New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-18
THE REFOR LEAGUE.

purpose of reforming all the most crying
abuses of the day, viz: ku-kluxism, intern
perance, the tyranny of capital over labor,
the sale of the public lands to specializing
corporations instead of to actual settlers,
national and clique filibustering, and
woman's exclusion from the exercise of
political rights, etc, held its first annual
meeting on the ninth of this month, in New
York, at Steinway Hall, and was addressed
by Wendell Phillips ON the above named
subjects. The following brief extracts from
his speech contain valuable suggestions on
some Of the most stirring topics now before
the public:
Here we are in the midst of a conflict OF
great interests, classes and sections OF the
country, and political parties Jostllng and
crushing against each other like vessels III
q storm, and in the meantime hidden under
their apparently aimless conflicts some
times are periled the great principles of
republican government. Prince Albert
used to say-and he did not say great
many profound things, therefore those wise
two or three he did say should be remem-
bered-he used to say, This is the time
when representative governments are on
trial" Most men imagine the experiment
ended and the success as assured, but the
prince saw a little deeper. Bred in an
aristocratic level. and transferred to the
comparatively free government of Great
Britain, and noticing from his joint expe-
rience principles better than the English
men could the struggle below him, he saw
very well what any man can see in this
city, that the question whether the people
really can govern themselves yet is still an
unsettled one; whether we can fight the
battle against money, against ciques,
against stronger than hereditary aristoc
racy as an unsettled question.
Our fathers thought when they abolished
hereditary nobility that they cleared the
ground, and that the democracy was as
sured. They never dreamed that cen
fury TO come would witness power whose
weight, and depth, and permanence might
laugh the strongest aristocracy to scorn.
They thought a man may be worth mill
ion, but he will die, and if we only make it
an assured thing that his gatherings will be
scattered among his children, that danger
is TRANSIENT it never can crystalize into an
institution: but they forgot the cunning of
incorporation. Vanderbilt may die to-mor-
row. His large and curiously gathered treas
ure may be scattered into the aimless or
lavish hands of heirs, but New York Cen
trail never dies; Pennsylvania Central never
dies. 1t will have policy as unchanging
as permanent. 1t will gather to itself a
cunning as sagaciOus as the Papacy did,
and already there stands revealed to the
COMPOUNDED conviction of the American
people, they are settled right among an
aristocracy of the nineteenth century, com
pared with which the English duke and the
Austrian prince is only n passing cloud.
One OF the London reviews said the other
day I'VE should like to know the crime
which a man worth forty millions in the
CITY Oh SNew York NAV not safely be guilty
Off" We know II is true, and at the same
time as we watch its operations we see that
pulpit and press and parties are all doing
Obeisance to this modern nobility, to this
baronetage of millions, to this peerage of
wealth. The question is now, shall we fight
up against it All we say at the present
time is that the substratum of society,
heaving and tossing in angry and aimless
and ignorant struggle, putting its cropping
finger, not knowing what it wants, nor
why it suffers, nor how it can be remedied,
and daily becoming angrier and more
soured, and more embittered. The question
is, who shall speak to it, who shall attack
these conflicting interests, who shall keep
them down, and cram down their reluctant
threats the facts which they ought to know
and don't want to know, and never will be
told by those that seek to gain something
ny consulting lNeIH
Well, the very instincts of the English
people, and / mean by the English people !
the English-speaking Tace-the very in
stincts of the English-speaking race, in
some way has touched q remedy As long !
ago as Daniel DetOe, who gave us Robinson |
Crusoe, that sagaciOus man saw that while |
the peerage hung over him on one side, and |
the great wealthy middle classes on the |
other, he could appeal by the press to the |
common sense OF the English millions. |
Daniel Defoe invented the pamphlet; he |
was the first man to fling the pamphlet at |
hat little coterie of cousins that we call |
the English House of Commons, and he |
may be considered the father of this system |
Of agitation-this outside sort of Arab war !
fare, which has every mans hand against it |
and has its own hand against every man. |
This individual conscience, this Harry |
Wayne fighting on his own hook, each are, |
thus isolated, Indispensable and invincibIe.
Carlisle says, somewhere in his book. that |
It was not necessary for the Saxon to think |
put that protest against authority which
made Luther famous, that he had it in every
irOp Of his blood, ard could not get rid of |
t any more than hereditary disease. |
Applause.1 They are naturally adapted to
his idea of agitation; somebody said the |
hing was so, and consequently he denied it.
That is the fighting element of the Saxon
ace we consider tonight. The anti slavery
standard under a new name, with brighter
purpose, with the idea of saying to it what
he Republican party once said and can not
ltfOrd TO say until the day after the NOR
'Ow. Somebody must pay for saying it.
We must get the types and standpoint, and
he root and the breadth, and it ia only to
DC done by gathering all the men that think
or themselves into a group, and putting
'Our hand INTO the pocket of each and
aklng out his comparative share of the |
ONT expenses, for the luxury of making a
protest somebody else. Applause
The difficulty with the ordinary press of
his country is, that there are so many men
who can write and so few who can think If
he writing faculty were co-extensive with
'ers published would hardly survive. But
the power of writing is ten
old greater than the power of thinking, and
he result is we are covered with varnish
f mere words, except now and then by
ONE singular mistake thought crops out.
hat is the agitatOr. | don't know he is any
'etter; he may be wrong. He may say the
cry worst thing that can be said, but he
avs something that sets everybody think
ng-he says something that stirs the whole
We are crystaliZing constantly
own into unwise rest intelle ctually, and
e comes and disturbs the process and sets
ii the elements and atoms into a general
movement and they crystalize around a
ew center.
By compiling the statistics of divorce it
5 found that in Vermont during seven
ears, there were 73O divorces to 1910
marriages, or a ratio of one to twenty one.