The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-07-19
is HE HONEST?

1t is hard to renOunce an old po-
litical friend, one whom you have
trusted, sought advice from, and
in a certain degree, regarded as a
leader. 1t awakens feelings of re-
greet, not so much for the loss of
q friend, as for the loss of that
confidence which made friendship
possible. If there was one man in
the Republican party whom we
deemed more honest in his con
victions than another, that man
was Horace Greeley. We know he
was eccentric, on some questions
unreliable, but we never doubted
his honesty until now. We have
been forced to desert him, for
when n man deserts from himself,
how can he expect his old friends
to remain by him? If we ever be.
lieved in his honesty we take it all
back. We look in vain for some
grounds on which to justify our
past faith; but we turn unwilling
ly from the search, and confess
there arc none. We can accept
either horn of the dilemma, and
the result is the same. If he was
honest in the past, he is dishonest
now. If he is honest now, he has
been dishonest all his life. Out
of his own mouth he is convicted
of political dishonesty. He advo-
Gated the elevation of the black
race; the granting of lands to
freedmen; the necessity of passing
laws for the protection of south
ern loyalists; the absolute right of
the Federal Government to enforce
these laws, and the vital impor-
lance of defeating Democracy, be-
cause its triumph would defeat
these wise measures. Now he
swallows his past record and de
nounces the very acts he first sug
gested and advocated. The cham
pion of protection, a bitter, unre-
lenting foe to free trade, he has
left on record more good reasons
for making protection" a plank
in the party platform-of engraft-
ing the policy on the administra-
tion-than any other political
writer of our times. In his esti-
nation no greater calamity could
befall the nation than the triumph
of the Democratic party, because
the weight of its administrative
and Legislative influence would be
in favor of free trade. Now he ig-
nores the past, abandons the policy
of protection, shakes hands in
perfect fellowship with free traders,
and is willing to be all things to all
men, just to become President of
the United States.
Now that he is at the feet Of
Democracy, begging for political
aid in his work of rule or ruin, do
ing his best to prove that his past
life has been a miserable sham, u
career of deceit and hypocrisy, in
the interest of his free-trade
friends, let us permit Horace to
speak for himself, lest our words
might do him injustice. Speak
ing of the Democratic party and
its policy, he not long ago paid it
the following compliment:
Point whenever you p.ease to
an election district which You will
pronounce morally rotten-giyen
up in great part to debauchery
and vice-and that district will be
found at nearly or every election
to give large majority for that
which styles itself the Democratic
party. =
'fTaIe all the haunts Of debauch
cry in the land and you will find
nine-tenths of their master-spirits
active participants of that same
Democracy. :
| esMay it be written on my grave
THAT never was its follower, and
lived and died in nothing its
debtor"
Was he honest then2 If he was,
he is dishonest now. The Demo
cratic party has not changed, fol
the same element rules it to-day
that ruled it when Greeley wrote
the above. But Horace is not
/ himself. He has caught that ter
rib8c malady which has carried sc
many leading men to untimcly
grayes-the presidential fever
He has a very severe attack, it has
turned his brain, and out of char
| ity we are willing To. forget tho
wrong he has done his party, and
leave to his own conscience tho
future realization of the greater
wrong he has done himself.
4