Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-07-15
THE NEW YORK PRESS ON THE
SURRENDER.


exceptions denounced the cowardly order OF
Kelso, and demanded protection for the Orange
men. We copy the remarks of few of the
leading papers before the riot. The Tribune of
wednesday morning speaks as follows of the
change of front occasioned by the order of
Governor Hoffman:
This is desperate though tardy effort on
the part of Gov. Hoffman to save the Demo
cratic party of the State, whose position has
now assumed national Importance, from
the consequences of the enormous blunder
which sprang from the ignorance and reck-
lessness of the City Hall Directory. As
there is a positive comfort in the feeling of
confidence toward the head of the State, we
wish we could ascribe this action to the Gov
ernor's sense of right and of civic duty. But
it is only too evident that it was forced upon
him and the party he represents by the unex-
pected vehemence of the popular protest
against the wretched trucking of the city au-
| thorltes Not only in the public press,
which, with the sole exception of the hired
| tool OF Tammany, denounced the surrender
to the mob in digniied and fitting language.
but also on the streets and in all places of
public resort, there was but one voice of de-
| testation of the craven betrayal of the very
principle of government by the gaLg of I'M
principled spoilsmen by whom we are mis-
ruled. twas rarely you could find any one
so lost to all sense of maniness or national
selfrespect, as to speak in approval of the
kelso circular.
The Times did not hesitate to say that the
city rulers did not dare deny the Irish Cath
olics. 1t said:
The City authorities are afraid of their own
! supporters. They now officially proclaim
that the City is absolutely in the hands of the
Irish Catholics. They cannot even under
take to preserve the peace when the Papists
threaten to break it. 1t is for this we are
taxed more heavily than at any period of our
history-it is for this sort of Government that
we are made to expend over 500 900 a
year, Two out of four of our City rulers are
bigoted Roman Catholics, the men who prop
up the City Government are Roman Catholics
and now it is decided that Protestants have
only such rights as Catholics choose to accord
to them. We suppose this will be submitted
to, like every other abuse. We live in easy
going times. But the day will come when
great and free community will not always lie
down meekly, to be ridden over by the men
who burn down orphan asylums, and whose
Influence is fatal to every phase of civil or re-
ligious liberty.
The Evening Post declared that the city
was disgraced. 1t spoke as follows of the
surrender of the mob:
The city authorities have surrendered to
the threats of law-defying mob. Superin-
| tendent Kelso, after long consultation with
Mayor Hall, yesterday evening ordeyerd the
| police to disperse-not the mob which might
interfere with peacable procession-but the
procession itself. The shepherd ''acting under
legal advice" has taken the part of the
wolves. Therefore, you are ordered -
writes Mr. Kelso to the captain of the police,
''to prevent the formation and progression of
the public street procession for the 18th in
stant."
There was q time, in this city, when the
authorities ordered an anti-slavery meeting
to be dispersed, on the same ground which
Mayor Hall and his Superintendent of Police
take now to justify their prohibition of the
Orange procession. 1t would iritate their
opponents these could not control their tenn
pers, and-being lawless ruffians-would at
tack the anti-slavery men therefore the lat
ter must. not meet together. There was a
time when Union men peaceably meeting in
some parts of our country, were dispersed on
the same plea. All the men who now, ruling
this city, or misrulng it rather, forbid the
Orange procession, in those days justified
those other concessions to the demands of the
mob.
Let us of the northern States no longer de-
plore the condition of the South. We have
our Ku-Klux here in New York but they do
not take the trouble to conceal themselves.
Ruffians, carrying muskets and pistols, were
seen in the streets of New York last night,
and wandering from bar-room to bar-room,
prepared to shed the blood of peaceful cit-
zens on Wednesday. They did not take the
trouble to blakcen their faces, or to disguise
their persons, these New York Ku-Klux-for
they knew that the men who misgovern New
York were their friends.
The Herald, which is not usually very sem
sitive, in this case was aroused to virtuous
indignation and poured forth as follows
The spirit which prompted these threats
against the Orangemen must be put down. 1t
is the same spirit which prompted the Paris
Commune, impelling them to forget the rights
of others, to turn the capital of the world in
to charnel house, to destroy the repositories
of science and art, and tear down monuments
revered by time and sacred in the eyes of all
mankind. 1t is the same spirit which prompt
ed draft riots in 1868, Inducing men to burn
asylums where children were nurtured, and
hang negroes to lamp posts. 1t is the same
spirit which was exhibited at Elm Park last
year-the spirit which brooks not freedom OF
opinion, speech and action in others. 1t is a
baleful spirit, productive of the worst conse-
quences, and can meet with no favor from the
American people.
The surrender is tie more unfortunate for
the Tammany democracy, because it sertl es
nothing definitely. The same question of an
Orange parade must come up again next year
and the year after and every year, and will
have to be met again, and each succeeding
year the question will become more impor-
"a
right to the threats of the mob will not be ac-
ceptable as a settlement of it. The spirit of
concession has ere now ruined the democratic
party. Concession to the lawless border ruff
ans in Kansas brought it into disrepute, and
eventually split it into the Douglas and Brock
inridge factions in 1860; concession to the
spirit of rank treason cast upon it an inetface-
bic blot in 1861; concession to the fighting
mobs Of the Southern Confederacy marked
its career through the war and shut the gates
of the White House against it for eight years,
and i. may prove that its concession to the
mob spirit of the Hibernians to-day will close
the gates against it for four years longer
@.