New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-06-12
FyTRd SESSION RESULTS.


in the fitness of their control of the branch
of Congress which holds the purse-strlngs OF
the Nation decided at the close of the last
session to withhold appropriations and force
the calling together, in extra session, OF new
Congress, in which their party had fuller
power and freer scope, have had three months
of their experiment; and IN view OF
an adjournment presently, can post their
books and count their profits. The OBJ
iect of this called session was to make
political capital for the Democratic party.
We doubt if any Democrat in either
branch of Congress will have the hardlhood
10 look his neighbOr in the face and deny IL.
II was to strengthen the party for 1850.
There entered largely Of course into the ar
guments that moved them to this determine
tion the consideration that the Senate was
about to fall into their hands. and with 1t
lot of offices and patronage, for which. ex-
pectant Democrats were too impatient to walt
until December No doubt every Democratic
Senator and Representative felt, III greater or
less degree, the pressure from this source.
From q partisan point OF view 1t may
have been wise to hasten on the
division of these spOils before the crowd OF
claimants had time to increase in numbers
and in clamOr. II on this score il is defended,
we shall not dispute the wisdom OF 1t. The
postponement would only have put little
further off the disgrace which the Democratic
leaders in the Senate brought upon them
selves and their party by the tricks and
subterfuges and lying eyasions, through
which they wriggled and twisted, up to
the accomplishment of their purpose and
the transfer and division OF the sDolls.
There was the strongest probability
that the rush of Office seekers and their hun
ger would increase with each day of waiting,
and not the slightest prospect that the wisdom
and discretion of the Senators whom they i'm
putuned would be in the least enlarged.
few individuals had to be enriched with
places, and the party to be weakened by the
scramble and the character of the appointees,
whenever it was done; and so it was well
enough perhaps to force the extra session and
have it over. The Democratic party has
great confidence in the running qualities OF
the statute of limitations.
Aside from the division of the Senate spells
was the consideration that the party must
be in some way definitely and positively
strengthened for 1880. Finance was
borse-or a mule-that would throw them.
Civil Service Reform was an issue already
squeezed dry. The men whom they had
fooled before with professions on that head,
had seen too much Of Democratic practice,
in their management of so much of the public
service as they could reach. The Fraud
cry died in the throat of the bowler at the
whisper "Ciphers" by his opponent. Moth
ing was left but to make the most of
the old appeal of the South against
Federal interference, which had been
SO effective upon the sympathies of the North
as to cause eventually the expulsion Of the
carpet-baggers and the silcncIng and suppress
sion of the black vote. This for the banners
and the war cry. For the more practical and
effective business of the campaign of 1880,
there must be steps taken TO open the ballot
boxes in the large cities at the North and the
bulldozed sections Of the South to the free
frauds, with which it was possible. as had
been shown in New-York in 1868 and South
Carolina in 1873 to make a Democratic ma
iority out of any condition of the ballots.
These were the points fixed upon and opposition
TO Federal interference was to be the Tallying
cry. The jurors test-oath was to suffer
from a Democratic Congress-with grand
flourish over it as Il remnant of Radical tyr
anny-another repeal, in addition to the one
it had already had at the hands of Repub-
licans. The condition of the South under mil
itary rule was to be the pretext for Offering
an amendment to the Army Appropriation
bill, 80 sharply antagOnizing the idea of Ma
tional supremacy as to put the Administra-
ton and the Republican party, in opposing it,
in the apparent position of insisting upon the
offensive exercise of a power which there was
not the remotest prospect of their using. And
the third point, the most practical, and most
Characteristic of the party, was to repeal the
laws which set up safeguards against frauds
upon the ballot-box, and leave the way open
and clear for Democracy to have free course
and be gloritied.
There was high laundering in the index of
this great enterprise. Senator Thurman-for-
cetful man-dd some of it. Senator Beck
"impromptu and ELUSIVE" man-did some.
Representative Blackburn" seeking glory on
"the sllirmish line did a good deal and
there were voluntary vIdettes," like Samuel
Cox and others, chirruping around on the
edges, thinking they helped on the racket.
Have these persons, who so lately were rag
ing round Oh the skiTmish line, taken an ac
count of stock or computed the advantages
they have gained by this great piece of states
manship Not a single move have they made
that has not uncovered and exposed them
not sally that has not proved disastrous;
not a feint even that has not doubled them
I'D in disorder. There has been much empty
ing of rhetoric by them; but with only the
effect of bringing out the most damaging
facts of history against them. Their tactics
have been so loose and disonted that they
have been in a constant quarrel; and their
strategy so feeble and silly that they had to
abolish councils of war and ALLURE the caucus.