The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-03-21
VOL. VII.
WE WILL NEVER HAVE REASON
To WEEP ABOUT TT.

Il
Tissues on which parties were based
be dead there can be no living parties
Only ten days ago Mr.. Hewitt, Til
denis special representative in Con
gress, condemned, with infinite bitter
ness, the conduct of the Southern De
mocracy, and now Garfield and Kelly
and Ben Butler have parted finally.
In the Senate, Maxey and Coke have
diverged from one another, the latter
supporting the administration; the
former, when the civil service reform
question and tenure of Office act were
involved, voting with the red-hsired
Radical Senator from New York.
Lamar cufTed reputation and the
hallowed memories of unresisted
Democratic sway in Mississippi
when he voted against the silver
bill and defied the Legislature
that proposed to vacate his seat. Ex-
cept Sunset Cox, every Democratic
representative of New York and New
England stands aloof from the party,
and has voted with Republicanism on
all financial questions. We have often
witnessed violent contests between
ambitious leaders of the same party,
such as we are likely to have In Texas
when the convention sits which
would give the people a Governor.
In this collision there may be no prin-
ciple or creed or public policy in
volved. Questions discussed will be
purely personal. Of course the fate of
a party would hardly be affected by
such ignoble differences; but these
auarrels in Washington and in
the East and between the East
aud West have substratum
Of principle, and issues are involved
which may thrust the late Radical
Kelly and the ferocious Ben Butler in
to the Democratic ranks, and force
Herman, the Demscratic Senator from
New York, and many like him at the
East, with Schleicher and Lamar, into
the embraces of bondholding Republi-
canism and bondholdiDg Democracy.
1t is coming to this at last, that parties
are deemed ghostly apparitions of dead
facts rather than crystalizatioDs of
practical theories of legislation and
government. A word, q name,
a memory in Texas, and de-
votion to Office and power at
Washington, constitute the cohe-
siye forces giving strength and
durability to parties. No single prac-
tical question, for year past, has been
decided in Congress by partisanship.
Conkling Is the only confessed party
leader in Congress, and his power is
limited to new organization based
upon hostility to the President and
bearing the old banner of the bloody
shirt. The tariff, Tom Scott and Hun
tington, the jolly national banks which
dance the hornpipe of death about
Washington and tickle itching palms
of editors and congressman, are the
only pending issues, and, like the dol
lar of the daddies, have no relation
whatever to Democracy or Republican
ism. Parties have lost their useful
ness and alike their capacity for mis-
chief. If any doubt let them under
take to designate any public ques-
ton which Is proposed to be ad-
justed by any party. Party-lead-
ers, of course, are silent. They are
the last to tell the people that the
agency which lifted them to greatness
has lost its policy for good or evil. Re-
publicans quarrel to-day more bitterly
with Republicans than with Democrats,
and the painful fact to parties is the
blessed exemption of the South from
evils to which it was subjected when
Radicalism won victories through
Northern adherence of the South and
of the people of the South. Democrats
were blest In the same state of facts,
since he was most honored by the party
of the South who defended the
South and assailed the North most
eloquently and bitterly. The people
were the losers; the politicians the
winners and the whole country neces-
sarily deplored that sectional spirit in
which parties were founded. Fortu
nstely, therefore, Republican is more
disposed to quarrel with a Re-
publican than with a Democrat,
and with each severance of sectional
party ties the South breathes more
freely and the President is the better
enabled to execute his declared pur-
pose of giving to the people of all sec
tions Of the Union that degree of per-
feet neutrality-suspicious. with which they
were invested by the Federal Constitu
tion. Men who support parties with
out rhyme or reason rapidly lose in
fuence. The money question has
made men think, and appeals to solid
sense and selfishness, rather than to
passions which party-leaders aud
stump-speakers are accustomed to in
yoke, and II the result of these changes
be the creation of new parties, in which
the West and South may be allied
against the East, the people of these
Southern States win never have Iea-