and valleys. They
share that love of freedom that Is said
70 be characteristic of mountaineers.
Like Vermont, also, West Virginia has
never cast Democratic vote since she
became State in the Union. She has
been true to her Republican birthright.
Is there any Likelihood that she will
take a different view of the issues pre-
scented in this CANVASS at her coming
election ON the 22d of October2 Is it
not reasonable to suppose that the peo-
pie of both States look upon the result
in the same light as regards the future
of the country2 We think there is
every probability that they do. Even
were the features of the two States to
which We have alluded less strikingly
alike than they are, the facts of the can
vRss as we gather them would convince
us that even as Vermont has increased
her majority on the side of peace and
prosperity, SO will West Virginia fol-
low her example when it comes her
time to speak to the country. The news
that reaches us through our correspon-
dence and through our speakers who
are out in the canvass indicates that the
people are aroused and arousing. One
of these gentlemen who has been in
several counties in different parts OF
the estate, tells us that everywhere with
out an exception, our friends expect to
increase their local vote over last year.
Grant clubs are more numerous per-
haps than any similar organizations In
any previous Presidential canvass, not
excepting the memorable campaign of
1910. It seems to need but plain pre-.
sentalion of the issues in order to ava
ken the sympathies of the people In
most localities. The frank. Blair let
ter has aroused their approximations,
followed as 1t has been by such signifi-
cant responses from the leading rebel
speakers and newspapers of the South.
The popular current sets toward the
conclusion that under Grant we can
have peRce-that under Elm we are, in
fact, sure of peace-and the people long
for peace as the soldier longs for sleep
alter long march and great battle.
The future of the country under Sey-
mour, and especially under Blair, If
Seymour should die before or after
taking Office, looks dark and uncertain
to them. They can construe Blair's
declaration in regard to overturning
the State Governments at the South,
and Coercing the Senate of the United
States into "a repeal of the reconstruction
avs, into nothing else than an intima-
tion and premonition of anarchy and
If not an actual outbreak of
wide spread internecine strife and
slaughter. Hence, in some instances,
it Will be found that even Democrats
those who have long voted with the
party-perhaps always voted with it
will vote for Grant and Colfax, even
while they vote their party State ticket,
and simply because they seek an escape
from the uncertainties OF the future.
They want to make sure of a peaceful
result as regards the nation at large.
They want no more war with its drafts.
with its taxes, and all its waste of life
and property. Our people in the interi-
or have had too sad and impressive an
experience as to what. war means 10
desire n repetition of that experience.
Their soil Is hardly yet dry from the
blood that was spilled under one pre-.
text and another in almost every local
ity. There are still too many desolated
spots where once stood happy homes
homes that persisted, many OF them,
under cover of the license and de-
of irregular war. Neigh
borhoods are Just beginning to
become reconciled. :and settled down
into something like old relations. The
issue presented by Blair suggests an
other era of strife-it fans anew the dy-
ing understand people see that again
they will divide, and hate, and destroy
zach other If such man should be- |
come President and should attempt TO
use the armed power of his office upon
the Senate. .r1fe
Then, too, reputation, OF, what is
the same thing, the increase of our al
ready vast volume of irredeemable
paper money by nnfunding any por-
ton OF our public debt, is seen to in
VolYe result scarcely less fatal than
war itself. Speakers who understand |
and mako plain TO the people the
actual, instead OF any theoretical, re-
,nlt of the financial policy proposed by
he Democraticiparty, as expounded by
Is leaders in West Virginia, cannot
all to perceive with what apprehen-
ions the people look upon an expert
nent of the sort. Instead of seeing in
{ an escape from taxation they rightly
discern in 1t what political economists
he world over agree in characterizingl
Is the cruelist, and most extortionate
md destructive taxation that can
be practiced upon any people
they see in the proposed poll
cy, as a final result, what the
French found in their discredited
lssignats-what Spain has seen in her
iebased currency-what our Colonist
saw in their Continental
money, and what the Southern Con-
Eederacy realized as the result of their
wagon loads of promises to pay. In
short, they see in it the humiliation
not only of the national credit, but the
ruin of the general industries of the