Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-10-12

natus. He had "a wishing hat, which re.
Heyed him of the expense and labor of tray
cling. BY placing this hat On his head and
wishing himself at a given place, he straight
join in building a monument to the soTefy
needed genius who. could manufacture, Q,
Presidential Hat that w~ouldenable Governor
hayes, by q simple wish, to change the pa
ture of Morton and Cameron, and Butler,
and Clayton, and Boss Shepherd, and Bah
cock, and Brother-in- law Casey and the rest
of the unbaptiZed crew who are taxing their
wits and pouring out their money to secure
his election, and will darken the air about
the Executive mansion on the 4th OF March,
If he should succeed? Such a hat. | am free
to confess, would make Gov. Hayes a pretty
respectable President, and he would be able
to take VI the question Of reform and ois-
pose of it with tolerabie success. Unfortu-
nately, no such head-gear can be found while
the great leader of the party IN Indiana
and the right hand man of the Administra-
ton tells us the party has no need of it, and
that the men who ask for reform are worse
criminals than the thieves they wish to ex-
pose and punish. Here is the ugly knot
many other Republicans, desire to see I'M
tied Can you obtain the command Of a pi-
ratical craft by simply changing the figure
head Of the vessel? You must expel the
pirates and put an honest crew in possess
sion. This is the truth in a nutshell, and
SNo1SO :" Jas AlAoC III lDs-
His cry, is ''Reform within the party,'
which he is shouting along the ines as he
dld -FOUR years ago, as il utterly unmindful
or the TACT that under this battle-cry our
civil service has become as foul and feeulent
a system OF official huckstering and political
prostitution as our thoroughly debauched
party politics could make it. But he is not
blind, like Senator Morton, TO the need of
reform, and he tells us in Harper's Weekly
that the only hope of the party lies in the
power to persuade the people that it is not
hopelessly corrupt. He frankly cOnfesses
that reform is only possible by throwing
overheard the Grant leaders and trained
corruptionists who have brought the party
into disgrace. In all soberness / ask, is
this possible? Haze the Republica" masses,
and virtue to take their old leaders,
by the Mr0atP Will the party chiefs / have
named, meekly and penitentially take the
back seats, while honest and stainless men
come to the front? The man who believes
all this must have allowed his common sense
to pack its baggage. The Grant leaders
would reign in any conceivable political
hell, rather than serve in the heaven OF hon.
est government. In the manipulation or
caucuses and conventions they have long
been masters. They are iourneymen and
experts in the work OF politics as a trade.
They have reduced plumber and peif to a
science and the greed OF clutch to a fine art.
Nothing can be more certain than That Such
a reform as would completely disiodge these
leaders and put such men AS Bristow and
Adams in their places. would be, in fact,
the creation Of a new party. IL would have
to be preceded by a general disintegration.
and it would be quite as absurd to
consider it the same party which
has ruled the country since Grant came into
power, as it would have been to treat the
Republican party Of 1856 as identical with
the old Wing party, which has gone down
to its dishonored grave. The idea, there
fore, of making the Republican party the
instrument of self-purifcation is not only
morally, but logically, absurd. A party,
once thoroughly corrupt, has lost the power
to reform itself. Devils are not inclined to
cast out devils, and could scarcely be trust
ed with the business if they should offer
their services; and it is because / entertain
these views, and can not escape their force,
that | sincerely desire to see the machinery
Of the Republican party battered into frag-
ments, and the way thus opened for a re-
formation of parties on the living questions
OF the hour unembarrassed by the memories
of tho mast