The New Orleans Democrat. (New Orleans, La.) 1875-1876, 1876-03-17
4 Republican Victory.

TRANSLATED from the New Orleans Beef
New Hampshire has just distinguished
| itself by electing "a Republican Governor
and Republican Legislature. The Re-
publican majority last year was only
Iva votes this year it will be 1000. These
matters but little. as the electoral
masses who last year supported the Re-
publican party have remained faithful
this year.
The awful and scandalous dis
| closures from Washington duplicating
the leading lights of the Republican
party have created no Impression
upon the minds of the $4,000
voters who last year placed their trust
| in the Republican party. They remain
unalterably attached, as part and parcel
thereof. to q party branded with infamy
Must we infer from such u result that
these electoral masses are stupid and
unable to understand the dangers of the
situation, or that being corrupted and
demoralized the persist in their will to
confide the destinies of the American
Republic to the Grants, Belknaps and
Babcocks, and all the clique OF vampires
now using with so much avidity and i'm
pudence to enrich themselves the high
est political situations of the country
Whatever conclusion we reach, it is a
sad and affecting one.
We must admit it is true that the Re-
publican party. discredited by recent
disclosures, has made desperate efforts
to secure the election, and thus stem
the tide Of defeat that would have set in
with Democratic victory that nothing
influence could accomplish, was left un-
done; that money was lavishly used,
and that even though defeated in this
first skirmish OF the season, the Demo
Gratis must not be discouraged. But
granting all that, does not the
victory was possible fifteen days
after the explosion Of the Belknap
bombshell in the Radical camp, tend to
prove an absence of moral restraint In
the electoral masses, and that public
opinion-the grand regulator Of weak con-
sciences has lost its strength and pres
tige. In view of the slight impression
produced by the almost unanimous de-
nunciations of the press, the question
might well be asked, Have we
public opinion?" The American people
now resemble those weak or blind hus
bands who persist, in spite of all admo-
nitions, to keep under their roof a faith
less wife. regardless of their fortune,
their honor, or of their dignity.
Fifteen years of arbitrary regime,
corruption, venality, disorders and q
financial crisis now of two years dura-
ton, with the prospect of an indefinite
continuance, have not sufficed to en-
tighten millions of voters who remain
blindly obedient to the discipline of a
party that never had principles, and is
leading the country to ruin as it has
already led it to shame.
Sad and disgusting as are the facts. it
but renders still more imperative the
duty of honest men, iass it is also their
interest to react, against this moral col
lapse OF the American people. This Re
publican victory at the opening of the
campaign should be wholesome admo-
milton to the Democrats who, perhaps,
thought they would easily win in the
Presidential campaign.
The battle against the groveling in
terests created by Radicalism, or which
it has enrolled as accomplices and in
struments, will be hard fought one
No illusions must be entertained as to
the power of this coalition for evil, and
to vanquish it we must not only attack
it necessarily, but also find the means
on interesting in its overthrow all the
passive or Indifferent elements of
American society, by enrolling them
under the banner of that portion of the
people that has remained sound and
vigorous and opposing to the league of
impure interests the holy alliance of
the defenders of public good.