The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-01
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the LendinG Journals
Upon Current TOplcs-Oompilod Evorv
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN
PARTY

1rorn the ~ Y. Times.
MIR. Dawes reply to General Butler, not to
speak of Mr.. Farnsworth's, as well as the fire.
quenoy with which the Republican party in
both House and Senate has of late split its
vote on several important questions, ought,
we think, to suggest to the more ardent
members of the party, and everybody who
believes, as we do, in its usefulness, the pro-
priety Of abstaining from attempts ito read
people out" of it. Formal communications
have never been of any great service to either
Church or party. They were not of much use
to the Republican party even in the days OF
excitement after the close of the war, and
they are likely to be still less serviceable
Just now, when the bonds of discipline
are relaxed, and the questions which have for
some twenty years held it together are nearly
settled. The Cincinnati Commercial asked
the other day, aprOp0S of the conflict in the
Senate between MessIs Trumbull and Sum-
ner, whether this discussion did not reveal
the existence of q division in the party ranks
which would henceforward be found IRENE
diable. The EUening Post treated the incl
dent as one of the indications visible in
various parts of the country that the regular
party engineers are losing the control OF the
machine; and there is no doubt that feel
ing more or less deep seated prevails that the
work of the Republican party, properly so
called, ends with the adoption of the fif-
teenth amendment.
Now, it is quite true that the special cause
which called the party into existence will have
ceased to operate as soon as that amendment
is passed. but then the general reasons for its
existence will be nearly as strong as ever
The work of the Republican party will never
be over until the Democrats have frankly
announced their acceptance of the legislation
of the last ten years. This the Democrats
have not done, and show no sign of doing.
d.. -, ,sAl, k10,,1 i - -,
some quarter or other proclaim their inten-
tion of treating the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments to the Constitution as void,
because imposed on some of the States
by force, or else announce their wish to do
something to the public debt by way of
reputation. Sometimes they are for taxing
the bonds, sometimes for paying the debt in
greenbacks, but always for treating the pub
lie creditor as in some sense the public
enemy, and depriving him of a portion at
least of what he believes to be his due. In
short, whatever they may do in the future,
they have thus far shown no sign of having
any affirmative policy of any kind. Their
mission they proclaim to be the undoing, at
the earliest possible moment, of all that the
Republican party has done. They had a
chance of taking some kind of middle
ground, that is, letting bygones be
bygones, but adopting different line
Chase in 1868, but they deliberately refused,
and chose q pair of ''irreconcilables" to head
their ticket Since then they have given in
dication of having repented or changed their
minds. Several tolerably good articles in the
way of a policy-such as free trade-haye
presented themselves, but they have been all
rejected. Nothing will do them but the up
setting, in some way or other, of the system
of society and government established by the
strI1nf aft ia ha
restoration to the whites of their old supre-
macy, and with it, of course, the means of
working their own sweet will with regard to
She blacks.
There can, of course, be no doubt that it is
this which keeps, and is likely to keep, the
Republican party in existence. The mass of
those who have served long in its ranks for
the purpose of achieving certain results,
will not leave it as long as these results are
endangered, and as long as the opposition
offers nothing new, or original or construc-
tive for their acceptance. But then it must
not be forgotten by those who have, or think
they have it in charge, that the excitement
which called the Republican party into exist
ence, and enabled it to achieve its Victories is
rapidly dying out, and that the excitement
gone, the number of stragglers and deserters
will naturally be greatly increased. A greater
or less number of its members are
growing lukewarm; others are losing or have
lost their interest in politics altogether; Others
have their attention diverted by State affairs
or purely financial affairs, and it must be re
membered that the Republican majority has
not in any State, except in one or two of the
critical years of the war, been sufficiently
aarge to bear reduction. Just now the party
barely holds its own in several States. 1t ha
lost the control of this, and with what mis-
chief to the public interests yet remains to b,
seen. 1t is, therefore, hardly safe to be over
strict in exacting uniformity of opinion
amongst Its members on all points that ma.
come up. We think it was very unwise, 70
instance, to attempt to force its member
into agreement as to the propriety of add
ing to what has been already don,
in reconstruction in the case of Viz
pinia. The conditions imposed on tina
State after so much fuss are a sorry compen
Eation for the bitterness of feeling develope
in the course of the discussion between tn
two wings of the party. 1t would be still
more unwise to insist on a general adhesio
to any financial doctrine, if for no other rea
son than for the very simple one that it car
not be obtained. Nothing is gained, too, i
strength or cohesiveness by eXpelling oil
streperous members The spirits of thos
they leave behind are not apt to be improve
by the spectacle, because the members VIII
are most impatient under party discipline
and are most apt to form and hold opinion
of their own, are almost always the able
men; and party which has got rid of i
ablest men, no matter what its numeric
force may be, is not far from dissolution
OF the value of brains to party organization
and of the danger of getting rid of then
4he Democratic party is to-day melancho
example.