Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1880-07-29

Price s. a Year in ADVANCE
Wilmington, Thursday, July 29, 1880
The Identity of Interests Between
Wilmington and the Hest of the
state.
The Morning Neps has an excellent
article on the identity of interests between
the people of this city and those of the
State outside the city, and attributes the
former seeming hostility between the two
to political differences. We think that
this is true, hut do not think it was due TO
natural political differences So far
as this feeling Influenced trade it carried
Delaware trade past our doors to the
equally Republican city OF Philadelphia,
and it has continued to exert some in
huence of the same sort since Wilmington
became usually Democratic city. 1t
could not have been political difference
alone, then, that alienated down State
people from Delaware's chief city at least |
so far as the feeling of the people of the |
rural districts was concerned. The mere
fact that for many years Wilmington was
Republican city, and that the majority of
its business men were Republicans, will
not account for the disposition of Demo-
Gratis down the State to 60 past it to Phila-
delphia.
So far as this political difference has
operated as cause of alienation between
the city and country people we must look
to its influence on our own people, here in
Wilmington, for the immediate cause of
this unfortunate feeling OF hostility now
gradually subsiding. 1t was some years
ago the fashion for influential Republi-
cans in this city to speak with
bitter hostility and contempt Of
the people down the State
and of the State itself. The principal
paper of the party here seemed to detest
everything distinctively Delawarean, and
even some of our native Republicans
seemed to think that whatever was Della
warean was, therefore, BAG. We have
heard such people express wish that the
Pennsylvania line had been run straight to
the river, thus putting Wilmington in our
great neighboring State, while it has been
entirely too much the habit of the many
excellent and enterprising citizens Chester
county has contributed to Whining
ton to regard this city as the only decent
and well governed part of Delaware and
to sheer at every Delaware characteristic
manifested in it, Our business men have
also carried their politics into their BUSH
ness, and have either avowediy or I'M
avowedly allowed political considerations
to influence their advertising, not merely
at home, but in the papers
down the State. 1t has been here, and
not down the State, that the intolerance
which made political differences cause
of business and social separation has been
shown, and the identity of interests
between the whole people of the State
without regard to municipal lines has
come to be recognized just in proportion
to the subsistence of this spirit in Will
mington.
The JOURNAL has always regarded the
cultivation OF friendly feeling and the
restoration of natural relations between
the people of this city and those of the
rural districts as one of the things mosl
worthy its own efforts, and it has the
comfortable assurance that it has accom-
plished something in this direction. /
has given almost as much attention t.
State affairs as to those of tn,
city in its news columns, anC
in its editorial columns it has Away
given the recognition it deserves to tn
decent and economical administration o
our State affairs by the party in power.
has defended the State on all occasion
from assaults, from without and within, an
has, we believe, done more than any othe
single agency, or in fact more than al
other agencies combined, to set on
abused and slandered little Stat
properly before the people of tn
country. 1t has in doing this, encour
tered, right here at home, the very spir
of political intolerance we are now discu
sing as the cause of the old-time ill teelin
between Wilmington and the people dow
the State, and ii has never hesitated I
meet it promptly and teach it at the yer
beginning that there is at least one di
tinctively Delawarean thing-Delawsre
leading misrepresentation does not pr
pose to quietly submit to hostility al
abuse, but will hit back with all the pow
it can muster at whomsoeyer malicious
assaults 1t or attempts to intimidate
because of differences of political opiniol
We are glad, however, to find anoth
Wilmington paper working to promo
unity of feeling between the people of til
State as whole, and are especially gll
that it is Republican paper which
doing this. There naturally must
differences OF opinion among our peop
concerning national and state issues, b
there is no reason why such differenc
should cause, in the minds of those
one side, feeling Of hostili
almost amounting to detestation iowa
the State of their birth or adoption al
the first step toward any possibility
success for the Republican party in Del
ware will be the eradication of this fe,
ing from the utteranees of its leaders al
newspapers. No state or people was ev
abused into the support of
political party, and no Delaware
worthy the name fails to reese
the habitual SANDER of t
State and its institutions by papers pr
Tossing to speak for the Republican par
of Delaware and doing all in their pow
to give the State bad name abroad a
thus deter those inclined from coming
reside in it. Willie we do not pretend
desire the success of the NehS in seouri
the change it desires in the control of q
State government, we do wish
success in bringing about su
feeling of friendliness a
unity of interests between Wilmingt
and the remainder of Delaware as v
divest the rivalry of the two parties
half its bitterness, and permit an effort
effect some needed constitutional a
other changes in our State gcvernme
without causing all engaged in IL