Litchfield enquirer., 1879-02-27
How to Bolt.


 treversy between Harpers' Weekly and tht Springfield Republican regarding the duty o the Republican voter in view of the reaction towards Grantism indicated by the recent election of Conkling, Cameron, Chandler, and Logan to the U. s. Senate. The position taken by each is just that which we should naturally expect from the difference of politi- cal position occupied by these exellent papers. The Weekly is a powerful advocate of reform, but it is in no true sense Independent" It deprecates Grant for 1880, but it considers the most objectionable Republican preferable to the least objectionable Democrat The Re- publican, which is not only reformer but an independent in politics, criticises this position very sharply, as follows:
 This democrati-phobia simply perpetuates the degradation of both parties. If the inde- pendent voter or the voter who wants to put his independence to the most effective use as I a political force must stay within the republi- can party and abide it's gross materialism, it's | abuses of patronage, and it's manipulation of l local politics, until some moral revivalist has raised the democratic party to higher level, he will evidently stay there forever and per
  career on the patriotic discrimination with which he has served his country. The repub- lican party may remain in power to the end of time, and grow worse and worse, and still the argument from the badness of the democrats be just as effective as it is to-day. The ques- tion is whether men of independent m1nd ought not to compel different state of things by taking stand, bold and carly outside of the party now plainly undergoing degrading reaction and saying in unmstakable terms that whether the republican or democratic party had their services in 1880 depended clearly on the men and issues it supported, and not on whether possibly something worse could not be found in the other party.
 There is but one way to bring the politician to his senses and that is by bolt. He is very tolerant of the Harper's Weekly style of re- form. He is willing man should talkfeform three hundred and sixty -four days in year provided he can rely on him to vote the straight ticket on election day. Then he simply puts his ballot into the Republican Reformer's hand with the remark, 'Here's your ballot. Idon't suppose you like it. But it's that or Democ- racy!" So the man who has been all the year talking against the ''machine" ends by voting the very ticket the machine has manufactured.
 To this most lame and impotent practical conclusion does most of our talk of political reformation actually arrive The night after an election, the better men of both parties cordially unite in condemning the candidates presented by their respective machines" and the means adopted on both sides to carry the election. The morning before an election these very men are busy quieting down thelr consciences to the point of voting for the very candidates they are so free to condemn before and after that day.
 An old friend who visited us, last week, re- ferred to plan of his suggested years ago, for forming sort of independent party of revision, whose duty it should be to refuse office themselves, but to defeat at the polls all objectionable candidates ground out by the machines" We have often thought of the plan since; and, in these times, when neither of the political machines can claim much merit for itself, but relies chiefly onthe demert of the opposing machine, such party might offer a most wholesome corrective. The chief practi- cal difficulty Tn such case would lie in ma king suitable selection from lists of nominees about equally good-or equally bad. Take the option presented to the voters of this Con- gressional District Tn 1867, for instance! How could committee of revision decide between two such candidates as P. T. Barnum and Wm. H. Barnum?
 Our own view is that, in many such cases as this it is the duty of the eector to abstain from voting altogether. No machine has the right to force the conscientious citizen to vote for either species of Barnum. Let us look for a moment at the probable issues of 1SS0 The first impulse of the Independent Republican is undoubtedly to announce that under no circum- stances will he vote for Gen. Grant. Yet there may be issues and men presented which would make it the duty of the citizen to risk even the chance of Third Term in preference. What is perhaps more probable is the presen- tation of a Democratic candidate and of a Democratic platform which would seem to him about equally bad, on the whole, with Grantism In such case we should hold it to be the manifest duty of the Independent to vote for the presidential candidate of neither party. Such, it would seem to us, would be not only the more correct moral position, but the most effective form of political solting. Then, when the machines undertake to push their soiled ballots into the hands of the decent men of their respective parties, the reply is obvious and unanswerable: "You cannot force us to vote your dirty votes because there are none cleaner in the field The bit of white paper, with none of your names on it, is always clean ballot '