The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-07-25
Democracy Fatal to ALI Reform.

Ihere are more points of difference be-
tween the Republican party, or party of pro-
gress, and the old Democratic party which
has presented itself this year in a new guise,
than most people are accustomed to think.
We have already shown on the authority of
Mr.. Sumner that even the friends of the
Greeley-Democratic coalition are doubtful
whether the party can any more safely be
trusted with the carrying out of the equal
rights policy now fully adopted by the Amer
lean people, than the old Democratic party
could. The little leaven of few thousand
unsound Republicans is not expected to leav-
en- in this respect the whole lump of two or
three millions of Bourbon Democrats. We
have shown that every sort of financial her
esy, from paying the national debt in cur
rency to assuming the Rebel debt, would be
likely to come to the surface if the Demoo-
racy should return to power. These specifi-
cations are more than sufficient, if sustained
by facts, to deter any honest Republican from
engaging in the fraudulent movement to
"beat Grant" But these are only a few of.
the many specifications touching Democratic
Discrimination to reform that might be made.
The temperance reform is of great local
Importance at least. The Republican party
has elung to it through good and evil report,
passing every prohibitory law, with single
possible exception, ever placed on the statute
book of any State. 1t has lost many votes
in times past on account of this fidelity to
principle, and will perhaps lose many more,
but it has accomplished thereby what are
now acknowledged to be great results for civ
ilization and humanity. What would proba-
bly, be the effect of Democratic triumph on
the temperance reform? Would few hun
dred Republicans in any State withhold
the thousands of gamblers "blacklegs,"
"pimps," "keepers of grogshops" and SIN
mates of brothels' who, as Horace Greeley
affirms, constitute the backbone of the Dem
ocratic party, from instantly sweeping away
all these restrictions on the sale of ardent
spirits which are so offensive to them9 The
abolition of prohibitory laws has from time
immemorial been one of the first results of
Democratic ascendercy. We are glad to
acknowledge the presence and useful activity
of few Pillsburys and Hubbards in the
Democratic party who are doing a most cred
table missionary work, but they can avail
nothing at present against the masses of a
party whose organs are now working (suc-
cessfully, for anything we know to make
party capital out of ''the cider law.r
And could we reasonably expect purer
elections and less interference with the indie
pendent action of voters under Greeley and
Democratic Congress and Cabinet than under
Grant with Republican support? One fact
which is notorious decides this point. When
in any State Democratic government has
been instituted the first step has been, as we
have said, to repeal all prohibitory laws, if
any existed, and the second has been to re-
peat all egectadl registration laps. A Dem
ocrat has an instructive horror of everything
tending to check fraud, and accordingly no
regulation calculated to give every qualified
citizen just one vote and no more has ever
found favor in his eyes. But it will be said
that the influence of Horace Greeley, the new
Democratic leader, will be sufficient to neu-
tralize this ancient Democratic prejudice
against registration of voters. He surely
knows and appreciates as no other man in
America does the deadly effect on Republican
institutions of the corruption of the elective
franchise. He is the man who has oftener
than anybody else called attention to the
predjudices OF the opposition party against all
laws designed to secure the purity of the bal
lot-box. 1t is he who said that New York
was carried for Seymour and the Democracy
in 1868 by frauds that Sought to have filled
nifty State PRISONS" 1t is his pen that has
hitherto advocated the extension of the pro-
visions OF the federal election law to towns as
wen as large cities, SO that incipient fraud
might everywhere be detected that advocated
too, making the Ku-Klux law stronger - ca
that it might be impossible for justice and
right to fail anywhere in the South on account
of the intimidation of voters by lawless bands
of ex-rebels. Surely, such man as this
will work revolution in the ranks of the
party of which he is now the leader. But.
alas he has surrendered in advance. He
now regards the laws for securing fair vote.
which he formerly approved, as devices of
the military despotism at Washington"
Having taken for his motto, Anything to be
President" he has already adopted the very
cant OF his new associates, and phrases like,
invasions of the rights of States" ''the
deprivation of the South Of
Its just rights spring as readily to his lips in
depreciation OF efforts to secure order and
secure fair expression of the popular will in |
the lately rebellious territory, as if he had
been Bourbon from the start. So that he
who hopes to find in Horace Greeley re-
former of his new and strange associates must
prepare himself for disappointment.
And should we have reformed civil service
under the Democracy and Mr. Greeley? 1t
is little curious that the most credulous