New-York tribune., 1872-06-03
PENNSYLVANIA.

tral commonwealth. Her influence mas always
been ascendant and it has invariably been
manifested in peculiar way. The October
election for State officers in the year of Pres
idential election has, in nine cases out OF ten,
foIeshadowed the National result The Octo-
ber election of 1856 gave the State to
Buchanan; that of 1860 gave 1t to Lincoln.
So now every one comedies the import
ance of the preliminary contest or this
year. Let us, in the light of recent oc-
currenees, consider impartially how the
matter now stands. Some weeks or months
ago the fragment of the Republican party
which sustains tho Federal Administra-
ton met at Harrisburg, and, in the
teeth of earnest and Jealous remonstrance,
nominated a ticket which, to say the least OF
it, no independent. honest man could sup
port. The candidate for Governor had
confessedly stained a fair record by
indefensible pecuniary transactions with
convicted brokers and municipal delinquents
So gross was this outrage that the leading Repub-
lican organ of Philadelphia openly denounced
and continues to denOunce it. Every Reformer,
every Liberal Republican is in revolt; and
vet such is the tension, social and politically,
which the Administration, or, to speak more
accurately, the President applies, no one hith-
erto has dared to say what he feels or thinks.
Every eye, not only within the State but be-
yond it, was therefore turned to the Conyen-
ton of that party which, bearing the name of
Democratic" might or might not be the
party Of Progress and Reform. Last week, at
Reading-the capital of county whose De-
"mocracyr has never wavered-this COnven-
ton met, and it is with its action we have
now to do. We have to deal with what it
| said and what it left unSaid Both are sig
nifcant.
1t did not adopt the Cincinnati platform
| This we regret; but it said no word that was
! inconsistent with it, 1t was silent on national
and economical questions. 1t was discreetly
silent on the great question Of Domestic In
dustry, and it was equally so as to its greatest
most consistent and truest champion. We
construe this silence into an implied accept
ance of that part of the Cincinnati platform
in this stronghold of Protection, and q
reasonable suspension of judgment as to the
Cincinnati candidate But we have no desire
to speculate on the negative action of this body.
Its positive dOings were to adopt resOlu-
tons indicative of stern purpose to reform
abuses near at hand-in hOmely phrase, to
put the Pennsylvania house in order, and to
nominate candidates for State officers. Ex-
Senator Charles r. Buckalew was chosen,
no serious opposition being made, as candi-
date for Governor; and it is of him posi-
lively, and of him relatively to his COM
petitor, we have an earnest word to say. 1t
seems to be conceded that the Administration
or pseudo Republican Nominating Convention
was body representative Of the very worst
influences that have 80 long controlled and
discredited great commonwealth. So
wretched were Its nominations that, as we
have said, the most respectable of the Repub-
lican local press has demanded their recon-
sderatiOn. So far from this, in a spirit of
ostentatious defiance, meetings of ratification
have been called, and. as if to make the CO.
hesion Of avowed corruption complete, the
principal one is to be held in Philadelphia
coincidently with the National Nominating
Convention. 1t is the flock of one feather.
No one who looks over the names of the
actors at the Reading Convention, no one
who looks at its candidate, will for a moment
imagine any such influences were at work
there. Of its platform we have said all we
have to say. Its candidate demands more
positive notice. Mr.. Buckalew brings TO the
Executive trust training of O varied sort. He
brings. too, the fruits both of practical ex-
perience and of long and laborious study. He
began in the councils of the State. He was
abroad in responsible diplomatic trust-not
Muscoyite exile, such as SO many of incon-
yenient Pennsylvanians have been, but on
actual responsible duty. He served six years
and they were years of trial and perplexity-
from 1863 to 1860, in the Senate of the United
States, and then, like Mr.. Madison in the
great crisis at the close of the last cent
ury, he returned to the State Legislature.
1t will be for his own immediate fell
low-citzens, his friends, and, if he has
any, his enemies, to study this record,
from beginning to end. We light in
one of his few elaborate speeches, by mere
accident on sentence, the application of
which in the present day we leave to others.
"Nepotism," said Mr.. Buckaew, speaking in the
Senate in 1865, I" the appointment of relatives
"to Office, or the obtaining their appointment
"by the use of ones official influence is Justly
odious, and should be always denounced as
Of evil example and corruptive tendency"
But the great result of Senator Buckalew's
public life, and that on which his name in his
tory will rest, is the development ndevolution of
Minority Representation-that true Democratic
principle Of representation of the whole people,
as we'll as majority. and this appl-
cable to all public trusts from the burgesses
In the little town Of Bloomsbury, where it is