Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-10-19
The Defeat In Ohio.


GENERAL GARFIELD NlfNS.
A despatch to the New York Tribune
gives the following as General Garfield :
statement of the causes which brought about
the Republican defeat in Ohio Judge
Vests unfortunate speech at Cleveland, in
opening the canvass, lost votes to the party,
he thinks, especially in the strong Republi-
can Counties Some of the most intelligent
and influential Republicans believed that the
Comnunistic purpose displayed in the strikes
and riots of last Summer have revealed a
deadly peril to the peace of the country and
| the security of Its institutions, and they
were not willing to endorse man who even
| in single word or phrase should give en-
| enlargement to movement so dangerous.
This class felt rather apathetic before the
nominations were made and after Mr..
Vests speech they became utterly indii-
| ferent to the result of the State canvass.
General Garfield estimates that the Work
ingmen's movement drew eighty per cent
| of its strength from the Republican party.
| 1t broke out in spots like blisters, here and
there. and its disastrous effect on the Repub-
lican vote was plainly seen wherever it de-
veloped itself. Lucas county, an old Repub-
lican stronghold, was actually carried by
il. and it threw Hamilton county into the
hands of the Democracy. 1t coalesced with
the Greenback faction and gathered in all
the Republicans who have been infected
by the soft-money lunacy and the labor
agitation.
The chief cause Of the Republican defeat,
and, as many leading Republicans think, one
in itself sufficient to account for the whole
affair, was the Presidents order to Office
holders. 1t greatly damaged the party or
ganization. There are nearly 1000 post
masters in Ohio, and almost every one OF
them had either been member OF the local
committee in his town, or mad been accus-
toned as its iactOtum to distribute docu-
ments, call meetings, confer with the active
politicians and in a general way to keep an
oversight of the canvass. All of the post
masters were annoyed and dissatisfied at the
order. They were spoken of as having lost
some of the rights of American citizens, and
as being under the orders of master.
Thus the party not only lost the valuable
campaign services Of large body OF intel
| ligent men, who had been to the party like
the company officers to an army, but the
| conviction that the order was not Just and
right kept many voters from the polls This
was especially the case in the rural districts,
where the abuses arising from the interior
ence of Federal oficeholders in caucuses and
conventions have never been experienced.
Hostility to the Presidents Southern
policy undoubtedly caused the loss of thou
sands Of votes, General Garfield thinks but
he says there are many Republicans now
accounting for their absence from the polls
by their feeling on this question, who
would have said nothing about it had the
party carried the State Leading oppo-
nents of the policy, like Benjamin Wade,
voted and urged others to vote, and the men
of their way OF thinking who stayed at
home on election day had usually other
causes for their apathy. There was a general
feeling that President Hayes was not con-
Meeting the reconciliation policy with the
Republican party, as he ought to do, His
tour in the South did the party some good
and some harm. His speeches were read
az with miscroscOpe, and many Republl-
cans thought they saw in them an lndica-
ton that the President wanted 1t under
stood that he going ahead III the path oil
pacifcation on his own account, hoping that
his party was at his back, but rather in
different as to whether it Jagged behind or
not. Men of this class felt that the Prcsl-
dent should have held out the olive branch
to the South as tine representative OF the
great Republican party of the North, which
is as generous a. it is just, and should all
the while have spoken of himself a. the
chosen agent of his party, elected upon a
platform pledged to reconciliation.
As to the result signiiying the approach
dissolution of the Republican organization,
Ten. Garfield laughs at such a notion. In
his political experience he has seen Il Demo
cratic majority in Ohio one year OF 900,
and Republican majority the very next
year Of l0O, 600 Nobody who understands
Ohio politics wall pretend that the result
this Fall puts the State in the Democratic
line Next year when, Congressman and a
| Governor are elected it may swing back
again to the Republican side with even moro
momentum than it has now gone in the OPP
poste direction.