Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-10-27
TIE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENT.

monstrating his hypothesis that he brought
his horse down to a diet of one straw
day. At that point, however, the unfor-
tunate quadruped died, and so the question
remained an open one. The Democratic
party has been brought down to almost as
low point as this, and the indications are
that next Tuesday it will 60 the way of
the horse in the story. Its managers have
discarded principle after principle all
through the campaign until they have
nothing left. It is impossible to put the
finger upon one cardinal principle with
which they entered the canvass which has
not been abandoned. Next week the party
will casta largevote, for all this, butassured-
ly that vote viii not represent any intelli-
genttheory of government. The organization
is held together today by habit more than
ANYTHING else. There are hundreds of
thousands of men who viii vote the Demo
cratic ticket for no other or better reason
than that they have been accustomed to
NOL6 III. ~ tiS
professional politicians and ofiice-seekers,
will vote it through selfish motives. The
class which will do SO because it believes
in the principles of the party is, however,
extinct, and for the best of all reasons,
because the party no longer has any prin-
ciples to believe in. At the South the
~ 4;ol- ~ Ill oJo,o he 1-otad With
distinct and well-defined purpose. There
it is hoped and believed that the success
of the Democracy means Southern ascend
ancy means the notification of the war
legislation means the creation of oppor
tunities for the payment of Southern
claims means the overthrow of all the
laws which have been framed to give and
secure freedom and protection to the negro.
The South knows what it wants. Its
creed is at once comprehensive and simple.
1t wants the abrogation of the constitu
tional amendments, the RELOCATION of the
negro to serfhood, and the re-establish-
ment of the State Rights doctrine. The
Northern Democracy is playing its old abb
iect part OF servant and toadeater to the
South. 1t has no principles of its own to
contend for. On the contrary all the prin-
ciples it set out with have been wrested
away from it. The entire Western DEM
ocracy has just had to eat dirt because the |
Eastern managers have found the tariff
question dangerous. After the campaign
has been made all through the West on the
square issue of Free Trade UersuS Protec-
ton, General Hancock is made to repudi- |
ate the utterances and positions of his
Western supporters fatty, and to tell them
coolly that " it is all folly to talk about |
I" Free Trade" What must the Western |
Democrats think of their party? What
must they think of their own manhood |
when they allow themselves to be stulti-
fed in this gross and aagrant way, and
still follow submlssively at the tail of the
Solid South? Men must indeed be fond of |
a dead friend when they will take the
corpse fer bed-felIow, yet this is what |,
half the Democrats are doing to-day.
Even their vague demand for a ''change"
has been Invested of all meaning by the
course of their leaders, for it is no longer !
posaiolo Tor them to point out what kind of
change they propose. No Democrat who
knows what his party has been doing in
this campaign can undertake to say what
manner OF change it advocates. In fact its
only idea of a change is that of a leap in
the dark. Nor is this the most absurd
feature OF its position. While bowling for
a change it is striving desperately to make
it appear that it will not change anything
It began by asserting that change was
needed. 1t has ended by insisting that it
can be trusted to maintain the status quo.
Its traditional fiscal doctrine is Free Trade,
but the moment it found that this would
involve change it declared itself in favor
of Protection. 1t asserts that the public
credit has nothing to fear from it, because
it has abandoned all its former financial
theories. In 1868 it required that the pub
lie debt should be paid with rredeemable
paper. Now it says it is for honest money,
but at the same time it makes alliance with
the Greenbackers, and claims their sue,
cesses as its own. 1t is the same with
all other issues. It has so lied and
shufed about them that it is impos-
sible to form any idea as to where
the party stands, and the only
safe conclusion is that it is utterly
false and disengenuous and unworthy of
confidence. As the end of the campaign
approaches it is seen to be staggering about
ike a prize-fghter in the "groggy" stage,
with its eyes closed Driven from one po-
sition to another, leaving behind it track
OF exploded lies and baffied frauds, it reels
onward toward the final conflict retaining
nothing but its obstinacy and ilnpudence.
And it is making its last fight as a national
organization under the present conditions.
For though party may stand one great
election after it has abandoned all its prin-
ciples, and may by the aid OF custom and
previous discipline contrive to cast heavy
vote on that occasion, it is impossible that
i. should be capable OF surviving defeat
in these circumstances. The elements
which compose it must be rearranged. 1t
must be organized anew under wiser lead
ers. 1t must discard the obsolete heresies
it has tried to carry so long and uselessly,
and it must once and for all surrender
every hope of undoing the results of the
rebellion, or restoring the regime which
the sword of the North shattered twenty
years ago.
THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK.
All through the country the business