Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-07-22
lanrastcr fntelllge,lrer.
THURSDAY EVENING. July %, 1890.
Concerning "Tendencies."


The accomplished editor of Hdrper's
Weekly, like his Republican contempOra-
ries of the Nation, the Times, the Spring.
field Republican and the Cincinnati Com-
mercial, is much chagrined and embar-
rassed by the tone of Gen. Garfield's let
ter of acceptance, which, instead of
strengthening, weakens the Republican
platform. In despair of being able to
find anything in the platform of the Re-
publicans to commend their party to the
country in preference to the De
mocracy, and hopeless of discover
ing any weak point in the ar
NOR of our candidate, Mr.. Curtis,
like Secretary Schurz, falls back vaguely
upon the " certain tendencies" of Re
publicanism which entitle it to a fresh
lease of power from the people of the
country. lie says: 4" The vital question
of the campaign is the comparative trust
of the country in the two parties. The
platforms of both are evasive and unsat-
isfactory, but the history, the spirit, the
character and tendency of each are their
credentials to popular confidence or dis
trust" 1t seems to us that this presents
an issue which the Democracy can very
well afford to stand upon. In the long
run of party's administration it must
be judged by the main results reached
through the direct influences of the gov
ernment, and it will fairly he held re-
sponsible for all gross abuses of the pub
lie service arising under it and which it
fails to suppress. While it is true that
in the last twenty years the material
prosperity of the country has been large
ly enhanced, owing to the irresistible ell
ergy of our people. the blessings of Prov
dpnce and the individual development of
our great and varied resources, it is IL
mentally true that within this period
there has been marked decadence of
public virtue, and debaSement of official
honesty.
During the war period. when such
large opportunities offered for spOils and
when national eXigencies could he cited
in justification of Il subversion of the
written law, it was defended that pa
trintic zeal may have only outrun itself,
and that time and the restoration OF
calm reason would cure the ills INTO
which the frenzy of partisan fury
plunged the country. With peace,
however, only came further abuse
of power. worse SubverSiOn of the con-
s:itution and fresh spoliations of the
public treasury. And no better evidence
of the 4" character and tendency " Of the
Republican party in the past fifteen
years can be found than in the fact that,
one 10y one, and each for some good
cause, such leaders in it as Sumner,
Charles Francis Adams, Greeley, Curtin,
IIoadly, Doolittle, Chase, Seward,
Trumbuill and Palmer fell off from it
and quit its councils. The reconstruc-
tiom measures, devised simply to per-
petuate party rule, the plunder of the
treasury by the multitudinuous rings
that grew and fattened under Grant, the
abuse of the civil service and the boss
system that las imposed machine -
rule upon every great state, illustrate ill
fallible tendencies of the Republican PARTY
which no two men have cried out against
more clamOrous y thanSchurz and Curtis,
while they have utterly failed to show
wherein further continuance of a Repub-
lican administration offers any promise
for relief.
Hnrpcr's E'eckly admits that in his
letter of acceptance Garfield has yielded
to the worse element of his party. AS
the extremities of his campaign approach
he will he compelled to make greater
concessions and TO incur larger Obliga-
tiOns. He is weak and irresolute man,
who cannot withstand the demand that
these obligations be fully met, and under
his administration the tendencies which
Republicanism has developed of late
years would have free scope to work
themselves out.