The weekly echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1868-1876, 1875-09-16

| OCEhtio party were pIeb6fYBus OUT
| its life was feeble and its utter
anoes we're Of no great account. lit
was everywhere in the minority,
and SO remained until the end of
the war.
This great struggle left behind
it in the people and the admins
tration two strongly marked ten.
denotes, each Of them a direct IL
heritance of the war. One pro-
ceeded from aYarice and the cor
ruption Of morals. IL was the
tendency to public robbery, and il
was shared equally by democrats
and republicans. In the former,
however, it was soon checked from
the absence of opportunity. Their
general extinction as q political
force had left them powerful in
only one important center, the city
and the State of New York. There
Tweed and Connolly stole their
millions, and were detected and
driven out ; and there the democ-
racy, headed by Sam Tilden, is
now destroying the public plum
derers of the CANALS ; while the re-
publicans, possessing the national
administration at Washington,
with a man Indifferent to every
form of public plumber at its head,
and anxious only that the plum
derers shall be his friends and re-
lations, still continae the work of
Robson, Delano, Shop
herd, Williams, Orvil Grant,
Cowon, and the whole countless
gang, competing with each other,
and fattening themselves on the
impoverished and suffering tax
In this respect the re-
publican party is infinitely worse
than the democratic, because the
worst elements of it have control;
so that it's condition is hopeless,
and reform within it is impossible.
The democracy, having been long
out of Office, and having had so
much less opportunity and temp
5ation to become corrupt, is much
more under the direction of the
honest mon in it's ranks; while in
The republican party the honest
men have to stand in the back
ground, and leave the robbers to
'ollow their own will. S
The other tendency, Inherited i
rom the war, to which we have
'eferred, is a matter of political =
and is, in our Judgment, t
# the highest moment. During {
he war the republican administra- t
ion was almost omnipotent. 1t y
war powers ; it was a {
movement; it's hand was c
Everywhere, and it was felt in every I
ibre of the peoples life. It was, s
n effect, a centralizing administra- :
ion, and the party in whose name q
was conducted, became q CEN
ralizing party. Such it still re-
mains. The theory and policy of /
he republican party are that the
ountry must be ruled by one gov
rnment at Washington and that
government must be what in Eu-
opean monarchies is called a pa !
ernal one, interfering in every !
oncern of the people, as for in
lance, in education, agriculture, !
nd the repression of crime. Q
Against this policy the demo- v
ratio party revolts. True to its \
ncient principles, even after SO
lany years and so many radical a
hanges, il stands forth for the old a
american idea of local self-gov- v
Gnment and republican equili-
rum. 1t contends for the exer- =
Use of the least possible authority
q every sphere of political affairs,
nd for the greatest possible indie :
endence in the individual, the
ownship and the State. 1t repeats ]
he immortal truth, that the best
is that which governs 2
,ast. Tt is against contradiction. I
is for State rights, personal I
iOhka. local rights. It Ia TINS the 1