Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-11-03
THE PRESIDENT AND THE DE
MOCRACY

' EA&A DMsNl Nv NJ IN LMA-
MOCRACY.
The question now before us is
the policy so far adopted
by the President should make any
difference in the attitude of the
party. The answer to
this question has never been a mat
ter of doubt with us, but to many of
our contemporaries it seems to have
been a source of perplexity. Their
seems to have arisen from
their mistake in identifying the
President with the Republican par
ty and in imagining that because
the President had adopted one or i
two measures for which the Demo- /
cratic party had been long agitating /
and was talking softly and sweetly |
to the South, therefore the Republic /
can party had reIented and intend
ed hereafter to do all that the De
mocracy could wish, and that there
fore the Democracy had nothing to
do but to disband its forces and fall
into the rear of the repentant Re
publican forces and, together with
them, carry the President in tri-
umph to the contamination of his
policy amid universal acclamatiOns
of joy and reconciliation.
We are not disposed to be hard
upon our over-cTedulOus contempt
raries, for we imagine that the open
ing of Congress has dispelled the
illusions Of the most sanguine of
them. 1t has certainly become man
ifest now that, whatever the Presi-
dent may do, the Republican party
stands exactly where it did, and the
Democracy must either retain its
old antagonist position or surrender
at discretion while victory is within
its grasp. AS for the President Ga
comparatively unimpOrtant point,
it has become plain that he can do on
lyOne out OftwO things: he must eth
er relinquish every one of the posi-
tionS he has assumed since his cleo
ton, and throw himself with tears
of repentance into the arms of COnk-
ling and Blaine, or else stand man.
fully by what he has done, and
throw himself for support on all
without distinction of party (Which
course would really indemnity him
with the Democratic party. No
middle course was possible, and Mr..
Hayes was evidently destitute
either of the inclination or the NOR
al courage for the latter course.
Whichever it be, he is evidently
and rapidly receeding from all those
positions which have placed him at
variance with his own party and
given him temporary credit with
his antagonists. Mr.. Devens, the
Acknowledgement, has addressed a
letter to the OfficehOIders in Boston
in view of the approaching Massa-
chusetts election, in which the civil
service order is completely set aside
by means of an explanation which
really explains away it altogether;
and the machine isset to work just as
of old. So much for civil service; and
it seems not unlikely that the con-
trOversy about the seats of the
Louisiana Senators may reopen the
Southern question, and, if the Sen
ate gives the seat to Kellogg, there
by endorsing the Packard Legisla-
ture and ignoring that of Nichols,
then it is said that Packard will sue
for his reinstatiOn as Governor in
the United States courts. And in
all this Mr.. Hayes expresses no
wishes, no opinions; his next friend
votes regularly with the Republic
can party for the exclusion of the
truely elected Senators of Louisiana,
by burying them in the committee
ON elections.
Well then, the Republican party
is what it always has been, and the
Democratic party must stand where
it did in opposition to it-that's all.
So plain has all this now become,
that we should have deemed it SUI
perfiuous to write this article at all
hut for Il very strange editorial
which has appeared in the New
York Herald on the subject. That
article states rs plainly as we have
done the above positions, that the
people has declared everywhere i'll
favor of the policy which the Presi-
dent so loudly proclaimed and from
which ne is now so feebly receding,
"fOr the sake of the party" under
the pressure of the Republican lead
ers i'm Congress; and the practical
counsel it gives to voters in consid-
Grafton of it all is-what would one
suppose?-vote solidly for the party
which has always advocated this
policy?- nothing of the kind; his
counsel is "stay away from the
polls =" Not so will the people of
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and
New York act when maneuvering
politicians attempt to cheat them of
the reforms they have set their
minds on having. They will con-
tent themselves with no negative
proceedings, but go in a body to the
polls and in a voice of thunder de-
manda verdict for the people against
the politicians.
THE HOUSE COMMITTEES.
We have elsewhere given the list
Of Chairmpn of Committees an