The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-09-03
The Democratic sHappy Family"

INC WANT VI any pollcy On WHICH ING P"lVJ
can agree. 1t is true that the party cherishes,
or at least processes, beautiful unanimity
on several important subjects, but these hap
pen to be subjects on which it has abjured
its former views and succumbed to the policy
of the republicans. 1t accepts without dis
sent, the universal emancipation of the
negroes their equal civil rights, their right
to vote, their eligibility to every State and
every federal Office and all the great results
of the war. But the democratic unity on
points once so fercely contested Will not
be accepted as a title to public confidence
! To fight important measures whilo they are
in progress, to yield only when the country
has irrevocably condemned the opposition,
does not evince political foresight. 1t is the
business of statesmen and public guides to
lead opinion, not to be forced by it
to renounce the views they strenuously
maintained while the measures were under
discussion. The fact that the democratic
leaders have been compelled to retreat from
their chief positions in the recent past creates
such presumption of bad judgment and
want of forecast that they can recover conf
dence only by striking out new policy so
manifestly wise and sagacious that it might
stand on its own reasonableness. Instead Of
this they have no policy at all which their
fellow citizens can consider and discuss.
Where shall we look for any body of prin-
ciples, or even any single principle? where
shall we look for any set of measures or any
single measure which is accepted by the
democratic party as whole? Aside from
the results of the war, which were republi-
can, not democratic measures, there is
nothing upon which the democratic party is
united besides it's unanimous desire to get
possession of all the federal and State Offices.
1t will not do for them to appeal to their ira
dictionary hard money policy when large por-
ton of the party is in open rebellion against
it. 1t is preposterous for them to appeal to
their old record at all as evidence of their
present views when the only thing upon
which they are agreed is remuneration of all
they most stubbornly commended for from
the beginning of the anti-slavery cycle to its
close. 1t is the traditionary policy of the
party that slavery should not be interfered
with by the federal government that ''this
is white mans government )" that negroes
should not be permitted to vote or hold
Office, and, in pursuance of this traditionary
policy, the democratic party in all sections
of the country made determined opposition
to all the new amendments as they were
successfully proposed 1t is ridiculous for a
party that has made SO many glaring re-
nunciations to point to its old record for in
formation respecting its present views.
Governor Allen, the only democrat in public
life who has come down to us from the
hard-money generation, is living exemplar
of the decay of democratic traditions.
We must search for the democratic policy
among its present leaders. We might wan
der through the country with the lantern of
Diogenes and not find democratic chief
whose view on any one public question
not dead issue is adopted by
the party at large. The democracy
are the ineal descendants and heirs-at-law
of the builders of the tower of Babel Their
confusion of tongues will arrest the progress
Of their ambitious structure. When one
builder asks for trowel another hands him
a hammer, and the work cannot go on be-
cause there is no possibility of concert. In
''the high and palmy days" of the demo-
cratic party, when it ruled the country with
matchless popularity and power, there was
no division of counsels among its leaders, or
at least none which were Haunted in the face
of the country to distract and enervate the
party. Instead Of every prominent leader
mounting separate hobby of his own they
consulted with one another in private COM
promised their differences, agreed on pol
icy, presented united front to the enemy
and brought the rank and file into perfect
harmony by the conjoint influence of party
discipline and the moral authority of a
united leadership. If the example Of
brighter days were followed Messrs Allen,
Tilden, Thurman, Bayard, Church, Pen
dleton, Gordon, Seymour, Herman and
others of similar standing would long
ere now have come to cordial
understanding among themselves, each
contributing his best ideas and yielding
something for the sake of harmony and
then, by their combined intellectual force,
they would mould the partyainto q solid
phalanx But what do we behold? A party
which has been compelled to eat all its own
words on the great questions of the recent
past, making itself contemplate by having
no policy at oil and marching against the
enemy like an army in which the commander
of every brigade has a separate plan of cam
paign and flights on his own hook"
The most important question before the
country is that of the currency, and the
democratic chiefs are hopelessly at logger
heads with one another on this great subject,
their journals fight each other 'like Kill
kenny cats" and the aggressive boldness of
the inhationists has subdued the hard-money
leaders into tameness or silence. Governor
Hendricks is going TO Ohio to speak for the