Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-04-20
DRLFTED A,STERN.

DRLFTED AiSTERN.
1t is not, we read, an unusual thing for
an old gambler after he has feeced a re-
spectacle victim to offer him enough to
pay his passage home, but we have never
seen anywhere where the dealer in ivory
had the cheek to offer him employment be-
hind the table. It has been left for that
political black leg known as the Republi-
can party, that now decrepid old sport of
many loaded dice and stocked cards, to
reach the audacious height of such an Of
fer. Having just cheated the Democracy
out of the Presidency, and seeing that 1t
can't in the face of public opinion hold all
it has gotten, it surrenders two States and
then, through it's stool pigeons at the South,
makes the proposition that the Democrat
ic party here should divide, and part at
least of them go over to the Republican"
party. The part of the Democratic party
it is after, is any part large enough tocar-
~ the state elections and give them con-
troll of the state governments. They don't
want any more than just enough-a large
injection of the Democracy would be fatal
to the prospects of the stool pigeons in the
South who would soon sink out of sight,
superseded and thrown into the back
ground by the men of character and intel
ligence who might come over from the OPP
position. just enough to carry the State
IS what they want.
The GOODNESS of this proposition is amaz-
ing. The Democratic party with three
hundred electoral votes dead sure at the
next Presidential election, even if it were to
carry no more Northern States than it did
last fall, is invited to abandon certainty of
success four years from now, and divide its
strength so as to run the risk of more close
voting and other returning boards. And
if there were to be a change why 60 to the
Republican party? What can they find
in it's platform that is not already in their
own? And then to which wing of the Re-
publican party, hard money or soft money,
high tariff or low tariff for the organiza-
ton is pretty evenly split mp among all
four ? The only real question at issue in
the last campaign was home rule; as for
the other questions both parties were di-
vided on them. On the main question the
Republican party was divided, and, as the
seating of HAYES has shown hopelessly so.
The MORToN-BLAINE programme was
anti-home rule as far as the South was
concerned, and HAYES acts in opposition
to their views have created schism in the
ranks of the party. The Democracy was
the only party that honestly and to the last,
Aad tl,ofo Stof oh fcp1
and if their should be any change in polit-
ical parties the HAYES Republicans should
come over to the Democracy.
But the truth is that there can be no
political change in the party organizations
of the South. 1t is impossible in the ma
ture of things. There may be assertions
from the Democracy with view to better
ing the condition of the deserter, but there
can be no large and organized movement
towards relnforcing-its opponents. There
may be independent candidates which is
one way for man or set of men, to get
something outside of the party, but they
have. not the power to get inside, and
which might be called desertion in its best
and most attractive apparel, but there can
be no division Of the party. The proven
tltive will be, as it always has been, the
solid character Of the party opposed TO the
Democrats. That never splits on election
day. 1t is party that can vote solidiy
without apparently an open organization.
just now in Virginia there lisa forty thou
sand Democratic majority and IA big piece
would have to be Clipped off before even
an Independent could make respectable
run. The Republican party in this State
stands in the position of a PROSTATE foe.
It's threshed soundly every four years, and
in the last campaign was overwhelmed. Ii
it wants any change, itself must first make
the move. Let its white leaders begin
teaching their followers that the day fol
standing shoulder to shoulder on every
question when the white man is on the
other side, is past; that the time has come
that they can safely go to their tents with
out guard mounting: let them break up
their secret organizations and be found :.
now and then, supporting somebody that
the Office holders are opposing; let them
cultivate such spirit that colored Dem
ocrat will be safe from insult among his
race, and then this dividing of parties win
come of ITSELF Until these things come
to pass ''dividing'' at the South by Demo.
Gratis is desertion and being desertion will
never be countenanced.
In the next Presidential election, of all
men, the m ost miserable will be any Dem
ocrat who in the four years preceding
has ssdivided.''
The Republican party at the South and
everywhere else has drifted astern and even
the place hunter who is at the mast head
looking out for emolument, isn't looking
that way. He hardly notices the rotten
old hulk that has been knocked about so
by the last Democratic gales that it is
hardly able tot keep above water. Let it