New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-07-16
To the People of the United States:

10 Wt eOpN W Gec CUUtU OtuttS.
You will soon proceed to select your
representatives for new Congress.
The occasion invites US to submit for
your inspection the record of Republican
achievements since that party was called
to the administration of national affairs.
We seize the opportunity to avOw that
record, not to apologize for it. We chal-
lenge your approval, not your pardon.
The obligations of government and
people, like the obligations of servant
and master, are mutual.
The government, like the servant,
owes faithful service. But the people,
like the master, owe honest recognition
of faithful service. Every thoughtful
employer knows that he can not with
impunity decry faithful labor. He who
does so habitually will soon have no
faithful laborers. The faithful servant
will not submit to be treated as faith
less one. If SO treated, he himself will
become faithless. or he will give place
to one who is faithless.
DEMOCRATIC CRAFTSMANSHIP.
can party was first called to the admin
istratiOn of the National Government.
For more than thirty years previously
the Government had been almost unin-
terruptedly under Democratic control.
Of that control there is hardly memory
left at which the nation should not
blush. Seemingly, it was inspired by but
one ambition-the bad ambition to make
our foreign policy as ignOble as our home
policy was shameless. Our intercourse
with Powers weaker than ourselves was
spirited enough. We bullied Austria
out of a Hungarian refugee. We de-
spoiled Mexico of a portion of her terri
tory. We demolished Greytown. We
jingled millions in the ears of Spain as a
lure for Cuba and the bride was spurned.
In 1854 three of our Ministers abroad
assembled at Ostend and issued a mani
festO in which they declared, after
we shall have offered Spain price for
Cuba far beyond its present value, and
this shall have been refused, then it will
be time to consider the question: Does
Cuba i'll the possession of Spain seriously
endanger our Internal peace and the ex-
istence of our cherished Union! Should
this question be answered in the aflirma-
tive, then by every law human and
divine we shall be justified in wrestling
it from Spain if we possess the pow
er"
1t adds piquancy to that extract to
know that two of the ambassadors who
in 1854 could think of no way of saving
"our cherished Union, but to wrest
Cuba from Spain were Pierre s. ul6 and
John Y. Mason. The third was 5ames
Buchanan.
But during all that time, and in spite
Of all that gascOnade, there was not a
single naturalized citizen who could
safely revisit his birth place, for there
was not one whose citizenship was not
absolutely denied by the sovereign under
whose dominion he was born.
No American, native or naturaliZed,
could send letter abroad except upon
OnerOus conditions. We had then formed
postal conventions with but seven
foreign countries.
The lowest rate of postage stipulated
in those conventions was ten cents for
letter weighing not more than one
half ounce. The highest rate of postage
on the same letter was thirty cents.
We tamely relinquished to Great
Britain portion of our territory in the
northeast; another and larger portion
in the northwest. We described the
line agreed upon in the northwest so
loosely that Great Britain Immediately
laid claim to large islands on our side of
it. That insulting claim was neither
resisted nor admitted. 1t was comprO-
missed by permitting the claimant to
hold armed possession of one end of San
Juan, the most valuable of those islands,
while We quietly squatted on the other
end. And while, by successive conces
sions, we were constantly adding to the
area of the Canadas, we stupidity relin-
pushed to their products free access to
our markets, as the equivalent of being
allowed to send similar products from
the Northwest, through Canadian chan
nels, to such precariOus markets AS they
could find on the other side of the At
lantic.
Such were the achievements of our
diplomacy, during those years of Demo-
cratic supremacy.
CHEAP GOVERNMENT.
The story of our home rule would be
sadder still, if anything sadder could be.
1t has been loudly Wanted that those
were chpan adminiSt ratiOnSi COmnarad
with the expenditures of these times
they were cheap, very cheap. Compared
with their worth to the country they
were probably the most profligate the
world ever saw. They cost the people
from fifty to seventy-ive millions per
annum. Those millions maintained for
us the empty pageant we called Govern