The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-15
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the EvoninR Telegraph.

THE DEMOCRACY AND THE PEOPLE.
From the NJ Y. Times.
1t is really pitiful to see the quiverinp of
the once ''unterrifed Not the tabled Reg
illus, with his eyelids torn away and his un-
curtained eyes exposed to the noontide glare
of the Carthagenian sun, recoiled more sensi-
lively than does now the Democratic party
from the fiery eye of the people. Everywhere
it is all the same-nothing but shrinking and
evasion. Instead of plunging recIiessy into
the fight as of DID, they are all taken up with
the thought of avoiding close quarters, and
so shifting as to escape further punishment.
They would give all the world to get in q
telling blow upon the administration, but
can find no point whore they burst plant
themselves to attempt it, If they try the
national debt, and open ever so shyly upon
the only alternative, repudiation, they prick
the peoples honesty and rouse an anger which
threatens to annihiate them. They are no
better off if they make q bolt at the Presi-
dents strict and liberal policy of reconstruc-
ton, for there again they wound the peoples
old-fashioned loyalty and love of order.
What makes it all the worse is that they can
not shake off their old notoriety, and are sus-
pected at every glance and turn. Their
past sins are still so fresh in the recol-
lection that, by an inevitable law of asso-
citation, the people connect herewith all
present Democratic motives and designs.
Every movement is referred to the lingering
disposition of the time when the party prac-
tically turned against the Government, and
sided with traitors 1t is felt that the at
tempt to balk reconstruction is all of piece
with the attempt to balk the war which
saved us from destruction-that the temper
which opposed the raising of dollar is just
the temper which would refuse the payment
of every dollar-that the spirit which was
factously hostile to the patriotic devotion
of President Lincoln is precisely that which
is now engaged i'll hostility to President
Grant. No amount of protestation or sophis-
tical explanation helps the matter. All that
has been tried to the last possibility, and the
only result has been sorer punishment than
ever. The people will not give up their old
memories. Their old instincts and reason
ings will stick. The party, after great deal
of vain struggling has become sensible of
the actual case, and it weighs upon them
like a sense of doom. In spite Of all their
high talk, they know in their hearts that
there is no withstanding the force against
them. They are as completely demoralized
as were even the Rebels in the last stage of
the war.
1t is needless to say that this cannot last.
The very vitality of any party is in its strong
hopeful spirit. The day that ends decay
begins. spiritless party is dying party.
1t lives only to pine, fade, and shrivel, and to
drop away by inches into its original ele-
ments. 1t may be that outright dissolution
will not overtake the Democratic party fol-
many years to come. But that matters little
The mere formal organization is nothing
When party gets too weak to be longer for
midable, it ceases to exist for any practica
purpose. Without the ability to regain pub
lie confidence and its old power-haying rem
dered all retreat to old principles ridiculous
and to old regards impossible, the Democrati
party has actually nothing left to live for
The utmost it can do is mischief.