Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-11-13


| Out of the smoke Of the recent battles at the
polls, arise many reflections of the coming Presi
dental contest. As seen from the capital they are
very interesting and instructive. 1t is perhaps
superluous to add, for the eye and ear of the in
| telligent New England republican, that there is
no phase of the situation which is discouraging to
the republican party.
The Presidential canvass was begun many
months ago by the independent" press and the
democrats. Its begnnin was the attempt TO force
| General Grant to the front as third term candi-
date, but this my thica and ghostly Caesar was laid
| out by Cesar himself This was followed by an
effort to bring forward several democratic candi-
dates with rush that should be irresistible Here
was another chance for the independent press"
who had despared of beating the republican par
tv in fair square fight, to beat it by frightening II
into compromise of its men and its principles
They glorifed Tilden and offered Charles Frarcis
Adams to the republicans as the price for the sup
port of the most worshipfnl and magnanimous
| independent GROWER. Charles Francis Adams :
The people had heard of him before. He was
carefully wrapped up and trundled to Cincinnati
in 1872, only to be kicked cont of that crowd"
and the independent GROWERS Of the Springfield
Republican style. found that though they were
fearfuly powerful in noise, they were amentaby
weak in action. Then, as ever before and as
they ever will be, they were made cats paws to
furnish less sanctimonious parties with chestnuts
There was some encouragement for this early
scnd-off by the democrats and their tag-rag allies
who never learn anything. The democrats made
great gains in the State elections last year. They
surprised themselves by capturing the lower House
of Congress and many States which had resisted
their Establishments through almost every tempta-
| ton were carelessly abandoned to them. But the
end Of this was inevitable to any one who had
read the history of democratic laundering for the
last twenty years. The madness which overlook
them under Pierce and buchanan never has for
saken and never will forsake them. Many men of
really independent views have placed hope in that
party only to be bitterly disappointed and the Bit
terness of this disappointment increases with the
repetition Of the mad farce rs the years roll on.
| The first exhibition Of madness was the rag
baby lullaby in Ohio The unamimity with which
the Western and Southern democrats Rugged this
delusion, astonishing even to the independent
| GROWERS, who almost persuaded that the re-
publicans were not so bad after all. The more
sensible liberals everywhere returned to their first
love, Disguised with the humiliating exhibition Of
such men as Thurman and Hendricks worshipppg
| the infant repuditon. Ohio fell into the line Of
| republican States again. Iowa did better than
| last year. The tidal wave had recedcd, not only
but carried down with ii the larger part Of the
democratic capital.
The second exhibition of madness was in allow
| f,ox if @,rt
dency and to subordinate everything to promote
that object. A fine lawyer, q shrewd politician,
ambitious to be statesman, Mr.. Tilden laid his
| pipes deep in the underculrent Of political life.
Where he could gain point by fighting, he de-
| clared war; where he saw more votes by compro-
mise, he lavished favors even upon his enemies.
He never broke with a single clique of his own
party, however bad without first supposng that
he had secured hold in another clique that could
prove fair Offset. He set up John Kelly to rep
resent his party in the city, while counting very
different element in the country. The conclusion
is that with the aid of the canal reform,-another
mama for cleaning out the democratic filth which
had accumulated when Tiden headed the State
committee in obedience to Tweed-wth the CO.
| operation of all the "independent" newspapers,
Wuose motto 10 10 Uedt TcPuDliCanlSIu,
by personal armin-arm canvass of the merchants
and others by Tilden and his man Friday, Bigelow,
and by the indirect aid of the independent nom
voters, the democratic majority in New York is
reduced nearly forty thousand. Mr.. Samuel J.
Tilden's little scheme for 1876, "for President
MYSELF, for Governor of New York. my man
Friday" went astray in few hours with the
crushing out Of John Kelly, the loss of the legs-
lature and the assurance that New York will
be republican State after the curtain falls on
the small farce of democratic reform.
The third exhibition of madness is one of
slower growth, and which threatens more serious
consequences in the future This is the Romish
hostility to tie common schools There can be no
longer any doubt that this heresy finds a
home in the democratic party, and added
to inaationism and this zone man power"
had a powerful influence against that
party in New York. New Jersey and Penn
sylvania. On the other hand it helped them in
Maryland and by what means every lover of free
schools, and Of an honest ballot should know
Afraid Of the public sentiment which had been
raised against them on account of their coirup-
ton, the democratic leaders as a last resort re-
solved TO force election as their Old Saint
Tweed used to do. They made the polling places
disgusting to respectable men; they created dis
turbances in order TO have the poorer republicans
arrested: they threatened the colored men, and
have good democratic authority for the statement
that ballot box sufing was reduced to a science.
The influence of the Romish priests was cxcrted
to promote this lawessness, because the republi-
can party is the party Of free education. The re-
suit was that the honest vote of the State was
overcome by the Baltimore plug uglies, and the
indignation OF honest people is aroused so that
next year this crime Will tell against the party
which perpetrates it,
| From this point of view ii looks as though the
democrats cannot carry single one of the old free
States next year. Perhaps should say except in
the very improbable contingency of Tilden's nom.
nation; in which event they might carry New
York, but they would lose elsewhere more than
they would gain there, for while they could not
gain any Roadway in the hard money States
az ainst the party of hard money, the rag money
| democrats would nominate a candidate of their
own to split the democratic vote, or they would