The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-08-29
For Comfy Treasurers.
Hic .Iacnt.
OF LEWISTON

William Henry Clifford Esq, the favor
lite orator of the Democracy, tried his hand
yesterday at the obituary business. At the
County Convention of the moribund Demo
Gratis, he took the occasion of assuming the
chair IS presiding officer to announce to the
throng, who waited for words of comfort and
consolation, that the old party is thoroughly
dead ami that they were probably attending
their last County Convention. Cold comfort,
Messieurs! Mr.. Clifford thinks that by a
change of name and general breakup aud
reorganization they may so far obscure their
identity as to ride into power on some spec
ious war cry. The slogan which he recon-
mends is ''Civil Service Reform which must
have delighted his auditors amazingly, if they
knew enough to reflect that civil service re-
form means the retention in Office of all pres
ent incumbents, regardless of their political
views, provided that they faithfully discharge
their official duties. The very theory upon
which he proposes to win, robs the victory Of
its sweets to the average Democrat, as it
would leave very limited quantity of loaves
and fishes for distribution among a very large
and an excessively hungry multitude-and
the day of miracles is in the remote past.
The orator, warming with his subject and
fairly revealing in the gliJtering prospects of
success under this deusive banner, foEgets
for moment his mortuary theory aud an
nounces that the Democratic party, as it ex-
lists, can sweep the State by declaring its fer
vid interest in civil service reform and its
devotion to all other kinds Of reform. He
blandly ignores the fact that the Democracy
for the last three years has sworn allegiance
to every notion which seemed popular, with
out deluding anybody. He is right in his
original proposition that these people must
obliterate themselves so effectively that the
old particles will not be recognized in any
new combination.
On the whole, his position is rather anus
ing. He thinks he has discovered the pana-
cea for all political ils-the universal solvent
which will reduce to their ultimate atoms the
gritty fragments Of Democracy, and enable
them to be reformed into more attractive
shapes. He thinks he has found the genuine
lunar attraction which will raise tidal wave
on whose crest he and his associates may ride
into power; and this panacea-this solvent
this moon of moons-is Civil Service Reform, a
dogma which is most dsta. tefu to every thor
oughbred Democrat of the modern type. Why,
what possible inducement does Mr.. Clifford
fancy his confederates have for getting into
power, if the spoils OF office be withheld?
Such barren victory would present few charms.
The sensations of The veteran Bourbons who
listened to this address must have been in
describable. To be to!d-in rounded periods
TO be sure, but very clearly-that their day of
usefulness was past, that they were dead be-
yond all possibility of resurrection, that they
ought to cease their galvanic efforts to simu-
late vitality, that it would be more becoming
in them to be decenty and finally inferred
and that total disintegration is their only
path to new life, must have been far sadder
than tears. To have all Of this said by one
Of their own chosen leaders-their congress-
ional candidate of last year-a somewhat err
ratio youth politically but of uDques tonable
Democratic lineage and breeding, must have
added essentially TO their grief The solemn
silence in which these dtctd were received
was not, we fancy, the silence of acquies-
cence. The typical old bunker was there in
full force and he returned to his home last
night sorrowful but firm, confident that he
should learn in his argus of the next morn
ing that this was all horrid dream, that the
Democracy still lives, that it recently carried
some school district in Illinois and that it will
certainly carry Maine next year, if not this.