The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-10-23
THE "POOR MAN" In POLITICS.
from the Iowa State Register. ]

abuse just now is in exact opposition to
that urged by the Democrats through
many long years. During the war,
through the reconstruction period, and
until quite recently, the favorite Demo
cratic charge was that the Republican
party was flying in the face of God and
religion by seeking to raise ignorant
and degraded negroes to the level of
white men. It was insisted that the ne
groes were an inferior race and must
remain so; that they were intended by
God to be the servants and dependents
of the superior race. Every Democrat
was indignant at the thought that his
SISTER should marry Niger" and he
fought fercely against the effort to place
a class of poor but humble men on
level with himself. But the Republican
party went bravely forward and finally
gained the victory. It succeeded at
last in gaining exact political equality
before the law for all men, however poor
they might be, or OF what race. The
Democratic party had to succumb to
the inevitable and submit with the best
grace it could.
With all this so fresh in mind, it is
certainly amusing to hear the Demo
cratic charges in vogue just now. Is
anything heard now about the unholy
attempt to place inferior men on level
with their superiors? Is any Democrat
alarmed at an attempt by the Republi-
cans to place him on an equal plane
with men of degraded race? Is any
thing heard of the frantic inquiry, "Do
you want your sister to marry mig
ger?" Alas, all these old war-cries have
died away. No doubt many Democrats
hold the same opinions they did for
merly about superior and inferior races,
but since the great Republican victory
in this struggle they have made no open
and avowed contest against the equali-
ty of all men before the law and at the
ballot-box.
The Republican party the enemy of
the "poor mani" Why, it is the glory
of that party that it endured every
thing and periled everything in behalf
of the poorest of "poor men, men so
poor that they could not claim their
own wives or children. It was for
these poorest of Gods poor that the
Republican party struggled. It's great
heart had long throbbed in human SYM
pathy for the poor, robbed slave of the
South, and, at last, on hundred BATHS
fields, it fought the cause of these "poor
men," The great mass of the Demo-
cratic party demanded the right to go
en- robbing these "poor men" of their
labor, OF their own flesh and blood and
of every right God has given to man.
The great mass of the Democratic
party rallied in solid array and fought
for the right to go on enslaving and
robbing these "poor men,"
Just now our Democratic friends as
sure us that the Republican party IS
ruled in the interest of an aristocratic
class whose pleasure it is to grind
down and Cypress the "poor man ;" that
it represents "bloated bondholders
and every form of wealth and aristocra-
cy, and is the determined and persistent
enemy of the poor man." Formerly
the Democratic party was alarmed at
the attempt to place Triggers" on an
equality with "bloated bondholders" in
open defiance of the laws of God.
Gould the very. impudence of Democ-
racy go farther than this?
When not bold and brutal the Demo,
cratic party is always impudent. With
brazen efrontery it charges the Repub-
hcan party with expressing the poor
man" when it's own history is long
and desperate struggle against every
right of the "poor man." When in the
infancy of the republic it was proposed
to abolish the slave trade on the high
seas and deny the slave-trader the right
to go into foreign ports and speculate
in human beings, under the protection
of our flag, the Democratic party OBJ
jected. And, with the brutal impudence
that has always characterized that party,
it objected on the ground that it would
be ungodly to thus deprive the poor
heather of an opportunity to come to
this country, where they could hear the
gospel in all it's purity! Next the Dem
oO1"oAo Pal ~ iouSuo 12dluSt Guo ApOll-
ton of imprisonment for debt. 1t was
the Democrats who demanded the right
to thrust into prison any "poor man"
who was SO poor that he could not pay
his debts, and they insisted that a
change in this Democratic custom would
impair the obligation of contracts. The
later history of the Democratic party is
still fresh in the mind. Every one can
remember how it fought against the eff
fort to iberate the slaves, and with
equal bitterness against the attempt to
make these poor men" the equals Of
Democrats at the polls.
Always inconsistent and always
wrong is the record of the Democratic
party. But if there is one thing in
which the Democratic party has been
consistent it has been opposition to the
rights of poor men. In every way it
has been the champion of aristocratic
elements in this country. A few i'm
perial chieftains always rule in the
Democratic party, and wherever that