The Portland daily press., 1871-12-13
First Appearance of Mephistopneles ms n
RefOru,er.

First Appearance of Mephistopneies ms n
Reformer.
Mephistopheles, taking the form of Fer
nando Wood, 'the man with the white mus
tache," got up in the House of Representa-
tives, on Monday, and offered resolution
that the Republican party should do the fol-
lowing things:
l. Reduce taxes to revenue standard.
2. Reduce expenses by practicing econo-
my.
.. Restore specie payments.
a. Restore to the people of the Southern
States their rights.
B. Revive American commerce.
6. Restore American credit
Z. Make everything lovely.
Stripping Mephisto Woods resolutions of
all verbiage and of their characteristic ampli-
fcation, they resolve themselves into these
seven propositions. Of course, Mephisto's
object was to call the country's attention to
to the shortcomings of the Republican party,
and to give the strongest possible assurance
that it would fare much better under Demo-
cratic rule. 1t is a wonder, ever fresh and
new, that the opposition party seems to feel a
kind of mental complacency in making such
suggestions to intelligent men. Can they
never realize that the absurdity of the thing
flashes instantaneously on the dullest appre-
hension, like a Train manifesto or an Andrew
Jackson Davis book? Let us briefly consider
the seven points, which will never become as
famous as Calvin's nine, leaving out of the ac-
count the small weight added to them by the
virtues, public services or fair repute of the
gentleman who suggested them:
1. The vote of the Pennsylvania Demo
Gratis in body against the first article in
Mephisto's declaration of faith shows how
much revenue reform the people would be au-
thorized to hope from the Democrats more
than they get from the Republicans.
This and all the remaining propositions
are admirable. But what imprudence in a
New York Democrat to talk about economy!
The leaders ofhis party in New York are in
jail, or on their way there, for the grossest ex-
travagance and corruption ever practiced any
where, and the Democrats in Congress vote
steadily against repeating the franking privi-
lege, and oppose all other measures of re-
form.
8 Could impudence go farther than this
even Mephisto's impudence? Specie pay
ments when the further unlimited issue of
an irredeemable paper currency has been for
years the pet dogma of his party, and when
the Pendletons and Ewings have made it as
one of their gravest charges against the party
in power that it would not by such means
postpone indefinitely the return Of s'hard
money! timesl
The comforting on all classes Of the
Southern people equal rights under the con-
stitution has been the great object had in
view by the Republican party in the constitu-
tional amendments and reconstruction and
Ku-Klux laws. To thwart these benefcent
purposes has been the grand purpose of the
Democratic obstructionists in Congress, and
the Ku-Klux murderers in the South The
right of the Southern people to own labor is
the one that Mephisto desires to see restored
8. Every practicable scheme for the revi-
val of American commerce has been suggest
cd and urged in Congress by Republican
members, and defeated by Democrats who
acted with the Republican minority.
6. Here we have more peerless impudence.
1t is indeed a task (but one that Republican
sagacity and honesty have well nigh accom-
plshed) to restore the credit almost destroy
ed, first, by Democratic Encouragement and
extravaganza before the war Buchanan
couldn't borrow on anything like as easy
terms as Grant; second, by the Democratic
rebellion and its terrific expenses; third, by
the continued unrest of the South, arising
from Democratic lawlessness and unrestrain-
cd Confederate sympathies; fourth, by the
continued advocacy by Democratic orators,
journals and conventions of some form of re-
pudiation. The degree to which the public
credit has been impaired by the latter wicked
conduct alone has cost the United States
millions of dollars
Z. As for making everything lovely, who
will do it best-the party of progress, tenn
perance, freedom-in short, of great moral
ideas-or the party of slavery, Fisk, rum and
Tammany?