National Republican., 1876-12-20
WEDEEsDAY.::::::::::::::DE q. 1875.
A Picture With the Democratic Wolf
In the Foreground,

As the life of our first Centennial year
slowly GIBBS away we. find ourselves as a
nation full of forebodings and fear. Business
from Maine to the Pacific lies PROSTATE at the
feet of hard times: labor is without employ
meut; our industries are paralyzed; capital Is
idle; our commercial interests are shrinking,
and amidst this unhappy condition of affairs
we find two great political parties struggling
for the mastery and the glittering prize of
national power. Samuel j. Ttlden in his
letter of acceptance said that the wolf gaunt
and hungry is at the threshold of every home
in the land. Whose wolf is 1t that non
threatens the peace of the country? Whose
wolf is it that nor fastens its fangs into the
throat of the nation and portends to drag us
into civil war9 1t is the Democratic wolf,
which for sixteen years has been bowling
sayapely for power and Office and supremacy,
and which has been welding the weapons of
slarder and yilifcation and mud TO carry out
its purposes and secure its wicked ends! It
wasthe spirit of this gaunt pilferer, embodied
in the White Line element of the South, that
nullihed law and order, destroyed the elective
franchise, made personal liberty and indiyid-
ual security guaranteed by State laws and the
Constitution worthless thingf, while it made
murder the price of Repub icauisn and proscrip-
ton the reeompense for loyalty. twas this
Democratic wolf which by force, fraud and In
timidatioD, by lawlessDess unparalleled in the
annals of history, by mobocracy established
through armed military organization in oppos-
tion to the provision of law that reVolutionized
the Commonwealth of Mississippi, overturned
the State government, overcame Republican
majority OF forty thousand and made the State
Democratic by the enormous majority of fifty
eight thousand. 1t was the ruling passion of
this gaunt and hungry wolf that took posses
sion of the Democracy in Alabama and wrested
that Republican State from those who held 1t
by the will Of an honestlY-expressed majority,
turning an overwhelming Republican vote
into a monstrous Democratic success. 1t was
the spirit Of this prowling Bourbon creature
that attempted to seize Louisiana, Florida and
South Carolina through instrumentalities
which were q disgrace to free nation and q
paIpable outrage on the constitutional rights
of the American citizen. Again, it was this
same creature, in Oregon, which violated
State and Federal law and disgraced the high
est Office of the Commonwealth in a tricky and
foolish attempt to make President; aud to-
day this identical wolf, gauut and hungry,
Eoaded on by fierce passion for party sg-
grandizement, stands growing and conten-
tious between the country and peace, as un-
willing as 1t was in 1861 to abide by the will of
the people, expressed according to the forms
of law and the Constitution. This is q picture
of the situation, as will be readily perceived,
in which the Democratic wolf, devoid Of its
Sleeps clothing, is as conspicuous in the fore
ground as q wart on the nose of public man !;
hut it is true, and that makes 1t interesting.