The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-02

the first year is over before venturing TO be
prophetic. And If the World, with all its in
genuity, can furnish the Democracy no more
solid consolation than that predicated upon an
alleged failure of the administration ere il has
fairly got TO work. their prospects are gloomy
indeed.
Meanwhile what is the Democratic party
doing to better its position? What capital is it
accumulating beyond a reyerslonary interest in
the possible blunders of a Republican admnis-
tratiOn? IL it arraigns the shortcomings of It's
adversarics, it should be able to point explicitly
to its own claims upon the country's confidence.
On this aspect of the subject, however, the
World is evasiye and unsatisfactory. 1t tells us
that its party ''no longer rests under that incu-
bus of slavery from which it has hitherto suf-
iered and further, that it sis on the progressive
and winning side in all the industrial and
financial questions These are positively
the only approach to an exposition of the
Democratic policy on which our contemporary
has vcnturcd. 10 does not dare TO claim for its
party the merit Of an advance from the position
occupied under Seymour and Blair last Noyem-
Der. 1t does not pretend that the party has
made the slightest progress towards recognt-
tiOn of the new order of affairs, or that the
causes of Seymours defeat have in any respect
lost their force. The World is too adroit in par
tisan warfare not to perceive the advantage that
would be gained by a show of change in the
Democratic attitude; and its silence is the best
proof that, though the incubus Of slavery is
gone, the consequences of the slave policy still
tettcrs the movements of the party. 1t still
runs in the old grooves of tradition and pre-
judice.
The Democratic State Committee of Califor-
MIA the other day defined orthodoxy to be Oppo-
sition ito the radical measures of Congress,
including the fifteenth amendment" and to
'the appointment of negroes to Office The
description is equally applicable to other States.
In New York. as in California, the Democrats
oppose the political equality which even South
em leaders now recognize as one of the inevita-
0le results of the war. Everywhere from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, the Democratic party,
as n party, holds the same ground There
has been no imprOvemCnt-no advance. Old
issues make up the party's creed. The exploded
doctrine that this is a white Iman's Govern
ment' regulates the councils in Indiana and
Illinois. To these men experience teaches no
lesson. The revolution wrought in the public
mind the altered condition and requirements of
the country the certainty that the dayis past for
galvanizing into life dogmas which the people
have tramped under foot-all pass for nothing
in the estimation of the main body of the
party whose future the HOrH pronounces full
of hope
The truth is, that before discussing the chances
of gain from the sins or fOlles of General
Grants administration, the Democratic party
mast overcome troubles which threaten to be
formidable in its own ranks. 1t gives signs of
dscord, not to say of incpient disorganizatiOn.
The more courageous of its members protest
against the determination to fasten upon it a
policy that makes defeat inevitable. The neces-
sity of obtaining accessiOns is not diSguised
but how are they to be had, unless the party
discards all that is obnoxious in its past
course, and adapts itself to the convictions and
wants of the country? The inquiry is discussed
practically and earnestly by Democratic journals
which take a less sanguine view of the prospect
than is expressed by the World. In the West,
especially the discussion is generals and in
Wisconsin it indicates danger to the party S
unity. 1--WE have worked at the losing job for
years, and got beat all the while is the frank
| averment of one of the Wisconsin oraces, which
ie irraN mt rfrh IN md Gnl
! beginning, the knocking "out of the way the
dead fgure-heads that have been standing i'm
the Democratic front for long time, whose
chief business seemed to be to keep all new
ideas, $ and their probable effect upon the De-
mocratc party, should be considered in any
candid estimate of its prospects. The World
! quietly ignores them.