The Portland daily press., 1880-09-04
Worcester Spy.l
A Change.

Democratic speakers and newspapers, in
their appeal to voters, are strangely deficient
In arguments. Denunciations of the Republl-
can party are plenty enough, and Of abuse of
Republican candidates and other prominent
men of the party there is no lack, but reasons
why the Democratic party rather than the Re-
publican should be intrusted with the govern
ment of the country for the year to come, there
Is scarcely any attempt to produce. Speakers
and writers have overlooked the need of
them, or have found themselves unequal to
the task of inventing any. The nearest ap-
proach to an argument is the assertion so con.
stantly met with that the country demands
change because the republican party has been
tn power long enough. That assertion is fool
ish in itself, as well as false, for the country,
whether it wants change or not which is to
be proved. does not want it for any such rea-
sons. No one wants change for the sake of
change. A change from bad to better is al
wavs desirable, but he who proposes it must
prove two things that what exists is bad, or
at least not so good as the people have right
to expect, and that what.he proposes is better.
The Republican party has done great things;
1t has certainly no need to be ashamed of its
early history. In its later years it has given to
the country an administration which its fair
opponents admit is honest and patriotic, as
free from scandals, as unselfsh, as any in our
history. From such an administration as this
change does not seem to be the thing most
wanted. Is Democratic administration sure
to be better? Shall we Judge by the last DEM
ocratic national administration? Who is will
ing to exchange Hayes for Buchanan? Shall
We judge by comparing the character of men
now in office with that of those who would
probably succeed them under Democratic
president? Is the country impatient to see
Evarts, Sherman, Schurz and Devens sue
ceeded by Wallace, Randall, Blackburn ard
Hampton?
Mr.. English of Indiana knows that the couu-
try wants change, because the Republican
party has been in power twenty years, and is
necessarily corrupt He knows, indeed, and
has said so whenever he had the opportunity,
that it was corrupt in the beginning. He does
not find so much in it now to condemn as he
did more than twenty years ago. when he de-
nounced it with extreme bitterness as utterly
depraved, reasonable and loathsome. Mr..
Butler, too, wants change. He admits that
the Republican party was once respectable, but
1t has fallen away from its pristine virtue, and
now deserves only to be destroyed 1t is an
interesting fact in this connection that the Re-
publican party became respectable, in Mr.. But
ler's opinion, Just when it began to provide for
Mr.. Butler, and its virtue went out of it when
1t was definitely ascertained that it would
provide for him no longer. Democratic cam
didates in general want change It is use
less and would be untrue to accuse them of
insincerity. They do exceedingly want a
change, and they are pretty numerous, but there
are not SO many of them that they can fairly
call themselves "the people" In saying that
the people want a change, they mistake a
small part for the whole.
Why should the people want change? We
nave now government whose executive
branch is Republican. The Republicans then
may be said to control the appointments to Of
fice and the executive policy. But ConSress is
Democratic in both branches. The Democrat
tc party controls the confirmation of the presi-
dents appointments, it controls the legislation,
the appropriation of money, the imposition of
taxes and duties. 1t is the Democratic party
which for five years past has determined how
and how that money should be obtained. The
Democratic party has also through its majori-
ties in Congress had unlimited opportunity to
explore and investigate, and it has used its op-
portunity freely. The books are open, there is
no obstacle to its inquiries. If there was eth
or extravagance or corruption to be found, the
investigating committees ought to have found
1t, but they do not pretend to have found eth
or. Mr.. Davis of West Virginia has suspic-
ion that there is something wrong about the
Treasury books, but after spending years in in
quiry, he has discovered nothing except what
he was told by the Secretary of the Treas
ury that he would find, viz: That certain
changes had been made in the methods of
book keeping few years ago. The best testi-
mony to the fidelity and honesty of Republican
officials is the silence, SO far as specific charges
are concerned, of their enemies, who with all
the means OF exposure at their command and
every possible motive for it, would surely pub
lish their delinquencies if there were any. The
country has no need of change for any such
reason. Its government is not corrupt, 1t is not
loose in exacting responsibility for the proper
use of the public moneys. At no period in our
history was the government less liable to criti-
cism in these respects