The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-07-16
Revolutionary.

The Democrats have not been much in
power of late years, nor have their perform
ances when they have come temporarily into
ascendency anywhere been such as to inspire
confidence in their qualifications for conduct
ing the government. In New York, in Indi-
ana, in California and in Connecticut their
conduct has been bad enough to condemn
them to perpetual obscurity; but it was left
to the New Hampshire Democrats TO demon
strate the possibilities in the way of revolu-
tionary proceedings of which the party is ca
pabIe. The discreet Democrats everywhere
look with horror upon their extraordinary op
eratlons, and the more prudent Journals of
the party promptly condemn them and dis
claim responsibility for them.
New Hampshire politics ON both sides have
always been sui generis; there has been an
intensity of partisanship which is unknown
IN states less equally divided, and consequent
ly less holly contested. The lines are closely
drawn aud all the devices of political warfare
are cultivated to the greatest possible degree
of efficiency. There is in this debatable land
iervor of party fealty and closeness of can
ia It that for twenty years the majority on
either side has rarely reached three thousand.
Under these circumstances it was fairly
enough to be expected that, when the Demo
Gratis came into power last spring. there would
be some pretty decisive and pronounced party
legislation. Few, however, could have an
tcipated such utter shamelessness as was
manifested.
The legislative majority and the Governor
were managed by edicts of the State Central
Committee, who settled in their secret meet
ings the whole course of procedure in every
particular. Contested seats were given to
party friends in the most arbitrary anG outra-
geous fashion without even the grace of an
apparent impartiality. The state was re-
dstricted under system of the baldest ger
rymanderng, so as to insure Democratic
majority in future legislatures against any Or
binary Republican majority in the state at
large. Republican state and county officials
Were removed by address of the legislature to
the Governor without any consideration of
their official merits but solely on party
grounds, and, in general, everything conceiv-
able was done TO place party followers in Off
cial position and to secure perpetuation Of
power. 1t would seem as if this arbitrary
abuse of power were sufficiently shocking, but
there was one lower depth of lnfamy attain
able, and these New Hampshire Democrats,
utterly regardless OF decency and the remon-
strances of their brethren outside the state,
promptly sought it. They abolished their
supreme court-one of the most respectable
judicial bodies in the nation, whose decisions
have long been high legal authority thus
unseating all the judges. They then estab
lished two courts, one for the trial of causes
and one for the settlement of law questions,
and of course filled the places with needy
Democratic lawyers. This action, striking
at the very foundations of our institutions,
awakened general cry of remonstrance
from all quarters, which availed nothing.
Secure in their temporary power and careless
of the future they perpetrated this offence
against all official decencies, which every in
telligent and patriotic mar of their own
party denounces as an outrage. If any one
thing in all our nation should be kept more
ooSiSu hohi oiiV iuhuOHSCo vi Pdlbiodu oIiHC
than all others, it is the judiciary-that safe
guard and bulwark to the stability of our
social and political organization. Yet these
New Hampshire vandals dared lay profane
hands upon this ark of safety. Could polit-
ical madness and recklessness go farther?
1t behooves all good citizens OF all parties
in the face of these developments to pause
and consider what they portend. If "a set of
men, accidentally in power, will perform
such antics before high heaven, where
would they sop if they had greater power?
We are sometimes inclined to be discon-
tented with some of the action of the Repub-
lican party, forgetting that absolute perfec-
tion is impossible and that we must be con-
tent to seek the highest attainabe good.
Let us look to New Hampshire and contem-
plate the alternative; then let us take heart
at our comparative excellence and see TO it
that we keep our own party pure and decent
and invoke the support Of all good men who
love their country to it as the great conserva-
tive organization which shall project the
nation against the revolutionary and de-
structve tendencies whose development in
New Hampshire has been SO alarming.
THE Dominion papers consider the proposed
reciprocal treaty SO much of a living and