Liberal Republican. [volume] (Dallas, Or.) 1872-1???, 1873-07-26
LET THE BALL ROLL:

| w SFO UclO" du S4kTdCt lEUiu tHS
speech Of General Black which has the
right ring, and which makes dema>
gogues and poll tical thieves, headed by
the gift-taker, tremble.
b ut let us imagine because We no
longer hear the roll of the drum, and
read the daily record of death, that the
work is done. 1t is but begun. To
each generation liberty assigns ito la
Dor. Our first labor is to renovate
the public service and it will be found
greater and graver than subduing re-
bellion and battling treason. When
foes rank themselves under stranger
flags and bid open defiance, we count
the opposing host and foretell the re-
suit; but when they wear the grab Of
friends, and stand beside us as our
servants, trusted, honored, believed,
then is the danger great, the peril pro-
found, the need for vigilance redoubled.
No people can be called free whose
public Offices are at the disposition of
rings or cliques, who, by raising the
party cry, can set their followers in
array in support of any measure how
ever bad. and any men, how
ever corrupt. AllegIances TO the party
is the source of ring government, and
as certain to result in corruption as that
men who are venal will seek the aid
of organized powers. do not discuss
this subject in partisan sense, as one
who has accusations to make against
the ins, or apologies to tender for the
outs. Every political party IN exis-
tence to-day is as whited scpulclre,
full of dead mems bones aud corrup =
tion.
Alike, they furnish the allies of each
scheme Of plumber, the auxiliaries for
every raid on the public Treasury
Which among them is pure Which
of them has not furnished leaders who
are burdened with the spoil Of the
Credit Mobilier and the salary-grab?
Which of them has furnished its
thieves that have restored their swag
to the Treasury. Alike they cry pee
cavi, and promise reformation but
their promise are empty, while their
chief offenders are representatives,
Judges, Senators, and even higher in
the official scale. When parties are so
controlled by rings as to permit thiev-
ing; so weak as to be unable to pre-.
vent it, then it becomes their duty to
relegate their powers to the people,
from whom they are derived, to aban-
don their organization, and to permit
their voters 10 join with untrammeled,
earnest men who are determined to re-
form and purify. There is no place for
the corrupt and weak in the progressive
struggle Of the day. They.are hulks
rotting ON the slow waves, moored TO
the dismal shores of the past unable to
catch with their rotting sails single
breath Of that good wind that sets to-
ward the heaven of reform. Elaunting
their old flags in the rotting air, on the
rottiug sea, and under the breezy sky Of Q
party world, they are the hospitals for
disabled party vetrans who should be
self-pensioned with their numerous
followers. Let them pass away.
A man whose creed is worn out,
whose ideas of political progress are to
stand only where his father stood, can
not aid the country in this age and on
this great day. Men inspired by the
great declaration may proclaim their
freedom from their old allegiances,
make new issues, and choose new as
sociations. Choose your own leaders
and servants, requiring of them honesty
and capability; selecting by these tests
furnishing remorselessly any departure
from the right, condemning the bribe-
tenderer and the bribe-taker, the cor.
rupt and unprincipIed, and you will
soon be able to point to purified SER
vice and honored country.
The need for immediate action In
great. Look at our shame in the
Worlds Exposition at Vienna ! Look
to the spectacle presented in our Ma
tional Capital! Urged on by the press,