The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-01-11
THE FUTURE.
THE COMING ISSUES AS FOREsEEN .RY
AN OLD AND ADROIT POLITICIAN.
Ehe Issue 0f the Fnture-Capital W..
LabOr-The Position the south VIII
Occupy In the Conflict.

:"
Labor-The Position the south Will
occupy In the Conflict.
Especial Correspondence of the Democratl
RIses HOUSE, |
Washington d. G.. January 8, 1878. |
Yesterday met one of the oldest and adroit-
est of the politicians now in public life. He is
nearing the threshold of three score and ten |
| and was man of note forty years ago. He has
been In Congress and In the Cabinet; has stood
| at the head OF the bar in his locality, and has
seen the inside of three great political parties
| Bred Jackson Democrat and taught to worship
| Thos. H. Benton. he grew an Abolitionist. and
was sponsor at the baptism OF the party that
elected Lincoln and now in his old age has
come back to his first love. the Democracy Of
the constitution. There Is but one man in the
United States whom this description points out.
and leave you to pronounce his name.
| I asked him IL he could give me anything
like clear idea OF what the logic of the exist
ing situation pointed to as
| PROBABILITIES OF THE FUTURE?
| The old man hesitated. Il have seen.' he
said twelve administrations come and go; as
boy aud man have been acquainted with jack
son. Van Buren,. Tyler. Polk. Taylor, Fillmore
Pierce Buchanan. Lincoln, Johnson and
Grant. have been the adviser of one Of them.
Perhaps there is no man now living who has
seen with his own eyes, or heard directly from
the lips OF those who did see. the inside Of so
many administrations as / have / have fat
tered myself that no political logic was too tor
tuous Ior me to trace; that no line OF tendency
in an administration was too broken or too
faint for me to follow out. and that no situation
was chaotic enough to defy my powers Of analy
els. For have made those things study. as
Leverrer studied the heavens, Humboldt the
earth, or Commodore Maury the sea. But now
give 1t up.
THIS MAN WHO IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE CANNOT
BE UNDERSTOOD
He can do nothing that will surprise me; he can
make no failure that will disappont me. He is
there, and that is all that anybody can be sure OF
about him. The situation is as anomalous as
the man. Fixed principles, or principles that
used to be fixed, fly from one end OF the po-
Iitical web to the other like the shuttle OF a
! loom drawing after them woof that nobody
can disentange. Senators and Representa-
tives are to- day in one fellowship, tomorrow
in another. 1t looks as If the White House had
been put up at q grand rattle. where Hayes has
only about one chance In. As to policy. Hayes
seems to agree with everybody. and nobody
agrees with him. The Radicals. fearing a de-
luge, built tower of Babel last winter, calling
1t an electoral count, and now the tongues of all
men are confounded. No two men seem to
! derstand each other and few understand them
selves. It is sort of political masquerade In
which everybody IL trying to prevent his
neighbor from finding him out. don't know
, that 1t would be proper to- speak Of Hayes as
having caused this
It probably came Of ITSELF and think he Is
founderng in it as helplessly as the rest of us.
He owes his place to an outrage upon the con-
stitution. and suspect he is paying the penal
ty of violation Of the laws of political nature.
Unless this is
THE TEMpEsTUoUs DEATH STRUGGLE OF PARTY
= born in agitation, br I'd In tumult, spent In war
and made decrepit by corruption. don't know
! what it is But do know that all the political
landmarks are out Of sight. that the compasses
+: are broken and the North Star itself shifted
: round to some strange quarter of the heavens.
Don't ask me what | think Of the situation. IT
is what Herbert Spencer would call the Un-
thinkable In fact, there is no situation! There
/ is simply chaos Of possibilities in which there
is nothing definite enough to call probability.
= The outcome of the whole thing may be that
the Democrats will carry thirty States in the
. next presidential election or Grant may be re-
. elected by three -fourths of the electoral vote. I
am not certain of anything but don't believe
, that there will ever be another Job of counting
. direction has satisfied everybody"
But you must have some idea, for example
q of
J. WHAT rs GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN CONGRESS- GETS
TOGETHER
again /" said: some notion as to what is going
: to be the result of the fight which the extreme
!, Radicals have begun to force upon Hayes"
q Il assure you that have not. You may see
NEW CABINET
q l., m <t,t,x
y be Democratic and 1t may be ultra Radical. Or
Q YOU may see Hayes under impeachment. Or
o you may see him the defendant in a suit at law
for the recovery Of the stolen property which
q may see and God knows what you may not see.
+ Most likely you will, see just what Is on hand
now-an uncertainty which s SO perIssct ts fa thas ID
u yesterday and take no heed for the possibilities
i of Tomorrow"
oh certainly. The country can't exist this
THE GENERAL ELECTION OF NEXT FALL
q may bring order and resolve things into shape.
,r But hardly think SO. should not be surprised
to see a House elected next fall in which neither
l' party will have clear majority in which there
1t will be large minorities Of both Democrats and
a | Republ cans with small minority Of Inde-
% % rendents or bushwhackerss who will be able to
10 dictate terms, The Senate, of course, will be
r Democratic, and that is the only really hopeful
J. sign see for the immediate future, The Dem.
,. ocratic Senate will be the Ark OF the Covenant
of the constitution during the worst part of the
j. deluge. Our party has not obtained as much
advantage from the control of the House dur
ing the last three years as ought to have done.
There has been too much squsbbling over the
Doorkeeper and too little attention paid to the
country at large; too many members absorbed
r. in tne clerkships Of committees and too few
:. looking out for the wisdom OF national policy;
70 There has been an outcry of economy. but 1t
of has ended In deficiency bls.. Randall is
Speaker, but th.t is the :, sole result Of
s the great policy of economy that was going 70
r, do such great things among the 'ople There
a. Is no real question upon which sentimental df-
. ferences may prevail. now that the South has
ID pathzed with by the other. The men who talk
- ~ about reviving reconstruction. reopening the
10 Southern question and all that sort OF thing
:. talk % about t reoopening REQ the Kansas: Nebraska
question, or reviving the English bill for dis.
y cussion. The negro fs not more completely out
of power as political factor in the South than
re is out Of date as subject OF agitation In the
q. North He can never again be even QalYaniZed