The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-09-22
FOR VICE PRESIDENT,
Amnesty in France and America,


Amnesty In France and America.
"We were all rebels" said Southern gen.
tleman who recently addressed Democratic
audience in this state, "why then censure us
for sending rebel generals to Congress? We
have no alternative; and if Republicans real
ly mean to grant us the amnesty which the
law has accorded to us, let them cease to
print with insulting comments lists of ex-con-
federates who are now lawfully and rightfully
occupying public positions"
They manage differently in France, our
half-sister republic, where five years ago last
spring the city of Paris rebeDed against the
government which sprang up on the ruins of
the empire. The ex-rebels of that city do not
complain Of mere verbal injuries which they
receive in free debate, but of the imminent
peril of death to which they are still exposed
from the fatal miasma of Cayenne and other
penal colonies-death which tens of thous-
ands of their associates, who were ruthlessly
butchered in the streets of Paris during the
last days of May, 1871, and afterwards at fire.
quent intervals for years on the plain of Sa-
tory, have already suffered in the cause of
radical democracy. The government of Mac
Mahon has recently granted amnesty to some
of the communist convicts, but the greater
part of them, instead of debating the policy
of the government from their seats in the
French Senate and Assembly, are still ex-
posed to all the terrors of the criminal code.
While our own Republic admits to the chief
places of profit and honor the men who as
sailed it with voice and sword, in the interest
of human bondage, for the space of four
years, the Republic of France hestates to
grant even remission of penalties to men
who, for only two months, held their own
city against government which was itself of
recent revolutionary origin, and which the
Communists themselves regarded as a pro-
visional arrangement for the complete restor-
alton of Romish and monarchial supremacy.
Public opinion has undergone a great
change respecting the Communist outbreak
since the list of June, 1871, when the whole
world rejoiced in the intelligence that, at last,
the "scum," the ''offscouring," the "Reds,"
the 'sansculottes." the ''thieves and murder
ers'' of the fairest city in Europe had sue
cumbed before the efforts of MacMahon, aid
ed by the hardly passive support of the Prus-
slams. The radicals of Paris are not wholly
vindcated, it is true; but the great weight of
ohloquy heaped upon them by the partisans
of Versailles is removed; and it will be
strange, when the final account is made up,
if the verdict of history be not quite as severe
against the government OF September"
whose successors are now resisting any con-
cessions to ''the mob," as against the doc
trinaries, enthusiasts, and fierceIy democratic
working men who took up arms on the 18th
of March.
In the first place, the hearts and sympa-
thies Of the world have been turned away
from the Communists by the constant reter-
alton CT the calumny that they were almost
universally men and women of the most
worthless and degraded character. Their
leaders have been represented as ignorant
and brutal adventures, who, like Catiline,
desired to promote their personal interests
even at the expense of their country's ruin,
Never was such violence done to facts Flour
ems, who died at thirty-three, had been pre-
fessor at the Sorb onne when a mere youth,
and driven thence on account of his socialls-
tic views, had aided the Cretans in their re-
volt against the Turks; La Cecilia had been
Professor of mathematics at Ulm; Cluseret,
Delegate of War, had been one of Fremont's
most Trusted officers in the Rebellion; Dom
browskl' vhom monarchial newspapers have
commemorate us as ga convict" was indeed
consp;rator against Russian despotism, but
this was bis only crime; Courbet was paint.
er; Felix Pyat was man of studious and
blameless lie; Ind so on through the long
list. 1t would inleed be strange if such an
upheaval did not iriug to the surface an occa.
caslonal mailman and atheist, like Rigault,
the famous prefect Of police, and even he is
said to have been a man Of wealth and chiefly
culpable on account of lis rude and blasnba-
nous language.
Their acts are complet vindication of the
communists from the chake of peculation
and robbery. The bank of France with its
three billions of francs, chiefly the propertv
of the enemies of the Commune, vas for the
most part unmolested. The provisio.al gov.
ernment paid its highest officials only $ll0O a
year. A New York journalist, writing as an
eyewitness, says that no preceding admins.
tration had secured so great security fol
property and life. Among the acts Of the
| commune were the establishment of religious
freedom, compulsory education and civil mar.
| riage in order that there might no longer be
any excuse for irregular alliances on the part
ofthose whom poverty or conscientious scru-
Piles deferred from complying with the forms
prescribed by the church. Prostitution accord
ingly was repressed by severe edicts. Thes'
were surely strange fruits of infdelity, igno
| rance and vicel But after all, they are sucl
| fruits as might be expected from administra
tion of men whose action is known to hav
been inspired not by selfishness but by social
istic theories, which, however fanatical an,
however mistaken, certainly aim at such al
| equitable constitution of human society a
was prescribed by the founder of Chrstianit
himself. "Did they not destroy public build
ings and in the end, aim at the complete OF
liberation of Paris by fire?" Such, certainly
is the popular impression, produced in par
no doubt by the pictures of the awful faces
the mob which are so frequently displayed i