The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-09-05
The Effect Of 1t.


unsettled. He had definitely concluded that
the Republican party needed the disciplinary
experience of defeat and that he would in
diyidually contribute to its amendment either
by voting the opposition ticket or by cutting
the Republican ticket in manner SO re-
morseless as to carry terror and dismay to the
hearts Of the regulars. At the same time
Brown, who wanted to go to the Legislature
last year, but couldn't get the nomination,
was tickling his Imagination with the idea of
the delicious revenge he would take by help
ing elect the opposition candidates this year.
Smiths neighbor, with whom he had quar-
rel about a line fence, being prominent Re-
publican Office holder and candidate for re-
election, Smith had sturdily proclaimed HE
can never have my vote. l don't care con-
tinental for the Republican party. I'd as lief
it would be defeated as not. When party
puts such men as my neighbor in Office and
keeps them there, wash my hands of it."
And Thompson was shaky-Thompson who
used to battle it so with the "Copperheads''
In war tine-Thompson who called every
man a "traitor" who did not want Andrew
johnson impeached, and said openly that
Horace Greeley was a 'rebel" and "no better
than JEFF Davis.' Yes, Thompson was at
last very shaky himself He had lost the
track. He could hardly see now what the
contest between the parties is about. There
seemed to him to be very little principle in
volved-it was more like a contest for office
between two cliques of aspiring, men. The
good old gentleman missed the moral stimu-
lus of the clear, sharply outlined issue be-
tween freedom and slavery, civilization and
barbarism, right and wrong; and he said to
his friends in confidence: GIVE got to this;
I'm going for the best man, I don't care what
party he belongs to-" Toakes had applied to
his congressman for post office but the con-
gresham had given it to a soldiers widow,
and Noakes had said in his wrath, 'sThese
- Republicans have got SO corrupt can't
train with them any longer. The mission of
the party has ended anyway" Stoakes no.
ticed that Jinks, Brown, Smith, Thompson
and Noakes were wavering. Stoakes was
prominent man in the party and expected to
go to Congress sometime. So, thinking that
the long-promised, long-delayed revolution
was about. TO come, he was already secretly
making overtures to the enemy with view
to being their candidate.
But it is quite certain that Jinks, Brown,
Smith, Thompson, Noakes and Stoakes will
vote the entire Republican ticket week from
Monday. And it is almost pity that they
will feel obliged to do so; for it is a great
moral satisfaction, sometimes, to cut ticket,
If it be not good one, and to show party
managers that they cannot, with impunity, put
bad or incompetent men in nomination. And
sometimes, in extreme cases, defeat is a
wholesome, almost indispensable, therapeu-
tic agent in case of maladies that attack even
our party of great moral ideas, though our
case is not yet so bad in Maine as to require
so desperate a remedy. The detection of
Jinks & Co., above referred to, if the Demo-
Gratis had permitted it to take place, would
have answered about all our reasonable re-
quirements. 1t would not have resulted in
general defeat, but only partial elimination
of the worst candidates. But here are links
& Co. who will not on any account fail to
buloW VIC biChCt Will uUL d udIuG
erased or middle letter obscured.
The fact is, that Democratic wickedness
and folly will not let us reform our own party
so rapidly as we would like. Just as we have
whipped out our penknives and are on the
point of setting gleefully to work to cut and
slash the hitherto sacred tissue of the regular
Republican ticket, they begin to steal in Mis-
souri,, to plunge back to the dark ages in
Connecticut, to perform alarmingly revolu-
tionary antics in New Hampshire, to incred-
IDLY misbehave themselves everywhere, and,
especially, to drive olt or massacre negroes
and white Republicans all over the South.
The southern ex-rebels, hearing that Jinks,
Brown, Smith, Thompson, Noakes and
Stoakes are going to vote the Democratic
ticket, fancy that the day OF rebel triumphs is
about to dawn, and they load their guns
with 5uckshot or bali forthwith. As election
day approaches the southern whites, belev-
ing that the impending revolution at the
North Will secure them complete impunity
Tor their crimes, grow drunk with their own
excuses, and the scattering fire grows into
regular fusillade. A reign of terror ensues at
the South, but when the day of election comes
at the North the Republicans are found to
have polled their full vote. links and
Thompson can easily see that there is some
definite principle involved in the contest.
Brown and Noakes forget their private griefs,
ashamed to let selfish feeling on their part
contribute to the destruction ofloyal men and
the peril of the Republic; and even Smith
will see his neighbor county commissioner
rather than democratic gain" at the
North shall be echoed by Democratic rife
shots at the South. And so it is. Our enc
mics give our party drll-sergeants and whips