The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1877-12-13
THE HAYES ADMINISTRATION.

political views as now pour over the
land. The peace which the country
longed for, and which the Radical
leaders so loudly promised should
follow a quiet acquiescence in the de-
cision of the fraudulent Electoral
Commission, seems to-day more dis
tant than ever. MOI can the respon-
sibility ofthis present and increasing
uI certainty be laid at the door ofthe
Democratic party. 1t has filled the
measure of patriotic sacrifice and
forbearance. The Republican party
and its leaders must be held account
able for whatever of dissension and
disaster shall flow from the anoma-
lous condition o faffairs o existing
in the country. Having fraudulent
ly secured the election of HAYES to
the Presidential chair, by means too
well known to be forgotten, the Rad
ical leaders are suddenly awakened
to the fact that they have the wrong
man. At first they spoke jocosly of
his country notions, and contemptu-
ously of his rural craftsmanship;
then ridiculed his Platonic theories
of government and his visionary
ideas of administration. Now, how
ever, they are ready to charge him
with betrayal of the wolfsh mother
that nursed him, end with conspiring
to destroy the political organization
whose accidental representative he
was, that he might build from its
broken ruins a party more willing to
do his behests.
We do not understand HAYES. He
has neither the ability nor the cour-
age to become the leader of a new
party, nor does he or his intimate ad-
visers for one moment seriously con-
template such a step. The simple
truth is this. By the Electoral Com
mission fraud, HAYES suddenly, and
to his utter surprise, found himself
the unlawful occupant of the seat of
a man whom the people had selected
for their Chief Magistrate by more
than a quarter of a million majority.
A more conscientious man might
have hesitated to accept office under
such circumstances. A holder mai
might have braved the contempt and
despised the opposition of his politi,
cal opponents. But HAYES was nei-
Their delicately sensitive nor s%ternly
brave. He was simply cunning. He
rolled the responsibility of the Re
turning Board rascality upon the
J shoulders of doubtfully constituted
commission, whose partisan decis
, ions made the triumph of fraud pos
sible by refusing to let truth ant
honesty combat it. Suddenly, how
| ever, he found himself walled in by
obstacles unforeseen. He was hedg
: ed by the threatened anarchy of tn
South, by the restlessness of thu
North, by the solid Democratic ma
jority in Congress. Under such cir
!, cumstances a partisan policy wa
: simply an i%mpossibility. 1t coult
: not have lived upon such q e for
single month. In this strait HAVE
f bethought him of his letter Of accep
, lance, a document never intended b,
f him, or his trainers in the politica
+ ring, and with its sugared plums be
gan a season of political coquetr,
that would have shamed a Dodge o
: Venice in the middle ages. 1t wa
! here that the rupture between HAVE
: and his party began. He courte,
J the South, and his party divorces
him from bed and board. The Soutl
/ spurned his tender advances, an,
U the rejected asDirant stood out in tn
e cold alone. Civil Service was sen
e up like a rocket and went out il
shame, and now his trucking sub
~serviency to the Shylocks ofthe coun
0 try is the last feather that will sim
q the fraudulent and rotten admins
tration into the depths of contempt
y /