Litchfield enquirer., 1874-03-12
State Politics.


 an excellent candidate for governor, ant Iair nominees for the other places on the State ticket. An United States Senator anu three Supreme Court judges are te pc elected by the next Legislature. .sas that the spons-if it is lawful to consider them such-are great. Nevertheless the rural mind is not greatly exercised, nol likely to be greatly exercised, over the coming contest. h fact the rank and file of the Democratic as well as of the hepuoll1can army are so much disgusted with their leaders that they are going very calmly through the various stages oI
 ever-increasing enthusiasm soon to cul inmate Tn one more glorious victory winch a few lingering organ-grinders of tne press set to slow music about the first oi march and continue playing crescendo e 0cceter0,,do till the first Tnesdav in April. The politicians of neither partv nave the confidence of their partisans. we go iazily to the polls and vote our old par ticket with scarcely vestige of the enthusiasm of 60, of '63, of '64, and 'es. in the meantime developments at Wash lngton show that we must change our breed of legislators; and that no mere substitution of one old lot of partisans of one old party, for anotser old lot of par tisans of another old par y, will ever ef- feet such a change. Just now, indeed, Democrats are probably less disgusted with their representatives than we are. Their representatives are much fewer in number than ours and inferior in infiu- ence; but, few as they are, they have de- veloped a wonderful capacity for evil. They tried to elect MT. Fernando Wood. of fragrant memory, Speaker of the House. They helped Simmons to be Col lector of Boston. Their only Connecti- cut representative is, we hear, an infia- tionist. They have no backbone where with to stand erect in the presence of the railroad companies. They are so ham, pered by their old theory of State Rights that they cannot interfere in favor of the suffering taxpayers of South Carolina, or of the defrauded citizens of Louisiana. In spite of repeated rebuffs some of the Liberal Republicans who followed Gree ley in '72 still vote desperately against Republicanism rather than with Democ- racy, but they are no longer a party.
 Admitting as we freely do the grave and repeated errors of the Administration. and the weakness of Congress, we must recol- lect that our election in April is not a na- tional but State affair. Much as we feel like punishing Grant and Butler and Boutwell, and good many other good Republicans we could mention, it does not strike us that that would be a wise anger which should make MT. William W. Eaton master of Connecticut for the con- ingyear. A Republican majority of one in the Senate was all that stood between him and the dictatorship in 1873, and the things he tried to do convince us that his complete asc sndency would be serious injury to the State. He showed more than the favoritism of Grant in attempt ing to force the election of unfit judges. He showed himself an enemy to tem- perance law proposed by his own parti- sans because it threatened, after all, to be effective. His ascendency would also involve the repeal of an effective Regis try law that has put an end to the cleo tion frauds that disgraced our large cities before it's passage. Moreover, there cer- tainly is chance that the success of the Democratic party, this spring, would send Mir. w. H. Barnum to the United States Senate. We do not believe that even the long purse that has interfered so frequent ly with the natural course of events in this District would overthrow the dicta- torship of MT. Eaton; and we believe that he would succeed MT. Buckingham in the Senate if the Democrats carry the next legislature. Still, money is such powerful lever in these days. and it has been used so plentifully, so frequently oA1A EN SNSSSSSAoA1yt 1uI. OuInuIl III local and congressional contests, that many believe that it is powerful enough even to steal away Mr. Eaton's long sought prize
 While, therefore, there is great disgust with Grant and Congress among our best Republicans, we doubt whether any one of them feels like "biting off his nose to spite his face" as will be our case if we allow the old Democratic party to obtain full control of Connecticut. So we'll did our Convention understand that if Con- -nectiout Republicanism is to win at all this spring, it is to win on its own merits, and not on the merits of our na- tional administration, that they most wisely avoidel any lying resolution of confidence in an administration with which we have had just ground for dis satisfaction.
 There is kind of piety that demon