Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1868-12-01
PRESIDENT GRANT.

territory, by the acquisition Of Alaska
and has organized the three new States
of Nevada, Nebraska and West Virginia.
Il has opened the way for populating
our vast West by the construction OF
the Pacific Railroad, and has, by the
same great enterprise, prepared peace
able solution of the problem Of Mormon
ism, Slayery's twin relic of barbarism.
II has advanced the United States to a
position of dignity among the nations,
never before occupied and has devel-
oped those grand principles Of human
freedom and of a progressive civiliza-
ton which arc the very essence Of true
rs~publicanism.
In doing all this, the Republican par
ty has necessarily committed some
faults. Its greatest fault was the nomi-
nation Of Andrew Johnson. It had a
true and faithful Vice President in Han
nibal Hsmlin, who was sacrificed to
the mistaken notion that the border
States needed to be conciliated, and so
Andrew johnson, in an evil hour, be-
came Vice President. It is needless to
expatiste on the long train Of evils that
have followed that blunder. Years Of
distraction aud disturbance a long ar
rest of the return of peace and prosperi-
~ ; . blot and stain upon the national
reputation ; a lowering of the dignity Of
high office ; a fearful spread Of official
corruption and Generalization ; these
are some OF the consequences Of this
great fault aud mistake.
But there are other sins which the
Republican party ought to look steadily
in the face at this time. The long en-
joymsnt Of power in the affairs Of a
great nation like this brings with it in
evitably the gradual departure from the
strict practices Of official probity, econ.
omy and impar,iality which are funds.
mental principles Of the Republican
party. The corruptions Of the Demo.
cratic party had reached a pitch in 1860
which contributed largely to the grand
revolution of public sentiment which
elected Abraham Lincoln. That election
was a protest against official extrava.
gance and dishonesty, and the Republic
can party is s~olemnly bound by the
terms of that protest. But the great
army that has moved forward upon tho
grand highway Of American progress,
during those past eight years, has
gradually attracted to itself a swarm Of
camp followers, who have lived and are
living by what they can pick up from
the leakage Of the public treasures, and
from those arts and tricks by which
clever and inscriptions politicians Of
all parties are wont to fill their pockets.
The masses of the Republican party
have not only no sympathy with or par
ticipatiou in the doiugs of these camp
followers, but they have no liberation
for them. They regard them with the
most intense disgust, and only desire to
SEQ the whole class swept from the
skirts Of Republicanism. There is q
sublime fo~olishness in the minds and
conduct of men who have looked to the
Democratic party for the reform Of any
abuse. That party, even when 1t was
an honorable and respectable one, grew
50 corrupt that the country ~repudiated
it with an ine1pressible disgust. And
the men who would turn to it now,
| when il has ceased to be commonly de-
cent; when Il has stamped itself with
every dishouor ; when it has descended
to every low and degrading practice (;
when it has become almost grotesque in
the magnitude Of its openly practiced
frauds E; and would expect it to restore
anything that may be wanting in the
Republican party, or to administer the
Government with more economy or
purity, is simply deficient in the ordi-
nary powers Of the human intellect.
The Democratic party is savage with
hunger. Eight years Of famine have
been 10 its camps. In the last period Of
Andrew Johnson's term it has managed
to snatch, here and there, q meagre
supply Of that public plumber which is
its natural ~pabulum; but it has only
served to sustain life enough to wage
one more desperate struggle for the
public treasures, one more frantic
assault upon the position which it lost
eight years ago. The idea Of public re-
form as possible through a return to
Democratic rule is too absurd for any
thinking man to have entertained it.
But the Republican party must reform
itself. It is young, healthy and vigor-
ous. 1t is sound in all its members.
It is true in.all its instincts. It is hon.
est in all its purposes. When in 1860,
in 1864, in 1868, the Republican party
avowed the principle Of strict economy
in expenditure and strict integrity in
official administration, it meant precise
ly what it said, however lightly inter-
ested politicians may have esteemed
those pledges. And now the grand OPP
~portunity has arrived to make those
pledges good.
President Grant has already proved
his practical belief in the righteousness
Of those pledges, and he is not the man
to be swerved from his determination to
fulfil them by any power that can be
brought I o bear upon him. Andrew
johnson has turned the Offices of this
country into one great Augean stable,
that reeks with the foul odors of cor
r%uption. Aud through it President
Grant must and will turn the tide Of .
sweeping publication that will cleanse
it from its de6lement, and place in office
honest men, who will not look upon
their public positions merely as so much
machinery by which the public treasu-
ries are to be robbed.
The Republican party will stand by
President Grant in every measure that
looks towards radical reform. So far
as it has been able to do, it has striven
hard too keep down public expenditures.
But the Democracy has piled a huge
public debt upon this country, and this
1.Ak H.. .n-nalloH q UrRat iucFeAa0 OF