Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-04-11
The Conservaslve Agency of Great
NATIONAL Rarties.


Probably no reader of the HER
AID will be disposed to doubt the
fact that we can be harsh and tren-
chant in our criticism of the Re-
publican party, which consum-
mated a long career of dereliction
by the Inauguration of a fraudulent
Presidents deed which it now
repents in sack.cloth and ashes.
Because we denounce the short
comings of the Republican party it
BY no means follows that we are
inaensible to its strong points.
There are phases of it's history
which arc positively epic. Be-
cause we believe that it should
now be turned out of the admins
tration of tho national government,
and ehould be replaced by the Dem
ocratic party, as long as the latter
Is on its good behavior, it does not
follow that the Democratic party
should not be turned out for cause,
to be replaced, in turn, by the Re-
publican party.
The Republican party has
achieved its successes by stealing q
lot Of genuine, Jeffersonian Demo-
cratic thunder. It should never be
forgotten that Thomas Jefferson is
really the author of abolitionism
Invested of sectionalism. 1t was
Thomas Jefferson, the founder of
tho Democratic party, who drew
up the bill for the government OF
the Northwestern territories-a bill
which forever excluded African
slavery from them. OF course,
Thomas Jefferson would not have
sympathized with a purely New
England crusade against the South
and its institutions. But the Re-
publican party has always cum
ningly disguised, in its platforms,
its sectional aims.
We recognize in both the
Democratic and Republican par
ties agencies of unspeaka-
BILE good to the United
States. A party with n his
tory has responsibilities. The DEM
ocratIc party, with its history dat
ing from the very beginning of the
century, is a hoar and venerable
institution. Whatever errors it
may have committed-whatever
cessations of popular, Republican
energy it may have experienced
it possesses tremendous and po-
tential agency for good. 1t is the
element which, par excellence, an
tagonized the monarchical, impe-
rial and aristocratic instincts Of the
capitalists of the United States. 1t
is breakwater against the agrees
sions of capital and a guarantee for
popular rights. 1t has resisted the
centralizing tendency which al
ways gathers power with increas-
ing wealth. But it is, nevertheless,
in its way, conservative.
On the other hand, we can recog-
nize, in the Republican party, ex-
truded from power, compelled to
retrench it's extravagances and in
science. an agency of much good.
We think 1t would be polite, at
rare intervals, to allow it to admin
lister the National government. In
possession of unchecked power it
would run too much to Grants,
Schuyler Colfaxes, Babcocks, Bel
knaps, and, ultimately, to imperi-
allsm. Recalled to its senses, at
stated intervals, by political re-
verses, it would correct the gross
abuses and rank corruptions, with
imperialistic tendencies, which
make its long, undisputed posses
sion of power perilous.
The country to-day, suffering
from a pronounced communistic
impulse, finds splendid guarantee
of safety and rescue in the exis-
tence of two such organizations as
the Democratic and Republican
parties. In the crude, fe-
rocious utterances of the Kear-
ney orators, clearly and self.re-
specting people see the danger
from which two great National
parties, with history, rescue
them. When we come to read the
utterances of these rhinoceros-
hided, foul-mouthed declaimers,
we feel throb of gratitude towards
great political organizations which
will protect US from the dominion
OF an unwashed mob. A rhetoric
which partakes of the hog wallow,
leadership which emanates from
the stews, a political inspiration
which has its source in the swamp
lands which grow hemp, an idea
which dates back to Apacbaris
Clootz for an archetype, to-day
challenge the votes OF Californi-
aus. We are hugely pleased to
discern the signs that the reverbe.
rant aud, If it could be so, bloody
fanaticism, has already lost its
force. The unclean tide will spend
its flow against Democratic and
Republican breakwaters, and its
ebb will be so rapid and so insIg-
niticant that the fact that it even