Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-02-26
NEW HAMPSHIRE.


The State election in New Hampshire
occurs on the 10th of March, one week
from next Tuesday. The republican can
didate for governor is General Luther
McCutchins, farmer, who is proving to
be popular and influential leader Ever
since his nomination the prospect OF the
republicans has been improving. The
party is we'll united, and though the cam
paign is quiet there will be a good vote
cast at the polls. An important event in
the canvass is the coming out of Hon.
Moses Tappap, one of the most prominent
of the Greeley republicans in the State,
and formerly a leader in the free soil
movement, in letter fayoring the election
of the republican candidate. Mr.. Tappan's
letter is in reply to a communication adj
dressed to him by large number OF re-
publicans in Manchester inviting him to
address the people of that city upon
political topics. He says:
In letter from one of the best and noblest
men l ever knew, and one of the dearest
friends 1 ever had, Il refer, Of course, to
Horace Greeley, to whom you kindly allude,)
written only few days before his death, he
says: 81 hope you will allow yourself a year
or two's quiet abstinence from politics. Just
stand off, mind your own business, drop in q
vote for the best men in nomination, and
patiently wait the moving OF the waters
This advice SO fully accorded with my own
judgment and inclination, that | have been
doing the best / could to follow it. For these
reasons and others personal to myself, which
/ need not enumerate, feel obliged respect
fully to decline your invitation. And here
perhaps might properly stop. But although
/ cannot fiatter myself that any course | may
take will be of any great importance to any
body but myself, believing as do that 1t is
the bounden duty of every good citizen to
vote in some way, have no objections, since
so many of my old friends desire it, to indicate
the path which duty points out to me in the
coming election, and to give some of the rea-
sons that will govern my action. l therefore
frankly say that / iRtend to drop in vote
for Gen. Luther McCutchins for Governor.
In making this avowal have no wish to dis
guise my dissatisfaction with many ofthe acts
and doings of the National Administration
and by National Administration l include
Congress as we'll as the Executive. l admit
grapple with the great questions that press
for solution. And deplore the Generalization
of many of its leaders, and the corruptions
and abuses that have crept into the party which
l have given the best years of my life to help
build up. But, on the other hand, am not
able TO see that the Democratic party occupies
any better position, either in Congress or out,
or that its leaders, as indicated by their acts
and votes, are any more honest or free from
the communicating schemes that have dis
graced the country than its antagonist. And
in view also of the utterances of portion OF
its press, as well in this as in other States,
and of many leaders, l think l see dis
position ON the part of an influential, and l
fear q controlling section of the party, TO
cling to its old pro-slavery traditions and an
unwillingness to recognize the fact that the
world has moved at all within the last dozen
or fifteen years.
After speaking in praise of the personal
qualifications of the republican candidate
for governor, Mr.. Tappan continues:
But another reason which has controlling
weight with me in the present canvas is this
have been lifelong friend of temperance.
My motto has been, while in Congress, every
where, and on all occasions, 'rouch not,
taste not, handle not" that which, ''put into
the mouth, steals away the brains" And
while am not able TO see that much good has
resulted from some of the means that have
been resorted to to enforce our prohbitory
law-believing more in moral efforts to edp-
cate public sentiment than in any kind of law
that has not public opinion behind i'll am
certainly not prepared for its unconditional
repeal, and to substitute for it a license sys-
TEN, whereby an evil productive of more mis-
cry, wretchedness and crime than any other,
shall be legalized, and grog-shops and tippling
houses established by law all over the State
/ certainly am not in favor of free rum,
and "license," as IL seems to me practically
means that. For what inducement would
there be to prosecute one who might set up
liquor selling on his own account, when the
practical result would be to give monopoly
of the traffic to his legalized neghbor and
rival? To such system l understand the
democratic party to be pledged by its platform
which asserts that this '.judicious license law
may be made prohibtory by local option p
but, to say nothing Of the questionable right
TO confer such legislative power upon towns,
it is enough to state that ''local option has
once been tried in this State. and with such
results that it became odious to all well dis
posed and law-abiding people, and was final
ly abandoned. Its effects may be illustrated
by its working in Merrimack county, where
most of the towns refused to license, but the
few of them that did became the rendezvous
Of all the vice, drunkenness and debauchery
of the surrounding towns. In some places
there was a stampede of liquor sellers and
their followers, just over the borders of one
town into another where "locsl option" pre-
vailed, and a general pandemonium was the
result
My vote, therefore, cannot be given III q
way that will aid in such a consummaliou, and
q vote for any third candidate would contrib-
ute directly to that end
GENERAL NEWS.