Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-11-08


Our neighbor at Springfield continues TO talk
of the "reform movement" as if the nomination
and support of Mr. Greeley for the presidency
were something of this kind. Men are some
times demoralized by illusions, and sometimes
by desperate attempts to have pretenses pass
current as realities. The Republican thinks
this reform movement "has achieved all they
Its frieudsl had the right TO anticipate from
it. We think so too. A few leading republic
cans and republican journals, assisted by a
crowd Of political Adventures from both parties,
com bined their forces and undertook TO manu-
facture new political party which they might
own and control. Reform is needed but no.
where has it been more necessary than in that
amazing estimate of themselves, and in those
views of the philosophy of human action in
politics, by which these men were led to under
take manufacture Of this sort. If the result of
this election shall reform in them these grave
errors, it will, Certainly, do all they had right
TO anticipate, and a good deal more than they
expected.
Parties are not manufactured; they grow out
Of live issues by which men are moved to COM
bine and act in concert to secure certain politi-
cal results. Their life and power are not de
pendent on the personality of any man nor on
the utterances Of any organ. Live parties create
their instruments and their organs. Men may
become prominent by having ability and oppor-
tunity 10 represent them in prominent places
but "leadiDg men" do not make them and can
not destroy them. The movement repre-
scented by the Cincinnati convention, was
b0sal m +ba. tIo
sona importance and power OF certain
men connected with it could easily create
political revolution; and that the ''independent
journalism Of certain newspapers would be ir-
resistible. 1t was one Of those decisions to
which excessive egotism is liable; and we see
what it has done for those whom it controlled;
we see the vast difference between their dream
Of destroying the republican party and the re-
suit. They have added a chapter to our political
history, which can be studied with profit; and
they have shown Others if not themselves, how
impossible it is for the overweening pretensions
Of egOtistic individualism to appropriate the
power and influence belonging to the faithful
representative of live party.
The forces by which political parties are dis
solved and reorganized, are not developed and
set in operation by the order of prominent poll
ticians, nor by the vote of Cincinnati couven-
ton. They appear in their own time, and work
in their own way, regardless of the aims or
wishes Of individuals. The democratic party
with its history and record can not have an i'm
portan; future; but it Will live and continue 10
work its Old machinery, so long as any consd-
cradle portion of it shall keep alive hostility TO
the changes wrought by the republican party,
in destroying the slave power and crushing the
rebellion, and cherish the hope of restoring the
"old condition" When this hostility and the hope
which feeds it, shall disappear, the democratic
party viii die and be buried out of sight. The
overwhelming defeat of the Greeley movement
viii do more to secure this desired change than
could be done by all the Cincinnati conventions
possible between to-day and the year 5000,
should one be held every week, and be managed
by all the mighty dreamers and schemers the
country could furnish. Meanwhile, it is some
thing worse than nonsense to talk OF manuiac-
turing dissolution and reorganization of par