National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-03-02
TO PROTECT ELECTORS.

been mainly instrumental in the success
full effort to obtain the passage by the
House of the bill to Protect Electors.
Ii complains, however, that the passage Of
the bill Is received with apathy throughout
the country, and therein makes great
mistake. In the South the Republicans
certainly are not apathetic, while the
White League Democrats arc, to say the
least, apprehensive. At the same time, in
the North, the loyal, law-abiding people,
with whom the World, naturally enough,
has no communication, are rejoiced. This
is not because, as the World says, the bill
"is device for preventing the next cleo
"tion from being decided by the will of
'',the people of the United States" but be-
cause, as we have repeatedly explained
it is intended to assure the free expression
of that will at the ballot-box. Nor will
those gentlemen who voted for it, as the
World predicts. find their political death in
that act. In short, our metropolitan CO.
temporary, blinded, as usual, by the wild
est partisan prejudice, judges the present
and forecasts the future from false stand
point None so blind as those who won't
see, " is truism, and pertinent to the
Worlds desperate resolve to close its eyes
against the truth as regards the Southern
situation. The murder of blacks
and whites, the devastation of great
country sides, the prescription Of law
abiding citizens, and the plaintive cries of
refugees from mob violence are alike I'M
EccdGd by it. Volume after volume and
page upon page of tcstimony-unimpeach
able evidencc-has been printed to sustain
these grave charges; but it has passed
them by with the simple comment in its
columns Of Southern Outrages gotten up
for political effect. Herein has been its
greatest blunder Relying upon the
stupidity and Ignorance of some Of its
readers, the Indifference Of others, and the
prejudiccs Of still greater number, it be-
gan system Of Misrepresentation, and has
continued 1t, until now II is quite probable
ii has become so accustomed to its own
falschoods as TO believe them itself But
the people have not been misled. While
the Great Dailies-as they like to call
themselves, and of which the World is
proud to be numbcred-have pursued O
similar course, devoting their columns day
after day TO the yilest contortions Of facts,
the people have learned through their
leaders in Congressman men as Roscoe
Conkling, in the Worlds own State, for
example-and through the columns Of the
more reliable journals of the country, tho
truth about the matter. The result Is that
they are far ahead, as they always
are, on questions involving the pro-
lection Of private and public rights,
Of their representatives In either
House of Congress. They may, some of
them, regret that the condition is so bad as
it is, and find fault with certain classes of
Republicans, justly or unjustly, for having
provoked that condition; but they will
never justify resort to violence as q rem.
edy, nor overlook on the part of their
chosen officials failure to punish that vio-
lence as it deserves.
In fact, the World and its contemporaries
have all along proceeded upon false prem
ises. They have assumed that the Amer.
lean people look with indifference upon q
condition of affairs that is simply and plain.
~ realization on American soil, on a
smaller scale to be sure, of the anarchy of
turbulence, which illustrates the failure of
the South American people to submit them
selves peaceably to popular forms of gov
eminent. This misconstruction of the
character of our people is at the bottom of
the Worlds blunder. No people on the
face of the globe are more sensitive to
the slightest imputation against their
capacity of selfgovernment than onrs,
and when violence is threatened,
as it has been and actually realized
in the South, to our governmental forms,
they stand ready at all times to sustain the
most vigorous measures for the repression of
that violence and the preservation of those
forms. Measures to accomplish this result,
like the bill to Protect Electors, are conse-
quently accepted by them with gratitude,
and are never Characterized as revolution
airy, as the World seems to think But
the World and its followers are perhaps
not to be blamed for their misconception of
American character. Surrounded by the
influences of Wall street, and hampered by
the conservative ascendancy of greedy
capitalists, it is not to be expected that they
will either appreciate or reflect the indie
pendence of the masses of the people, in
whose breasts even the slightest sympathy
for such influences finds no lodgment.
Great Dailies, forsooth Great in their
own estimation alone. They have grown
so pOmpous in their self-conceit, so exalted
in their own opinion, and SO pulled up
with settled vanity, that they exist in an
atmosphere of mutual appreciation, and do
not appreciate the fact that the people at
large despise them for their stupid egotism
and the leaders of either party laugh at
them as bombastic asses. AS soon as the
World learns these facts-learns to see itself
as others see it-and returns to the original
intentions of its founders and attempts to
reflect public opinion as it exists
outside Of Wall street, or Of the
Oily daily, shilly. shally political and
literary clubs of the metropolis, or when it
grasps the thought of the American people
as a thing that is nodded in the widest and
most independent patriotism, it will dis
cover that the apathy of which it now COM
plains proceeds from a sense of confidence
and sincere qualification that Congress
has at last awakened to the emergent ne
cessities of the situation. 1t will further
discover that THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN,,
in its advocacy of the bill to Protect Elec-
tors, was only influential because it sue
ceeded iNsh effort to be the truthful expo
nent of the will of the people.
SENATOR STEVENSON.
The Rev. DR.. Ives and the Boston Preachers