Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-10-27
The Aggressive Campaign 2

hN VOL uOIb uOb COAnb W bnt
ifesto, was one OF Mr.. Webster's favorite
phrases in speaking of the woful differ
ence between Democratic professions
and performance. And the Tilden can,
vass is most ludicrous illustration of
the old fact Mr., Tilden himself began
byproclaiming an aggressiven night. Buthe
himself has been "on the run" ever since.
According to Mr. Dorsheimer, Democratic
detectives were put upon Gov Hayes
record to discover something wrong.
They could find nothing. There was
never q public man in our history who
came out Of such an ordeal so totally un-
scathed and untouched as Gov. Hayes.
OF course they are obliged to say that it
is because he has no positive force of
character. But that is confession of
absolute discontinue Now there was
no need Of Republican detectives to ex-
pose Gov. Tilden's record. 1t published
itself, like Vallandingham' and Pendle-
tons. And from the beginning of the
campaign down to the last "great meet
ing" Mr.. Tilden and his friends have
been engaged in one long explanation
and defense--so long so dark, and so
unsatisfactory that the country is on the
broad grin at the aggressive campaign.
1t is evidently comfort to the parti-
sans of Mr.. Tilden to assert that nothing
has been proved" But if his substan-
TALLY "Copperhead" sympathy and posi-
tion in the war have not been proved
nothing can be proved. 1t is certainly
no reason that a Copperhead of the war
should be elected to the Presidency by
solid South that he calls himself re-
former. If Mr.. Tilden's party co.opera-
ton with Tweed down to the time when
the whole world abandoned him, and the
Democratic party and the ambitions of
Democratic leaders were to be served by
kicking him, has not been proved, moth
ing can be proved. And it is no reason
to choose for President politician who
allowed Tweed to forge his name to the
fraud circular, without subsequent pro-
test or denunciation, merely that he calls
practical evasion of his just income tax
for several years has not been proved by
his own explanation, it is because every
body is mistaken in supposing him to
have had large income and to be very
rich man. If the general conviction be
true he evaded his tax. No man who
answers such charges in the way that he
has answered them can be considered in
in any sense a reformcr of political and
public aation. If Mr.. Tilden's railroad
transactions, as they appear in the pub
lished documents, are plainly beyond
question: they are so only to his most
Jealous adherents. If his practical sur
render and pandering to the imitation el-
ement of his party are not evident in his
letter of acceptance, in the plea for the
repeal of the resumption date, then the
simple and sincere devotion of Gov.
Hayes in his letter to the great question
of reform is not evident. And why
should hard-money man who argues for
the repeal of the resumption date, in or
der to catch imitation and reputation
votes, be made President as a financial
reformer?
The Democratic orators and papers
have been unable to show from the
record of their party in any State since
their success in the elections of 1874, or
in their management of the last House
of Representatives, any proof whatever
of spirit of reform. In the States they
turned out Republican officers and
turned in Democrats, and they elected to
the Senate old Copperheads or Confed-
crates of the war simply for that reason,
and without the slightest reference to
any other "reform" than the substtu-
ton of Bourbons for Republicans. In
the House of Representatives they made
a virtually clean sweep of all the places
for the benefit of Democrats; they cut
down the appropriations about twenty
millions of dollars, although how much
less the actual expenses will be we can
tell only when we see the deficiency
bills; they wiped out all the pretense of
economy by passing an equalization
bounty bill which would take from $50,
600, 900 to 100000, 600 out of the Treas
ury; and they introduced Southern claims
and bills for indemnification, such as
Merrimon's and Riddles, which would
take from the Treasury an enormous
sum, computed at from $500, 900, 900 to
| 81 900, 100000. They now hire hundreds
of young men and boys oparade through
the streets carrying transparencies of
Reform" Nothing could be more
proper, for nothing is more transparent
than their claim of reform.
Mr.. Charles Francis Adams and his son
can only say that change must be reform
"a statement at variance with common
sense. Mr.. Goodwin evidently regards
Mr.. Tilden as a system of government,
and disregards the forces and tendencies
of the party which alone can elect him.
Other discouraged gentlemen think that
Republican offenses should be punished
by defeat, forgetting that the alternative
is an Administration elected by "the
South" against the strong conviction OF
the North"-an Administration headed
by man whose theories of the Constitu
ton were put in practice by Jefferson
Davis, and brought into power by those
who hate the whole system of recon.
struction. The aggressive campaign is
not more ludicrous failure than the
Democratic pretense of reform.-Har,
per's Weekly.