New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-03-18
QUESTION OF UYMASKIYG.


the question of unmasking. by some
of the disputants it was handled gingcriy, as
Though if was hardly the thing to talk about
publicly, or in a tone above a Whisper whlie
others did not hesitate to discuss II broadly
ard with the utmost freedom. Whoever has
taken the pains to read the extracts from
Democratic newspapers, North and South
concerning the Speakership, which have been
collected under the head of Public Opinion
from time to time, must have observed the
contrast between the grievances OF the TWO
sections: the Northern newspapers beng
anxious for the most part to continue the re-
form masquerade the party has been engaged Ill
for the past three or four years, and to Keep
back the Southern wing of the party from in
iudicious disclosures, while the Southern Dem
ocrats. having secured, as they think, their
old position of power in their several
States, are impatient to take the lead
of the whole party and entire control
of the Government. With both SIDES
it is held simply as a question OF time when
the disguise shall be thrown off and the ute
rior purpose be disclosed to turn over the
Government to the men who undertook to
subvert it, and failed. The main question at
present is whether the Southern wing
of the Democracy shall resume its old
control over the party before the party
gets control of the Government, or shall
lie low and leave the Northern wing
ostensibly in power until the greater
event is contaminated. On one side the
more conservative point out the dan
ger to the party in making Southern
ascendancy too conspicuous on the other the
hungry and impatient say 1.-The Democrats
ARE in the majority in House and Senate, and
1.-THE Southern Democrats are in majority in
"the party. We will do as we please"
On the part of the latter we have had
lately some refreshing exhibitions of frankness
which we shall do well not to forget The
extract from Mississippi Democratic news
paper, commented upon in yesterdays TRIB-
UNE, is one of the most Outspoken of
these. The Mississippi editor will no
doubt be ccnsured by his discreeter asso-
ciates for the brutal candor with which
he discloses the desires, and perhaps
the purposes, of the unrepentant and mrecon-
structed Democracy but he is only step or
two in advance of the position openly taken by
better known and more influential Southern
journals, and probably not a step ahead of
what most of them actually think. When this
ranting patriot says "the COnfederacy has at
"last captured the Capitol" and threatens after
1880 to "tear your amendments from the
" Constitution and trample them in the mire,"
to recognize the right of secession, a right
that is not dead but sleeping" and to
" decorate the Capitol with the pictures
Z" of Davis and Lee, of Stuart and all
the glorious leaders of cause that is not
" lost, but living still "-he is guilty simply
of an indiscretiOn. He blurts out what 1t
would have been better for the party 10 keep
secret. 1t is wild talk out of the neck of
whiskey bottle at the crossroads, maybe,
but it is the kind of talk that moves
and pleases the crossroads. And 1t is cross
roads politics that makes Southern Con-
gressmen and United States Senators. The
only difference between the constituents
of this writer and the more conservative
partisans who deprecate such frankness is,
the former labor under the deluSiOn that the
end is accomplished already and there need be
no more assembling. They have secured a
Solid South, and they think there Is nothing
more to be gained by aAectaton of
love for the Union or the empty pretence of
having abandoned the Lost Cause. COnserva-
tive Democrats know that a too early disclo-
sure of the real purposes of the party will be
fatal to its success IN 1880.
There is nothing strange or unusual, of
course, in party's dividing into conservative
and radical factions. Such divisions lnvaria-
bly, follow party success, and accompany the
responsibility for legislation or administra-
L. a. rIyoh foot sc h.
present situation is that there is really
no difference regarding ultimate results
The agreement is universal that the party
now returning, as its leaders hope, to power,
is the very same old Democratic party that
ayowed the doctrine of secession and
acted on it in 1861, and that it re-
turns-if it does return-tO power, with
its beliefs and purposes unchanged
1t is by the consent of the party that the
Southern leaders lately in revolt, control and
direct it and it is by the alliance of the two
wings thai the whole party hopes to govern
the country. The division into radicals and
conservatives in the party is upon no diff
ference of principle or doctrine, but only
upon a matter of policy and question of
time-the time when to throw off all disguise
and appear in the party's true colors. The rad
icals are the Southern crossroads statesmen who
take counsel of their hunger and impotence
the conservatives are those who think it
necessary to keep up the deception little
while longer, or until the Presidency is secured
The end is the same with both-the old party
governing the country, the old Southern wing
governing the party, aud the old ideas con-
trolling both.
THE NEGRO EXODUS
The movement Of negroes from the planta-
tons along the Lower Mississippi to Kansas
I II IL b