New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-09-23
BUCKALEW.

BUCKALEW
II has been made matter of ungracious COM
ment that the Reform candidate for Governor
of PENNSYLVANIA has been in a great measure,
perhaps altogether, silent with reference to the
Presidential issue in November. If this is So
as we believe 70 certain extent 1t is-we, at
distance, have no other comment to make
than that, having the most perfect confidence
in Mr. Buckalew's sympathy with the great
movement of National Reform, we think he IS
the best Judge of the proper mode OF con-
dieting the local and preliminary contest 1t
is, after all, primarily question OF local
duty-Of State interest, and, as our Phlla-
delphia friends say when their tenn
per is rufled by outside suggestion or
counsel-of Estate Rights" If every
other State in the Union were to be lost to
the cause of Reform, the great struggle will
not be fruitless if Pennsylvania be rescued
from misrule. When Mr.. Buckaiew shall
have fought to the end the local fight, and
gained, as he assuredly will, the victory, then
Will be the time, as Governor elect OF great
Commonwealth, for him to speak to the
nation of national issues To suppose he will
be silent then, with the fresh memory of the
wrongs and injustice he is every day ex-
periencing at the hands of the Federal Ad-
ministratiOn and its pensiOned organs
especially at Philadelphia and Harrisburg
where venom is most concentrated, is to at
tribute to him an insensibility which is wholly
alien to a generous nature.
There is no reason we should be silent about
him, and every reason that to the hundreds
of thousands of Pennsylvania readers, bound
by ties which party politics cannot sever, The
TRIBUNE should say its say distinctly. In Mr.
Buckalew's past career as a public man,
especially as legislator for we exclude his
few years of executive duty, from 1850, when
he entered the State Senate, till now, there
is that consistent action as a conscientious
reformer which commends him to every reflect
ing and patriotic man, be his party politics
what they may. Look back for moment
to his early legislative acts His, long
ago, were the proposed constitutional
amendments to limit the State debt of
Pennsylvania-or rather to restrict the
capacity to bOrrOw-almOst reaching Mr.
O'COnors self-abnegating principle-to pro-
vide for sacred, real Sinking Fund, not a
nominal one, with its cash balances in banks
and brokers' offices, and its principal not
negotiable, and, above all, to forbid the in
creasing municipal Indebtedness by corporate
subscriptions. Who doubts, looking at these
early pledges--to say nothing of his philo-
sophical suggestion of cumulative voting and
minority representation-that had Pennsyl
vania chosen such Chief Magistrate long ago,
h Of ha &c cha IL tho olaVa nf
Ring, the servant of her own legislative
creations. If these be the wishes and the acts
of his young legislative life, let it be borne in
mind he has never swerved from them.
No vote, no word can be quoted
that is inconsistent with Radical Reform
His latest legislative achievement attests this
Every one familiar with PENNSYLVANIA political
history knows that the legislative election of
its chief financial officer, for years past-in-
deed ever since the Cameron domination has
existed-has been the great center of cOrrup-
ton. BY means of it, Hartranft's "paln
Mackey has twice been chosen. To cure this,
Charles r. Buckalew, a Senator from Column
bia, last Winter proposed and carried, so far
as the Legislature can act, constitutional
amendment giving the choice of State Treas
urer to the people. 1t will certainly be
adopted, and we may hope to see, if no higher
honors intercept him. such a man as Esaias
Billingfet of Lancaster in the place which
"R. w. NJ" and 81. +. H." of Third-st.
nomenclature have so long prOstituted. Such,
then, in brief is Mr.. Buckalew's home career.
In January, 1868, he was elected to the Sen
ate of the United States, remaining there till
March, 1869. Here, say bis Philadelphia de-
tractors, is the pinch-here is "the terrible re-
cord of disloyalty!" We have looked pretty
carefully into it, and studied it as we try to
do even the Democratic doings of those abb
normal times, and confess find nothing Oh
which to found reproach. Is it, we ask our
advanced Republican friends-and especially
we ask the readers of The TRIBUNE in Penn
sylvania-in saying, as he did, " that the Rebel
" lion being against the laws of the land and
quitting the whole body of them at defiance,
was utterly lawless aud unauthorized 7" Was
il when be said in his place in the Senate, 81
" thought at the beginning and / think now,
" there was and Is bat one thing Y d. We are