The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-25
sPxRxx or TEE PRESS.
editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current T opios Complied Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE TEMPER OF THE SOUTH.
Rrn,n fhe N. Y. World.


Southern conservative State executive COM
mittees which it will be interesting to men
ton Pointing to the robbery, disorder, and
despotism which racked the State when fully
exposed to the power of Reconstruction, and
the peace, economy, and rreviying prosperity
which have followed in the train of the con-
servatiye victory in 1862 the Virginia address
advises that there be no change In the politi-
cal organization which accomplished that
desirable change, and that, without reference
to any of the distracting issues OF Federal
politics, the people of Virginia support
purely State policy, tending TO "the conser-
yation of the power of the State in conser-
vative hands" The Alabama address even
more pointedly eschews national politics by
not even vouchsafng SO much as a word to
those issues, and simply invites all opposed
to the present corrupt and inefficient State
government 10 unite on basis of economy,
honesty, and good order for its overthrow.
The Louisiana address declares that the
State debt has, under Radical hands, in
cIeased from twelve to eighteen millions of
dollars; that the taxes have been raised to 81
per cent, touching the limits of confsca-
tom that the most enormous monopolies
have been created, and unheard of special
privileges granted to individuals; and that to
avert the entire financial and political ruin of
the State it is necessary that the man sgement
of its affairs should be wrested from the
characterless interlopers now in power and
committed into the hands of true repre-
sentatives of the people. Those gross rob
berries which have made the State bonds all
but unstable in the market, and loaded the,
taxable property of the State with unprece-
dented burdens, are referred to in Florida
as rendering a change in affairs absolutely
necessary to avert entire ruin; and in the
Texas address even more urgent necessity
for the reformation of the reconstructed Gov
ernment is made manifest. By alaw Just ap-
proved il is shown that the Governor is not
only authorized to declare martial law in any
county or counties in Texas at his mere will
and pleasure, but is authorized to raise
large army in three corps first, State Guard
of ten thousand cavalry; second, a battalion of
mounted detectives; and third, a reserve" of
something like fifty thousand infantry; the
two former bodies of troops to be Immediately
oiganized and kept on foot 9Fl99t3
With this necessarily meagre review of
some exceedingly interesting descriptions of
the interior condition of the South, it is to
be noted that, above and beyond all else,
these addresses eschew Federal politics, re-
fuse to discuss negro suffrage, have nothing
to say about the fifteenth amendment, avoid
free trade, protection, foreign policy, general
finance, or taxes, and devote themselves
resolutely, as the Virginia address puts it,
to "a State policy free from outside inhu-
euce or intervention" Deliver us from the
body of this death, the reconstructed State
Governments, seems the universal animating
spirit; and beyong this the documents do not
90. Just as the North Carolina conservatives
put forth no declaration of principles, erected
no party tests assumed no distinctive organi-
zation, but simply went into the canvass and
carried the election on the sole issue of put
ting the State in the hands of the people of
the State, the conservatives of Alabama,
Texas, Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida take
it as sufficient platform that taxatien shall
not be in such hands as make it organized
robbery, or the State government be so con-
stituted as to be by the necessity of its exist
ence ''a standing conspiracy against the
public peace"
So exclusive an attention to State affairs so
utter lack of interest in general politics, is
sadly suggestive. It seems to say that the
South is so horribly misgoverned that it has
no thoughts from home that its patriotism,
like John Randolph's, does not extend be-
yond the State. Whose fault it is we know;
and perhaps there is a retributive vengeance
in the fact that this very exclusive devotion
to State affairs, brought about by long
course of aggression at the hands of the
radical party, is about the best means that
could be devised of wrestling the control oil
the South from that organization. The South
once lost, the negroes outvoted, or under
conservative influence, and the radical party
is irretrievably gone
THE NATIONAL LABOR CONGRESS.
From the N. r. Herald.
The National Labor Congress has JUS
closed its annual session in Cincinnati Dele
gates were received, committees appointed
speeches made, and resolutions submitted. /