Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-02-01
How the South Treats a Northern
Democrat Who is not a Dough
face.

from the New Orleans Times, Jan. "a.
Bragg. OF Wisconsin, seems to fill a want
long felt. What the country has needed,
/ long and sadly, is an artistic standard by
which to measure idiots, and Bragg comes
forw ard with the article Ii would be inter
esting TO get on the inside of person like
Bragg, or to do him as the Printing Commit
tee wanted to do Green-to wit, turn him
wrong side out and peruse his inwards. OF
course, that is not practicable. The world
can simply gaze upon Bragg with respectful
amazement, and request him to give us some
reasonable excuse for his existence. Bragg,
however. is a Northern democrat--a typical
Northern democrat. lie belongs to that small
but cheeky gang of which the late Mr.. Hol-
man and the early Mr.. Samuel Randall are
representatives. He is one OF the 80 or 40
Northern democrats who maintain that they
are the party, and that the 100 or more South
ern democrats have no rights except those of
laboring for them and taking back seat at the
least He expounds that large and lovely
state smanshp according TO which the 30 or 40
Northern democrats are taught to consider
themselves entitled to all the money in the fed
eral treasury, while the 100 or more Southern
democrats are entitled to nothing. Bragg
is no doubt one of the patriots who howled
for war and the old flag, and encouraged his
neighbors to go South and slay rebels, and
invested in substitutes. We think we know
the sort of person Bragg is, and somewhere
in the vacant spaces of the thing he calls his
minds there floats a nebulous recognition of
the same nature. If Bragg hadn't felt him
self To be an ass he wouldn't have prayed so
loud If he hadn't understood that nothing
he said would have the smallest influence
upon anv intelligent being he would never
L. l.. I.nL sol tl,ut T,..I
ish roar. But Bragg enjoys the license
usually extended to fools, and he knows it
and makes the most of it.
Now that we have Bragg, however; now
that he has bulged in upon us and filled the
want long felt for an idot-gauge, let us utilize
Bragg. Ii is mistake to imagine that any in
sect no matter how minute orhow pestiferous,
| is without its vocation in the economy of ma
tuer 1t is similarly mistake to imagine that
Bragg is without his usefulness in the scheme
of our political fortunes. We introduce
Bragg to the South as a specimen of the per-
sonnet to which we have been giving our adj
herence and fidelity as an expression of the
sentiment. more or less yelled as the case
may be- animating that Northern element to
which we have given our adherence and allied
our fortunes. Because Bragg's ears are too
large and rampant to be concealed by the
ueHOcTatle uoHlltio, HotHliiS is pToNcu eNCtpt
that Bragg's associates have their ears under
better control. The same feelings that Bragg
in his folly bleats boldly out are animating
the breasts and directing the actions of
Braggs crowd And if any one doubts this,
let him look back to the day when Bragg's
crowd got in majority In Congress, and show
us, from that day to this what justice or con-
sideration or good fellowship they have shown
the South. What we wanted with Bragg was
to have him as a species of frontispiecc for
the Northern democracy-yery much as the
cigar-sellcr keeps a ridiculous effigy of an In
dian at his door to notify the passing citizen.
We thought that with Braggs wooden head
and withdrawing ears projecting through the
disguise under which the Northern democracy
moves, our people in the South who have
been befooled and deluded so long might at
last come to a realizing sense of the situation,
and govern themselves accordingly.