Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-07-31
From the New York Times.
The Reglars and the Riots.


The riots will not have failed to yield a
needed lesson if they teach our people
that in free country standing army is
not necessarily dangerous to popular lib
erty. 1t is rather the bulwark of law and
order-the means of preserving rather
than destroying the liberties of the peo-
pie. The old fear of a standing army
came down to us from the founders OF
the Republic, whose exceptional and Bit
ter experience was that the Army oil the
mother country had been used to enforce
upon a distant colony laws intrinsically
unjust, and to prevent it from gaining in
dependence. Not solitary experience
in our century of growth has elevated
that exceptional experience into gener-
al rule; and if we look at England.
country 10 several respects as free as our
own, what do we see ? An unpopular Min
istry goes out and new one comes in
without attempting to settle any political
issue by the aid OF the great British Ar
my The majority there and here sue
ceeds to the control of the Government
of the Army which is the support of the
Government, be the Administration Con-
servative or Liberal. democratic or repub-
lican.
The suggestive feature of the riots has
been that the presence of regular troops
has never had an irritating effect on the
rioters. Once or twice few members OF
an already excited mob stoned the regu-
lar troops but in the great majority OF
instances the rioters were rather silenced
and awed, even although the sight of pc.
lice, militia, and civil authorities had sci
them into fury like that of mad bull
maddened by red flag.
What caused the difference? Not Who'll
ly the GOODNESS, stolditv, and impressive
mechanism of the regulars, though that
imperturba bility in the midst of excite
ment went for much. The rioters saw in
the regulars the embodiment of nation
al power which they at no time wished to
challenge. The police were old foemen,
with whom they did not mind running the
familiar chances of giving or taking
cracked skull, and on whom. in fact, some
had old grudges TO pay off In the mill
tia they saw either "mere boys whom
they chaffed on their delicate build. or else
"aristocrats," whom they hated, or else
working men" who would not anger
them by firing on their fellows. In the
civil authorities they saw politicians
and oflice-holders," afraid to give them
.'justice." None of these irritating refec-
tons seem to have been stirred up by the
regulars. They were not politicians, nor
fellowworkmen, nor shindy-loving po-
lice. They were the trained executive
force of that National Government which,
if too fagrantly resisted, could call a mil
lion men into the field, and which the riot
ers who defy city and State Governments
so shrink from offending that they offer to
furnish train hands to carry its mails.
This impression created by the regu-
lars, was, of course, EXCHANGED by the
quiet, celebrity, method, and detiniteness OF
aim with which they went about their bus
mess OF protecting Government property,
including arms, munitions. provisions and
money threatened with capture In ac-
compishing this they had need of thorough
discipline and stolid endurance, and they
showed these qualities. The pelting OF
stones into their ranks was taken, like the
pelting Of rain, as a disagreeable incident,
but they would not turn aside from
march designed to occupy specific
arsenal or Custom house in order to teach
a lesson" to a few mad assailants, or haz-
ard their main business for an Hnnecessa-
ry street fight. The professional definite
ness of purpose which led their officers to
specific accomplishment of exact orders
and no more, has been particularly no.
ticeable. Thus their prestige has been
uninjured, and they only deepened in the
mob that feeling of indefinite reluctance
to take up arms against the power of the
General Government of which we have
already spoken. 1t becomes clear that
the regulars carry with them not only
physical force but an infinitely greater
moral power. These things should not be
losssight of in making general provisions
against repetitions of the late tempestu-
Gus and bloody scenes.
From the Lewiston Journal
pIayinU With Fire