Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-08-04
From the Now York Tribune.l

Senator ,Tkurman's attempt at Mans
field, Ohio. on SATURDAY to justify the sup
port by honest hard-moncy democrats for
thigh offices OF two such candidates rs Al
len and Gary, on such Il platform as they
are standing or, and such Gains to pub
lie favor as they have put forward, is a
ptiful failure melancholy dp!ay of
moral cowardicc i docs not become
Senator Thurman to loproaeh the Admin
istration majority in the last Congress for
asking "What is best for the republican
parry - instead of What is best for the
Republic?r The course that he has now
taken shows that he at least is unable to
give a practical answer to either CUES
ton. What he has done is not good either
for himself, or his party, or his country.
To men of common intelligence who see
the Importance of the issue presented to
the voters of Ohio, Senator Thurman 5
speech refutes itself. 1t is arope OF sand.
No thread of logic rms through it. Like
Il ripple on the surface of mill pond it
seems for a moment to exist, then van
ishes and leaves no trace. Ii is a sign OF
nothing except that something has sunk
beneath the waters.
The currency question, he tells W., is
unimpoliaut. There are other questions
of more consequence, of which he men,
tons the religious question. The triumph
of the Ohio republicans is likely, in his
opinion, ''to drag religion into politics
"from one end Of the Republic to the
"other, to prostitute it to the base purpose
''of partisan triumph, TO create union
"bctween the dominant sccts and the rul-
'ing party in the State. and to conyulse
"society to its very foundations as ii
"never has been convulsed in the United
States" This dreadful prospect ''makes
sit the imperative duty of every democrat
'to give his support to his ticket sThen,
as though this was not enough, he says
that the currency question rests with Con-
gress, and that the election of State Off
GERS in Ohio has nothing TO do with it.
But, strange to say, he makes the staple
of his speech a tedious denunciation OF the
conduct of the National Administration.
Do the Louisiana troubles the Credit Mo-
bilier, the Pacific Mail Subsidy, the bri-
berries and populations Of the New York
Custom-House officials. the Whisky Ring,
the Indian frauds, the thelts of the t. S.
Treasury clerks, etc, have superior claims
to the issues of Initiation and Reputation,
on the attention Of the Ohio voter? SEN
ator Thurman knows as well as any man
who will read this that the question in
Ohio is Paper against Gold, and that that
question involves public and private cred
it, the rights of property and the integrity
IT is not the platform alone or the plat
form chiefly, but the course of the press
and the utterances off the candidates which
have given the issue in Ohio q sharpness
and distinctness that defy all the ingenui-
ty of Humans and Pcndletons to explain
away.
We have summed up in few lines,
what Daniel Webster conceived to be one
of the main purposes of the Constitution.
These lines are not found in a political
speech, but in a grave argument before
the constitutionality of an act of the New
York Legislature. What Webster in the
following extract states to have been the
monstrous evils which it was the purpose
of the Constitution to remedy, it is now
the object of the Ohio democracy to Gre
ate anew by violation of that very Con-
stitution:
Commerce, credit, and confidence were the prin-
cipal things which did not exist under the old
Confederation, and which 1t was main object of
the present Constitution to create and establish.
A vicious system of legislation, q system of paper
money and tender laws, had completely parayZed
industry, threatened to beggar every man of pro-
peity and ultimately to ruin the country. The
relation between debtor and creditor, always deli
cate and always dangerous whenever it divides
society, and draws out the respective parties into
different ranks and classes, was in such a condi-
ton in the years 1884, 1888, and 1889, to threaten
the overthrow of all government; and a revolu
ton was menaced much more critical and alarm
ing than that through which the country had re-
Gently passed. The object ofthe new Constitution
was 10 arrest these evils; TO awaken industry by
giving security to property; to establish CONT
dence, credit and commerce by salutary laws, to
be enforced by the power Of the whole communi
-[Argument in the case of Ogden and Saun-
ders. Works, Vol. g. page34.
To Us these words of Webster, uttered
IS years ago, when the Constitution was
but 80 years old, convey a solemn warn
ing. But if Senator Allen G.. Thurman,
the nephew. thinks the contest in Ohio is
of merely local Importance. SO far as the
question OF paper money IS involved,
William Allen, the uncle and ex-hard-
money Senator, holds no such opinion.
Language was not given him to conceal
his thoughts as he showed when he gave
u,terance TO the following words at Par
kersburg, West Virginia, on the 10Th of
July:
We are about, on our side of the river, to en-
gage in State election and if it were State
election, and nothing else, the people this side
of the river would take very little interest in it,
But it is a State election that has reference to a
great approaching National Struggle that will by