The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-02
,JOHN-JACK.

OOhN-U AOhs
From the Golden Age Edited by Theodore THtoa).
John-Jack, in the story, was an eccentric
individual, who fancied he was two persons
in one-John the good, and Jack the bad.
These two in one often argued violently with
each other-John reasoning against jacks
evil courses and Jack vindicating himself on
the ground of his innate depravity. Some
times John would get q strong grip on Jack,
but more often Jack reigned dominant over
John. Between the two, whoever was in the
ascendancy, there was a civil Cor rather an
unciviN war-sn unendiRg feud which agi-
tated the one general and tempest-tossed
breast of double and divided John-Jack
In like manner, for few months past, the
two wings of the Democratic party-the
better and the worse, the humane and the
cruel the law-abiding and the Ku-klux-have
been wrestling with each other in q john
Jack strife. The World, and some of its
followers at the North, have uttered the
reasonable voice of John, saying, "bygones
must be bygones; the amendments must be
sustained; and the negro shall be unmo-
lssted. But, on the other hand, dozen or
more of the old-fashioned fre-eating presses
throughout the South, with some at the
North to borrow and propagate their
flames, have replied in the temper of Jack,
saying, ''We mean to repudiate the amend
ments; we shall show no quarter to the negro;
and we are reaching out our bloody hand into
the past to bring back the old regime" And
SO a John-Jack controversy RACES within the
Democratic party; debate between its inner
voices, but heard outside; colloquy between
its nobler and its baser self; struggle which
may end in the victory Of reason on the one
hand, or of madness on the other.
Just at this point, the Democratic members
of Congress have issued ar address to the
people of the United States--a sort of Parthian
arrow which, in their retreat from Washing
ton, they have let fly at the Federal Admins
tration. Their attitude towards the Republi-
can party does not interest us; this attitude
is, of course, partisan hostility-expressed
in criticisms more or less just; but the policy
which they propose for the Democratic party
their own future career-excites our pro-
found attention. Having spoken, what have
they said? Is it the language of John or
Jack? 1t is midway, non com initial,
half muteness in which we hear neither
Johns declaration of good intent, nor Jacks
There is the best of reasons for this diplo-
matte vagueness. The Democrats in Con-
gress, who are the authors of this address,
consisting, as they do, both of bad and good
men, or, in other words, both of Johns and
Jacks, wanted their document to utter, not
discordant, but harmonious voice; and az
the whole body of signers could not speak
collectively either as John or as Jack, the
prenunciamento was made to exclude every
thing Johnsonian on the one hand, and every
thing Jacksonian on the other No party
prospectus was ever more meaningless on the
chief point concerning which the people to
whom it is addressed want to know its mean
ing; and that is, the future policy of the
Democratic party In reference to the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. On
this momentous subject, this address is what
Rufus Choate would have styled ''a glittering
generality" The Democratic party itself
does not know what policy this manifesto
manifests-whether John is determined that
Jack shall not interfere with the amendments,
or whether Jack is to put a gag in Johns
mouth, and then ''cry havoc and let slip the
dogs of war" John takes up the document
and reads what it says of ''the rights which
every freeman cherishes," and of ''the best
| guarantees of law and order, and of throw
ing round ''the humblesticitizen, wherever he
may be, the protecting @gis of those safe
guards of personal liberty which the
fundamental laws of the land assure:"-all
this John reads with delight and then says to
Jack, 'This means that the fourteenth and
| fifteenth amendments are to be sustained, and
the negro is to be protected under then;" but
Jack replies in hot blood, SIT means no such
thing. On the contrary, just as for fifty years
the Declaration of Independence did not, in
the South, include the negro, SO now these
amendments shall be, to him, a similar
meckery. And since there was always in
the South, as in the North, constitutional
guarantee of free speech, and yet there was
never any free speech in one-half the
! Union, so now, in that same half these
! constitutional amendments, guaranteeing the
civil and political liberty of the negro, shall
be treated as Republican promises made to
the ear which Democratic administration
shall break to the hope" And SO the Demo
cratic members of Congress, in their address,
have stimulated, rather than healed, the con-
troversy between John and Jack. Notwith-
standing the mock gravity, and the sad-em-
broiSered solemnity, and the semi pathetic
sweetness of this manifesto, it is nevertheless
"a trumpet of an uncertain sound" II FORE
casts neither one policy nor another. 1t gives
DO assurance whether the Democratic party
mean to protect the negro against the Ku-
klux, or to re-enfOrce the Ku-klux against the
negro.
Sitting as independent critics of the politi.
cal situation-looking dispassionately on O
game which we have no hand in playing-we
give it as our prophetic opinion Worthless as
such horoscopes may be) that John can win,
but Jack must lose, the next Presidential
election for the Democratic party. Three
wears ago at Tammany Hall, if John had beer
allowed to nominate Chief Justice Chase, and
Jack had been prevented from nominating
Frank Blair. the Democratic party would in
all probability have won the great battle
which they then lost. Jacks disposition is
to rule or ruin. Having ruled the party to its
ruin, the question for that party now to settle
is, whether or not John shall rise to the
dignity Of the succession, and 10y asserting
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