The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-08-27
THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

NduutOal6S lOI tue SuO6S Oh TIE uedu
Congressman are thicker than black
berries and the eagerness with which
they rush for opportunity TO wear out
their lives in the service of an ungrate-
full country is infinitely amusing to be-
hold.
The OregoRidn is especially to be COM
miserated. Hoping to Become the head
of a new faction, after having become
the heels of the old, this journal has for
the last two years been employed,
through its present editor, in sort of
vandalism which could not fail to re-
suit disastrously in the end to the poll
ticians concerned in it, however much
it was delighted with its first false show
of temporary success. But a change
comes DER the spirit of its dreams.
While yet the same causes which led it
into clustering and successful endeaYor
to elect to Congress a Bourbon Demo-
erat of the lowest stamp, (instead of a
respectable gentleman of itsown party,
exist to-day which existed then-if ever
this model journal finds its props
fallen out, and itself left stranded and
hopeless, the laughing stock of the party
whose temple it so frantically sought to
pull down.
While we admire the unsuccessful
wriggling of the organ of Pharisaical
"virtue," because of the fertility of the
ingenuity displayed, we are delighted to
note the fact that traitors, from Iscariot
to Arnold, and from the Old Public
Functionary and the Mary Ann of the
Mexican war even unto the OregORiuR'S s
man Friday, all, sooner or later, share a
common fate. Indeed, twas ever thus.
But the journal in question displays
some admirable tactics. Its reasons for
partially returning to the ways of truth
and soberness are ingenious and pIausi-
BILE, and we congratulate it upon its sue
cess in gracefully reinstating itself in
the ranks of the party which it sought
to overthrow and could not. It's support
of Hon. Henry Warren for Congress is
sensible and timely, whatever may be
said of its sophisms or motives.
Then comes Mr.. Whitney, whom now
you see and now you don't. At first
you are astonished by telegrams an
nouncing his withdrawal from the can
vass, because he "deprecates the running
of three candidates" and your eyes are
heavy with weeping over his ruined
hopes, when 10 and behold! the scene
changes! /! He will not withdraw, but
will lead the fag-end of forlorn hope
toa bloodless defeat, politically unsexing
fanaticaI few who may be induced to
barter their birthright of suffrage in a
spasm of desperation, while their wiser
brethren laugh them to the scorn they
merit.
But George Washington Dimick is in
the field! Ye shades of departed states
manship! But hold we haven't words
to do the subject justice The temper
ance political element, consisting of
Thomas Cam, George Washington Dim
ick, Enoch Turner, and I. Hurt, have
got a candidate, and the Temperance
Star is his organ. Something will
break now, for Dlmicli's on the track
Clear the way, ye political small-fry, of
whom Mr.. Warren is the advance guard.
Col. Thomas Cam has put up candi-
date to catch Republican gudgeons to
bait the Democratic hook, with tempor-
ance weights attached as sinkers. But
you won't catch Thomas nibbling the
bait himself, not he. The office he
holds under a Democratic Governor
would step from under in twinkling if
he did. But he knows there are a few
one-idead fanatics, of whom Dimick is
a specimen, in the Republican ranks,
who are insane on the temperance ques-
tion. He knows they will not vote for
Lane; he fears they will for Warren;
and so he puts up Dimick; and every
Democrat in the land lies back and
laughs when Turner and Coffin nibble
the bait. Poor .Dimick We do not
wonder that he is crazy on the whisky
question. He was born in that condi-
tlOiii anu VIC pdLllANO WIN anu OC-
lieve in his temperance principles; but
we are sorry to see his one idea taken
advantage of by set of tricksters, who
cannot appreciate his honesty, while
using him as tool TO defeat his own
ends. He won't catch any Democrat
voting for him.. Such contingency is
not possible. The votes he will get are
those of about hundred and nineteen
Republican sovereigns as narrow as
himself, who cannot see any disaster in
the act of beating out their own brains
in hopeless onslaught against an evil
which they will only enhance by thus
exhibiting their own weakness. 3
Mr.. Whitney, Gf he does not again
change his mind, will poll about one
hundred and seventy-nine votes among
another set of political malcontents,
and each vote, as in Mr.. Dimick's case,
will be half vote for the man Lane,
whom they fancy they are trying to de-
feat. 4 t 7
Go on, gentlemen. Your muddIe
grows deeper continually. Some day,
when you have learned by many,a sore
defeat that you cannot trust yourselves
alone to paddle the political boat, you