The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-19
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IL there be anything which the political ex-
perience of the United States has taught
clearly, it is that political parties are produced
4 blythe spread amongstlarg bodies of the people
ofcertain ideas capable of being clothedin leg
sation; that the spread of ideas capable of fur
Snishing vitality to a party is generally slow,
and the result of great labor and a combination
zof favoring circumstances; and that, once
5they have spread sufficiently, the party comes
Into existence of ITSELF just as naturally as
.the corn sprouts after the seed is sown; and
that, after the party is formed, tits impossible
\ 10 use it in the service of any idea except the
one which created it; and that, when
Aihis idea has triumphed, the party dissolves
into its primitive elements and another
Springs up to take its place. One would natu-
tally suppose that all this was perfectly
Familiar to every student of political history
Snd particularly of the political history of this
SQuntry and yet it sometimes seems as if
&Nen old politicians were quite unconscious of
IN There is hardly one of them who is not,
"a some time or other in his career, seized
# nth crazy notion that he can make party
imself with little help from a few friends,
he can only get hold of good popular
r issue and get it adopted by some caucus of
is moulding Every party which has existed
* this country, and made even n respectable
how at the polls Federal Democratic Whig
Enow Nothing, and Repubhcan-has been
ased on a powerful idea which had grown
N gradually in the popular brain, under
PRESSURE of external circumstances, or had
een bequeathed to it by former genera
ons; but it would have been as impossible to
lay where or when it originated as to say
hence comes the wind or whittier it goes.
he rise and progress of ideas is in short,
me of the historians greatest puzzles, and
ill always remain so. But among the curious
pisodes in the history of all these parties
ave been the attempts of knots of politicians
ither to engraft something of their own in
ention on the party policy, OF else to prolong
he existence of the party after it had done it's
york by some bitters or other stimulant of
heir own eoncoction, or else to tempt it to
( urn aside from its appointed path by stories
hidden treasure in distant mountains. The
sual result of these attempts has either been
diculous failure from the outset-like
Iessrs. Johnson and Stewards Philadelphia
4 Convention in 1S65--or the production of a
6omical little puppet like the Bell and Everett
movement of 1860, or the Butler Reputation
movement in 1867.
1t seems not at all unlikely that we shall
WITNESS something of the same kind during
The coming fall. 1t is casting no extraord-
nary discredit on the Republican party to say
hat ever since 1866 it has been losing its hold
on the popular affection. 1t had a very diff
cult work to do in reconstruction, and one for
Nn1cn Ine experience Oh Ine war udu udrClly
Fitted its leaders, and which, from its very ma
ture, was sure to damage the reputation of
any party which undertook it. 1t was enabled
to carry it out successfully solely owing to
ANDREW Johnson's folly and the South's OBJ
stinacy and stupidity. How deeply the leaders
felt the importance of Johnson's folly to the
Aparty was well shown by the frantic efforts
made by them and by the party papers to
magnify his Grimes" and the gravity of the
i. i t., 30 411o
party has had the spending for eight years of
enofmous sums of money, and has been
forced to collect and disburse it without any
Inadequate administrative machinery. The con-
sequence, and the inevitable consequence,
has been not only that the party has
had to shoulder the responsibility of great
abuses, but has had to witness the accession
TO its ranks of prodigious number of knaves
and adventurers, and to bear the burden of
their ''loyalty" and ''soundness" while en-
\ trely unable to put a stop to their plundering
and peculating Some allowance, too, in in
yestigating the causes of the decline of the
party in popular estimation must, of course,
be made for the WEAKNESS of any party which
has been long in power which inevitably
comes over the public before many years.
Many people forget the misdeeds of the oppo-
sition, are constantly fretted by the faults of
the administration, and gradually work them
be for the better, and then into determine.
ton to have change of some kind at any
4 cost.
The party was, therefore, in somewhat
sorry plight at the approach of the Presiden
tial election; and if it had made up it's mind tC
discard Grant and Democrats had made uI
their minds to take Chase, there is, we
a believe little doubt in the minds of careful
observers that it would have gone to pieces
Here the folly of the opposition, combined
with the energetic action of the sensible mel
at the Chicago Convention, postponed the
evil day Asst was, Grant may be said to hav,
4 achieved a respectable victory only by tn,
peculiarities of the elective machinery. Ha(
he been dependent on a direct popular vote
4 he would have barely escaped defeat. The
4 history of his administration thus far has GER
4 tainly not been of a character to give the
party new hold on the popular confidence
Indeed, its warmest friends have been forceC
almost from the first to act on the defensive
to devote themselves in fact, mainly to tn
work of proving, not that it has established
\ new claims to popular gratitude but that
has done nothing to earn popular distrust.
1t is not at all surprising therefore, tina
! ihe hack politicians whose presence in it
ranks and use of its machinery for their owl
ends have brought so much discredit on il
"a should once more begin to feel anxious, an
cast about for some means of rekindling tn
i popular enthusiasm on its behalf or procurin
NJ a renewal of its lease of power What
q wonderful is that they-not being by an
Al means, in the ordinary sense OF the word
"A tools-should fancy that they can, by holdin
" a meeting and raising banner, get people
follow them wherever they choose to lead
Al and what is most wonderful of all is that it