New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-04-12
ORGANISM OUT OF Tune.

It has come to pass that certain papers
protesting to be Republican in principle
consider their duty badly attended to if
they do not assail individual Republic
ans for some fancied dereliction in the
line of partisan fidelity. This is Demo-
cratic disease. Our enemies are good at
doing this very thing. They have been
engaged at it for four years, and the virus
has at last spread into our own camp.
Personal vituperation has been the single,
solitary argument of the Democrats since
1865 Every Republican who presented
himself before the country, whether at
Washington, in Louisiana, or even in
foreign countries, has undergone the same
vindictive fire of invective, that he was
Grant was a military dictator, his
appointees were satraps or transient
plunderers, and the officers of the State
were imported carpet-baggers or dishonest
scalawags. It was impossible for citizen
to be Republican without being one of
these things. 1t was not considered ne
cessary to argue the case, nor to offer
evidence against these men, but all that
was wanting was to charge down upon
the unfortunate stranger as Republican,
and he was at once put under the ban. 1t
used to be the custom in Austria, when
stranger. was Objectionable, to denounce
him as Jew, and then leave him to the
mob. This was the precedent upon which
the Democrats acted; and the mob in
Louisiana was quite as relentless and ter
rible as its predecessor was in benighted
Europe.
With the lapse of time, however, the
Democrats have improved in their tone,
and frequently refer, in these latter days,
to Republicans as very proper officers.
What they discarded, it seems, has been
caught up in certain Of our own party
journals. 1t is not an unusual sorrow to
us to note in our local papers protesting
Republican principles thrusts at our own
friends, based upon some mere individual
grievance. These attacks are not founded
on matters that affect the principles of the
party, but are distinctly stated to be the
offspring of disappointment and personal
animosity. We could understand them if
they. charged upon the object of their
attack that he had failed in his allegiance
to the platform or to the fundamental
measures of Republicanism; but we can
not pretend to enter into the feeling of
that editorial which assails the party
through it's trusted officers because they
have not regulated their appointments or
their trusts according to the ideas of those
who besought. favors for which others
were to be held responsible.
And we have noticed with great salts
faction that other Republican papers have
commented upon and condemned this
internecine warfare. A prominent Re-
publican organ in Baton Rouge has called
attention to the fact that the party was
being improperly distracted and disorgan-
lied by personal politics, to the exclusion
of all proper discussion upon measures of
advancement and purposes of future Or
ganization. Men are only the repre-
sentatives of ideas, and while we are
willing to allow that the Republican who
has been u4faithful to the platform and
principles Of the party shall be arraigned
and condemned, We consider the practice
Taught with great peril to our future
snccess where the Republican organizs-
H. T. jarred embittered and distracted
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