The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1873-10-25

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power T., reform itself. and that long
lease of power breeds corruption in any
party, and compels the people, in self de.
Tense, to disown it. They must see how
such q party reduces the manipulation OF
conventions and caucuses to fine art in
which the people have no share, save as
victims, and that it converts our national
politics into a great national industry, with
subordinate bureaus Of lying, cheating and
stealing, all directed by few potentates,
under whose inspiring genius the general
welfare is made entirely subservient to
their selfish ambition.
If am right in these views, The refor-
nation of existing abuses must begin in
the rebellion of the people against the
party tyranny Of the times. Their eman-
cipatIon from their old political masters
must precede the overthrow Of the evils
which confront us, and which have grown
to their full stature under the nurture Of
the great organizations which to-day con-
tend for the mastery, and have alternately
ruled the country in the past. Instead of
watching over the interests &c the people,
they have themselves been the ready in
struments of those grand schemes o job
berry and corruption which have so long
afflicted the Republic, and at last clutched
at its life. They have not only accomplish
ed their mission and oltlived their useful
ness, but they are organized distractions
to the public welfare, and quite as potent
for evil as they ever we're for good. Their
machinery has been so long prostituted to
base ends that it has become incapable of
serving any other Their discipline has
has degenerated intoa
wANToN TYRANNY
over individual Judgment and conscience,
and an unmixed curse to the country. One
Of them struggles to prolong its rule after
the death and burial Of its conscience, and
while shamelessly wallowing in the mire Of
its damning apostasy and the other gasps
for life with equal desperation, after for
feiting its right to live by its unhallowed
service of negro slavery, and writing its
own epitaph last year in the nomination
and support of Horace Greeley on the Gin
cinnati platform. They present the wretch
ed spectacle of one faction struggling to
keep the other out of power, and the other
struggling to get in, while roguery and
eharlatanlsm rule them both. Each holds
the other in its orbit, and revolves round
a common center of antagonism. which is
its life. Like the two great parties OF
twenty years ago, they are substantially
agreed AS to their declared principles and
policy, while the spoils alone divide those
who are brethren i'll heart. They rival
each other i'll the alacrity with which they
engage in schemes Of pelf and plumber,
and the refreshing audacity with which
they violate their political professions.
Each Justly charges the other with veuality
and corruption, and each pleads the exist
ence of the other as the excuse for its own.
Neither Of them could survive if the other
should perish and either Of them would
mourn the death Of the other, since it
would inevitably hberste the people from
party thralldom, and usher in new dis
peIsation akin to that which at first fol-
lowed the disruption of the old Wing
party, and finally buried the Democratic
organization in irretrievable dishonor. One
of them impudently makes its strut before
the nation as ''the party Of great moral
ideas" while numbering among its chief
apostles and recognized leaders such char
acters as Simon Cameron, Oliver z. Nor
ton, Benjamin +. Butler, Matt II. Car
penter, Powell Clayton, Thomas Murphy
and Brother-in-law Casey and the other
is obliged to confesss itself the political
father Of these amounted patriots, that it
taught them the first lessons in modern
democracy, and at last sorrowfu!ly gave
them up to the more inviting service of
the enemy. The marvellous energy dis
played by one Of these parties during the
late war has since been triumphantly turn
ed into the channels of protiigacy and
plumber, with results that have startled
the whole land and made its very name a
stencil while the other, throwing away its
many opportunities Of retrieving its for
tunes and saving its once honored name
from disgrace, has joyfully shared in the
worst misdeeds Of its debauched rival, and
thus richly earned the honors Of burial in
common grave No friend Of his coun-
try should therefore think Of pouring the
new wine of reform into these old bottles,
now so thoroughly defiled by foul uses, land
so hopelessly beyond the power of disin-
lection.
STRIKE THE sHACKLEs.
What We want is perfectly unshackled
movement of the people-a fellowship Of
honest men in every section Of the land -
[
the greed Of sudden wealth and the agen-
cies Of modern society have created. We
must have the substance, and not the form
merely, Of free institutions We must
snatch freedom itself from the peTilous ac-
tivities quickened into life by its own spir-
it. We must search out new defences Of
democracy in the new trials Of life. The
grand work of our times is not the highest
! development Of favored individuals or
classes, or the accumulation Of great wealth
in their hands, but the most enlighten-
ment and supreme welfare Of the masses.
1t is not the exceptional culture Of com
manding advantage Of the few, but the mp
lifting of the many to higher level. This
is the blessed mission Of Democracy, and
the true religion of humanity. 1t may be
delayed for q season. 1t may be tempo
rarily frustrated by the great and impend-
ing dangers | have attempted to depict.
The blindness of organized cupidity, tramp
| ling down the rights of the people, may
even precipitate the country into revolu-
ton and violence. as did the slave powerof
the South but in the end democracy will
be indicated. All the divine forces are
on its side. Christianity is pledged to its
triumph and coincident with its teachings.
The great law Of social evolution foreor-
dams it, Democracy is to come in its full
ness, sweeping away the conspiracies Of
wealth and the subterfuges of monopoly,
and enforcing call rights for all, but
whether this shall be sooner or later, and
whether nerHldetl by the kindly agencies OF
peace or the harsh power Of war, must de-
pend upon the wise and timely use Of OPP
portunities. The result is certain, since
Justice can not finally be defeated, but the
circumstances Of the struggle and the cost
Of the triumph are committed to our
hands. We can help, or hinder, the grand
march of human progress. We can smooth
its pathway and speed its momentum, or