Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-09-21
A NEW LEAF.

The Maine election seems to have
occasioned, or at least ushered in, a
reign of inextricable confusion in
political affairs. 1t was a defeat for
the Republicans and yet cannot be
called victory for the Democrats,
who can only claim a share of the
spOils by coming in on condition of
an alliance offensive and defensive
with the Greenbackers. In Boston
and Massachusetts it seems that the
Democrats are driven to a choice
between coalition with the indie
pendents, who have nominated Ben.
Butler, or with the Republicans, or
political inaction. In New York
confusion is more complete still
the alliance between the extreme
Republicans who favor COnkling
and the extreme Democrats who
belong to Tammany having appa-
rently OccasiOned an understanding
between the anti-Tammany Demo-
Gratis and that wing of the Republi-
cans which is guided by Evarts and
Curtis.
Only one thing can be seen clearly
through this complication, and that
is that the old issues, those growing
out of the war, are to be abandoned
by both parties and the new issues
have not yet been defined. That
existing organizations can long sur
vive this abandonment of old issues
seems to the judgment of common
sense incredible. The existing Re
publican party consolidated during
the war had only two purposes, one,
during the war, to conquer the
South, the other, since the war, to
hold it in subsection. The existing
Democratic party had only one pur-
pose either, to break up the vassal-
age in which the Republican party
aimed to keep the South and each
party comprised within its ranks
men who agreed in nothing else ex-
cept the one or the other of these
two purposes. Now, since the
Maine election seems to have given
the coup de grace to the already
moribund carpet-bag policy, the
cohesive force of both parties seems
thereby to be neutralized, and both
of them seem TO be in danger of
being resolved into their cOnstitu-
ent elements. This paralysis of the
two existing parties has been the
opportunity of the politicians who
control that loosely associated cha
otto body which in different lOcali-
ties assumes the title of the Green
back, Labor, National, Independent
party, and many other appellatiOns,
and under Ben. Butler and Denis
Kearney has thrived, not by its own
merits, but by the perplexity and
iTresOlution of its competitors, the
two older organizations.
In this chaotic state of things a
political writer who desires to pro-
mote the interests of his country
may well be excused some degree
of bewilderment, and this editor
has to acknowledge that he is I'M
able to see before him much further
than the length of his nose, which
happily is a largely developed fea-
ture. Only this thing he does see
very clearly, that if the alternative
is offered him of joining the Repub-
lican party just when it has been
driven to confess that the one pro.
gramme which it believes in has
become impracticable, or of getting
on the very loosely constructed raft
on which Butler and Kearney are
navigating the turbid waters, then
sink or swim, he sticks to the Dem.
Ocratic organization, and if it has tC
90 to pieces, he is willing to &C
down with it-and after that the
deluge. But he thinks that the old
ship will hold together at least as
long as either of the two competing
organizations, and if it is careful not
to take any political JOnahs on
board, will yet ride the waters as
an ark of refuge when all else is de-
Yastation and shipwreck.