Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-26

principle, and encourage their opposites,
in politics. They deaden the sensibilities
of voters, and teach them to think lightly
of fraud and subterfuge and qualification,
and to count partisan loyalty as above
truth and honor and integrity. By instill-
ing these ideas they lower the standard of
the party, force its control more and more
into bad hands, disgust the best elements
of it more profoundly all the time, and at
length so corrupt the organization that it
falls an easy prey to the first serious as
saults from without. The crow eating
evil has thus the seeds of its own destruc-
ton within it, but it produces many inju-
rious consequences to all concerned before
it reaches the point of reaction.
It is not probable that this debasing and
enslaving custom will be allowed to sur
vive much longer. 1t seems probable that
if the worst had happened in the present
campaign, there would have been so for.
midable secession from the ranks of
party journalism and partisan submission
as to overthrow the schemes of the
journalism become better understood, and
as popular intelligence expands, the abject
party journal will possess less influence,
and the incentives to this kind of
moral debauchery will so diminish that
comparatively few will think the end
worth the sacrifice. OF course such a
change would presuppose the elevation of
party itself to higher plane, and this, too,
is among the necessities of the future
For while there must always be parties in
a free State, and while the majority of
citizens can never hope to utilize their
power save through party machinery, it
by no means follows that parties must be
controlled by their baser elements, or that
they must be Indifferent to moral require
ments. 1t is in fact the advocates
of crow-eating who support and main
tain party corruption, for we may
rest assured that the bold out
RACES upon honesty and principle which
are so frequently attempted by politicians
would never be thought of but for that
pernicious theory and practice which SUBJ
jects all issues to the same mechanical
determination, and compels men to abandon
&baIr caft1ad % ba
mand of faction. Independence in politics
is necessary to purity. The traditions of
party which insist upon unreasoning sub
servlence ON all occasions are fatal to the
preservation of integrity in any organization.
Such rules and doctrines have always been
used by the worst elements for the enslave-
ment of the best, and for the perpetuation
of evil and mischievous policies. In jour-
nalism more than any other profession the
usefulness depends upon the honesty.
Journals which are believed to be MERGE
nary, which have been suspected of chang
ing their opinions for money, which are
known to follow party dictates blindly and
unquestioningly, must lose ground more
and more as public intelligence grows. As
in democracy everything depends ulti-
mately upon the ripeness of the pop
ular Judgment, and as despite all
hindrances the tendency of Amer
lean progress is steadily towards
the expansion and Strengthening of this
indispensable national attribute, we hold
that the drift must be away from partisan
and insincere journalism, and in the direc-
ton of that which rests upon conviction,
whether that conviction be well or i'll
grounded. The world has not outlived,
and will never outlive, the influence of
earnestness in all human affairs, and 1T is
not mistaken in holding that even the
wrong. when earnestly and persistently
maintained, is more respectable than the
right when insincerely and coldly defended.
Reality of belief and purpose, commences
of conviction, honesty of course, sincerity
of utterance, and adhesion to the general
rather than the particular good, are and
will be the requirements of influential po-
litical journalism in the future The prac-
tice of eating crow on large scale will be
presently abandoned. and those only will
continue to believe in its efficacy OF its de-
feasibility who have already ceased to be
guided by principle, or who have projects
to urge which can only be carried by the
resolute reputation of all honest and self
respecting views,