Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-05-28
WHO ARE THE IMPERIALlsTS?
0uantum Suf. of the Ridiculgs Mus.

From the y. Y. Herald, 24th.l
The high court of imperial nincOm-
pOOps has been in session in this city
for some time past. 1t is hard to tell
whether they are n branch Topped
from a trunk of themselves or an Off
shoot from the imperial houses OF
China, Japan, France, Russia, PruS-
sia, Austria, Muscat, Brazil or
Hayti. The glories of the Shah of
Persia, the Sultan of Turkey, the
Kahn of Tartary, the Great MOgul
and the High Cockalorum of the New
Dominion of Canada sink into insig-
nificanee before the piercing lights of
this new imperial Yankee revelation.
To read some of our exchanges one
would think that the republic had
gone to the empire of dogs, and that
cats and rattlesnakes were command
ers of the situation. They copy arti-
cles from a two and catchpenny con-
Germ in this city that has an imperial
crown surmounting its title heading,
as washtub would laundry adVer-
tiSement, indeXing its character. \
FOOLS cap would have been q more APP
propriate emblem. But the fools or
IunaticS are not all dead yet, or we
should not see such a~vapid caricature
upon journalism placedupon thenews
stands. Some have thought that the
publication of a sheet like this would
kindle riot; that the Police Commits
sioners would he obliged to double the
force of their department in view Of
the tremendous influence it would eX-
ercise in eXaspeTating our liberty-lov
ing and republican-loving population,
and in contributing towards the
cheerful spectacle of pulling down
houses, smashing up presses, knock
ing type into cooked hats, all illumi-
mated with dissolving views of editors
and reporters with their eyes done up
in elegant lines of black and blue,
streaked with yellow. But the teach
ings of this organ of imperialism and
the vaporings of its followers would
be innOcuous were they not farcical.
They make men laugh, and any dis
temper that eXcites the risibles of
mankind is always calculated to make
them think. Byron said:
\ single drop of ink
May make thousands, nay, millions, think.
A solitary laugh in an audience of
thousands has made more than one
man ponder. Therefore a good laugh
is almost as potent as q drop of ink
for the purpose of ventilating an idea.
When Daniel Webster spoke of the
city of New York as the Imperial
City" of the New World he did not
refer to it in the ridiculous sense now
attached to the phrase by these impe-
rial monkeys and apes OF foreign POM
pOsity. Talk about making the Uni
ted States an empire! We are an en-
pire already-an empire of republi-
canism, an empire of free thought, an
empire of progress, development, in
telligence and civilization. BY the
aid of steam, cash, genius, enterprise
and electricity we have become an
empire whose diadem contains gems
that shed rays to the utterrnost parts
of the earth, attracting hither The for
lorn, the down-trodden, the frugal,
the industrious, the progressive of all
nations.
Imagine an empire In this land
after the manner of the empire of
Hayti, with a polished and nlagnifi-
cent bald-headed philosopher in gog-
giles, like Greeley, wearing the impe-
rial purple, as the greasy and sooty
Soulouque wore his. Think of what
the court Of the Emperor Horace