New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-06
" BREAKERS AHEAD.r

Massachusetts at last is recalcitrant When
we ventured to speak few days since with
some plainness of Washington Capitalization"
we hardly anticipated so speedy an illustra-
ton of its besetting and imminent dangers
No branch of the Republican party has been
stancher in its fidelity to the Administration
than the Republicans of the Bay State. Its
people are peculiar. While they remain in a
party they are almost bigots in their attach
ment; but boiling with them is familiar
process, and there is nothing of which they
are more jealous than their political indie
pendence. For much more than half the
period of their political existence they have
been in opposition either to the King OF
England or the Federal Government, with a
feeling Of loyalty to both, but with a stronger
feeling of loyalty to themselves. They have
every reason to be faithful to the Republican
party. II is almost the child of their
own moral courage and political sacrifices.
1t would be too much to say that
but for them it could never have existed it
is certain that it did first exist within their
borders under several names; that it began
there as a bolt from both the Wing and Demo-
cratic parties and that it maintained there a
precarous existence until the public sentiment
of the whole North accepted its articles OF
faith and joined with it in triumphant protest
against the intermeddling and dOmineering
propensites of the Washington Government.
Then it became rich and prosperous as the
parties from which it sprung had been before
it then it met with the usual fate of such
associations, and fell into the hands of few
time-serving and self-seeking leaders; aud
now, if all the signs of the times are to be
credited, it is again agitated by the presence
of strong FESTIVE element, whether in the
majority or the minority; so that nothing
would be easier than for the Washington
Administration to drive the Massachusetts, Re-
publcans to open and earnest revolt. A few
more turns of the screw and we may see an
old-fashiOned secession.
The Massachusetts Republicans treated the
Liberal movement during the last Presidential
election with a good deal of contempt; but
by this time they are beginning to see and to
better understand the motives which prompted
that movement, for it was based upon polit-
zeal truths too clear to be long ignored. Some
of our brethren of the press in Boston feel
now somewhat as we felt in that memorable
year. General Orders from Washington are
not so acceptable now as they were then.
The lively performances of Collectors and of
Postmasters were highly acceptable when
their object was to exterminate politically
every man who dared to crticise the Repub
lican Administration they are not 80 deli
ciously fascinating now, when they are en-
ployed to make Mr.. Butler the Governor of
the respectable Commonwealth. The whole
posture of things Is reversed, and the pre-
dicament is getting to be little awkward,
not to say ludicrous. There are some of us
who, if we enjoyed the situation, might plead
that it would be more or less than human not
to do 80.
1t must be sad state Of affairs indeed
when q newspaper 30 careful as The Boston
Advertiser declares that the Republican
"party cannot forever endure the strain to
(which it is now put" and significantly adds /:
" The reason 1T cannot endure it is because
/" it ought not to be endured" This il lust
what The TRIBUNE said a good while ago
just what it was sharply and ill-naturedly
lectured for saying. "When a party" says
The Advertiser, becomes an organization Of
ofice-holdcrs. and is held together by the