Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-04-27
POLITICAL DEGENERACT.

The writer of an article in Putnam
Magazine for May, entitled "Our Political
Degeneracy its Cause and Remedy
may be very wise in his own concert. but
that does not argue that his article is wise.
There are Just such persons As he in every
neirhborhood, who can see nothing good
in their own day and generation, and be-
lieve that nearly all wisdom and virtue
died with their grandfathers. The tone
of his article may be gathered from the
following opening sentence: Everybody
admits" says he, "for indeed almost
everybody deplores, the lamentable de-
cadence that has come upon politics, both
as principle and a practice. You will
hear it said on all sides that neither our
statesmen nor our parties are what they
used to be; and you will seldom hear it
gainsayed."
This is very cheap talk indeed, if it is
common. The earlier periods of our gov
eminent had its full share of corrupt, in
trguing men, or it never would have had
the Conway Cabal In those times George
Washington was not above the reach of
SANDER, and the Continental Congress,
while it had many good men, was not
country will tell how the army suffered,
and the Commander-in-Chie was tried
and embarrassed, while the cause of liber-
ty and independence hung in doubt,
through the wrangles, intrigues and ineffi-
cheney of the government. We know
nothing so vile in our last war as the
attempt of Lee to supplant Washington,
nothing in our government so infamous as
the schemes of Conway and his associates.
If we come down to Jeffersoi,'s time, we
find that he was not without his detractors.
He was not held to be the man that he is
now. He was denounced as an atheist,
radical in politics, and an unsafe man
to follow. One of the best minds of that
time was killed in a duel,-n a very
good example, we shouldsay, for our men,
beers of Congress to follow. Another
undertook (the same who shot Hamilton)
to establish an independent government
on the Lower Mississippi. The plot of
Burr has not its equal in rascality even in
these degenerate times. Passing along to
the good old days of Andrew Jackson,
honest and incorruptible as he was, can
h,ctoryr Of his al-
without thanking his stars
that we have no Kitchen Cabinet at
Washington now ? The truth is. there
have been good men and bad men, able
men and weak men, all along in our
history, but our great men have always
been belittled. just as they are now. while
full measure of commentator and appre-
citation until death removed them. We
have had Lincoln, Stanton, Fessenden,
and Grant in our day, and We have saved
the Union from being destroyed by the
great curse of Slavery, which our wise,
old fathers fastened upon us. We have
struck the shackles completely from the
four millions Of slaves which old-time
wisdom bequeathed us, an act the like OF
which was never done before. The men
who lead in this measure, and the party
which accomplished it the grandest
stroke ever struck for humanity-are liv-
ing now, but in the face of such a noble
monument to the virtue of the present
time, our jeremiah walls over the degen-
eracy of modern politics, and signs for the
return of the past. Poor soul. little
atoms of dust obscure his sight, and he
gropes in darkness in the full blaze of the
sun. He condemns our craftsmanship be-
cause irregularities sometimes occur in
Congress, and judges a party by the acts
of few unprincipled individuals.
The writer to whom we have alluded,
displays his poetical sagacity in the same
article by disparaging the means which
have developed our resources and pro-
NOTED our industrial interests, and at the
same time shows his honesty by misrepre-
senting the position of those who think
from him. tie would prefer
that Canada should control our markets,
and make paupers of our farmers. and
that England should supply us with man
ufactures rather than do it ourselves, and
he would fain make our farmers and
laborers believe that such a policy is
craftsmanship and for their benefit. We
have tried that pretty effectually in the
State of Maine, with what result every
body knows who is acquainted with the
history Of the State. We continued in the
way of allowing industry and trade to
take care of themselves, and population to
go whittier it would, until we found that
capital would not come to us, nor industry
flourish, nor people make homes here,
and necessity compelled us to change our
course. five grant favors to railroads in
order to have them constructed, to schools,
to builders of factories and promoters of
public ENTERPRISES. we do il not for indi-