The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-07-01
Interest and No Interest.

In one of its numerous comments upon
the recent Fifth Avenue meeting the Ece-
ming Post says:
Owe did not gather from the speeches (of
the southern gentlcmen) any evidence that
there was in the community for which they
spoke any interest whatever iii reform, as we
at the North understand It. Free trade,
revenue reform, civil service refornl-they
did not even allude to these subjects
They probably were thinking 81 some.
thing to themselves bf more importafa,e-oi
their ruined homes, of their Impoverished
States, of the locust-swarm OF adventures
which has settled upon their territory
and of that lost liberty which was once
protected by law. They thought, per
hans. and rightly thought, that until
something like peace and personal freedom
and material prosperity and wcll.protected
daily industry should be restored to them,
their energies might be applied somewhat
better than in behalf Of tariff reform, or
treasury reform, or civil service reform.
Perhaps they were not to blame. A man
who does not know whether he is Il citizen
or not; whether his property will bc pro-
tected or not; whether he HAY not, Tor no
good cause, he cast tomorrow into dun
geon and kept there for months; whether he
nay have any other than ii summary trial
before packed jury, or no trial ut all before
n despotical ignoramllS; whether he may be
allowed to cast his vote into any other than
stuffed ballot-boX; whether candidate
against whom he has voted will not be fur
nished by plant Governor with certItl-
cate OF election whether he may not lind
himself with many others DISTINGUISHED on
the very morning Of election by 81 gtberfia-
torial ukase; whether his State Is not
to be saddled by debt too pom
derous for any hope Of payment: whether
if put into Jail he will not be starved
to death for want of public funds to buy
bread, while perhaps the collector OF taxes
is defullter to the amount of thirty or forty
thousand dollars; whether he IS to be free
man or the thrall of Scott or Reed, of Bull
lock or Davis, or Holden, or some other ire
sponsible satrap; whether if he tcstiieS
against the wishes of an oifice-holdcr under
the General Government his life will be
safe-a man surrounded with such embar-
easements and filed with such apprehenSions
as these may well be excused if he does not feel
avery lively interest in the economical essays
of Mr.. Edward Atkinson or the self-oplnl0n-
ated articles of The Nation newspaper! What
do the people of Marion county, 5. c., what
do the people of the eight neighborins cour-
ties care for the elegant distractions of anna
teur politicians and drawng-room reformcrs:
1t was because matters of more immediate
and pressing importance-in fact, of life and
of death-demanded their attention that the
southern gentlemen at the Conference felt 50
little interest in pretty schemes for refining
our politics and for pertaining oar halls OF
legislation. 1t is not just the thing to read to
drowning man treatise on lite-prcScrrerS,
or to point ont to him that if he had cNer-
cised this or that precaution he would have
kept out of the watery peril. A majority OF
the Fifth-avcnuc men discovered at once that
the first nuisance to be rid of was Gralltisln,
or CRsarism, or NepotiSm. or Personal Gov
eminent by whatever name it may be called.
The southern gentlemen spoke tcclingly
of the suirerings of their section {; the north
ern and western men listened to the speakers
rs it became gentlemen to listen, and acted
upon what they heard as it became humane
and intelligent men to act, and now the
whole country is holding Il similar confer
ence, and, il we are not utterly mistaken, will
come to the same conclusion. The very first
business Of a Government is to make life and
liberty secure. The very first thing for our
Federal Government to learn is that Union
existing only on paper, and by letter of law,
is good for nothing. All desirable things in
good time! Liberty iirst--all the rest after
ward !-Ne,c York Tribune