Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-10-10

| The labor of the State is its largest capital,
and is entitled to the most remunerative in
vestment that will not impair gust and fair
return to those whose prosperity is insepara-
BILE from that of labor itself. On these and on
| other questions of legislation now agitating
| the public mind, as thinking men, We differ in
respect to the means and methods, and their
just limitations, but in the great purposes and
benefcent ends to be attained are unit
and in earnest But our work ends not here
we are also a part Of that great national or
ganiza,ion out OF the glory OF whose past
| comes the light which iliumines the present
and the voice which is the inspiration of the
future As we shall discharge our duty at
home so shall we meet the requirements OF
that larger and broader relation. Our action
| here TO day and its results will reach in their
| influence beyond our own Commonwealth to
the remotest limit of national authority and
national security. The voice and vote Of
Massachusetts in the councils of the nation
have been unbroken and undivided since the
| republican party has had being. Shall they
| so continuel The spirit of the rebellion, al
| ways sleeping so long as Republican rule
| seems secure, but instinctvely waking into
| incarnate ferocity at the faintest promise of a
return of the democratic party to power, has
| been deluded by the spring elections, and has
come out from its lurking places full armed
| to hunt and murder the loyal citizen whom it
| hates. At such time Massachusetts cannot
afford to break her front and give single
vote to that party with which, by some strange
instinct, the "White Lacquer" and the ''Ku-
kluk" ally themselves and refuse to be shaken
| off. There is not a democrat in Massachu-
sets, know, whose soul does not revolt at
the atrocities daily committed on defenceless
Southern citizens, and who would not shun
their perpetrators as he would leper. And
yet the inevitable tendency ofthings is strong
| er than good resolutions. Political allies
must be political friends. Until the humbest
American citizen in the meanest howell, though
his face be as black as the heart of his perse-
cutor, shall be armed with all legal weapons
to defend himself in the en- oyment of every
civil right to which the constitution entities
him, there is no room in the Massachu sets
delegation III Congress for a single represen-
tative OF that party whose votes are uniform
| ly withheld from such legislation.
| Massachusetts has sacred legacy in the
Civil Rights bill which she cannot barter away
nor entrust to any unfriendly keeping. The
recent outrages upon the homes and lives OF
colored citizens at the South are shocking
the heart of the nation, and the attempts to
overthrow constituted authority in Southern
States are filing it with serious forebodings.
ture and will defeat their own ends. They
| have taught the people, before it was too late,
to withhold confidence from mere confessions
and to devoutly thank God that a Grant and
not a Buchanan wields ,o-day the power of
| the Government.
| No more than in civil rights, can Massa-
chusetts Republicans abate their zeal in main
tenance of the public faith endangered by
| false theories of finance and open assaults
against which the Executive whom they sup
port has interposed, as shield, the just ex-
ercise of his constitutional prerogative. They
will stand by the President of their choice in
this controversy SO long as there shall exist
opposition to the restoration of gold and sill
yer as the only true basis OF the currency, the
early resumption of specie payments, and the
payment the debt of the nation in the mon
ey recognized by the civilized world.
In all this work, local and national, the
republican party will be true to its traditions,
and search itself No faint of corruption in
office will go unpunished no unfaithfulness in
public trust will be permitted to escape &C
countability. Never initiating that Pharisai-
cal spirit which contents itself with loud de-
nunciations of corruption, and crime in others
while carefully cOncealing its own defaults.
Republicanism probes its own sores and grows
strong thereby, plucks out its own offending
members, wherever they may be, and casts
them from the public service. 1t will leave
to others the task of discovering notes with
whole beams in their own eyes, without fear
that the people can be deceived thereby. Nor
can they be won from the support of Repab-
lican measures by that Democratic school of
antagonisms which processes absolute free
trade in Maine and high protection in Penn
sylyania, hard money in Massachusetts and
New York, inflated greenbacks and repudia-
tic in Ohio and Indiana, and war of races in
the South. Let it be remembered that incom
patibility of principles in politics, like in
compatibility of temper in the household. is
sure to breed dissolution. If you shall be
true to your trusts and awake to your oppor-
tunities, then will it be demonstrated that by
and through the republican party of the State
and nation, shall the live issues of the present
and the just expectations of the future be sue
cessfully met. Thus and then will it be that
in and through the Republican party shah the
civil service be regeherated, the public faith
maintained invioate, the currency lifted to
the specie level, the public expenditures re-
duced to the lowest point Of necessity and ef
ficiency, the national debt placed upon a ba-
sis Of gradual extinction in coin; the indus
tries of the land so cared for that the Ameri-
can laborer shall control the labor and the
wages that supply the American consumer;
and the lawless assassin and uncured rebel
shall be taught to respect the civil rights of
every citizen and the constituted authorities
of every State.
To accomplish these results is the duty of
the hour. They lie in the direct pathway Of
the republican party, and their attainment is
the condition of continued success. But in
the near future, even at our very doors, are
questions of the utmost gravity, and of the
broadest scope-from the solution of which
there will be no escape but in surrender. No
one can fail to discern their approach, and
they will not admit of postponement.
The deep.seated political disease, which,
following the Rebellion, has perverted and
wasted the life of the Southern States, de-
mands heroic treatment. How shall the heal
ing influences ofuncorrupted self-government
be made to pervade body polite too sick to
discern them, and too weak to grasp them?
The subtle and mighty agencies of the tele-
graph and steam, covering the continent with
the nerves and arteries of new systems of
communication and of transmission, crossing
States lines, passing under rivers, over noun
tans and through tunnels, and binding the
nation in one unbroken and nextricable net
work, were unknown 10 the fathers who made
this a republic of separate States.