The Portland daily press., 1880-11-06
The Wandering Jew of Politics.

ot every person claiming TO represent our Journal
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The Wandering Jew of Politics.
An old legend, which has furnished bound
less material for song and story and for the
pencil and brush of great and small artists,
records that as Jesus was painfully bearing
his cross toward Calvary, he begged perini
sion to rest for moment on the steps of
shop by the wayside. The shop keeper
smote him in the face and told him to go on;
whereupon Jesus said sGo thou on and
rest not till l come again." and from that
day even till the second coming of Christ,
the wicked Jew must travel up and down
upon the earth never resting and not per-
mitted to die, though he constantly seeks
death amid the greatest dangers and calami-
ties. The doom is frightful and the fable
has made great impression upon the imag-
ihation of men of all times and nations.
The Democratic Party is the Wandering
Jew of politics. In the time of the Nations
great peril, in the very agony of its struggle
for existence, the Democrats smote it in
the face and bade it go to destruction
Again when the Nations honor and good
faith was brought in question respecting it's
pecuniary obligations, the Democrats again
smote it in the face and bade it break its
word and be dishonored. For these great
sins it seems that the boon of death is to be
withheld from the Democratic Party. 1t is to
be permitted to have here and there par
tial success, enough to furnish encourage
ment for continued existence, but whose on
ly practical effect is to emehasize and make
specially distressing its defeat at all impor-
tant points. The Democrats are always
just about to win, and their hopes and anti
cipations rise high only to be blasted and
thrown down. 1t is a hard fate, but the sins
for which it is punishment we're very helm
GUS.
If the Democrats had only been per-
mitted to reflect calmly ON their situa-
ton at the close of the war and to
capdidly observe the plain teaching
of history that no party which opposed
successful war ever thrived afterward, they
might perhaps have escaped some part of
the long years of defeat and chagrin,
through which they have passed, by break
up of their organization and readjustment
of the fragments under some new name and
guise, which possibly might have given them
a chance of success, if they had also recog-
nized the fact that the Nation, with big
s'N'' was established by the war and that Free
Trade is, for the present century at least,
barren abstraction so far as America is con-
cerned. But for their sins their eyes were
closed and they instigated the South TO be
solid and to practically Lullify emancipa-
ton, they trifed with the faith and credit
of the Nation and they declared against the
American system of protection TO home in
dustry. They have adopted every device
and entered upon every alliance which
seemed to promise success. They have
played fast and loose with what they call
their principles until even those who
sympathize with any of their dogmas, have
no faith in the sincerity of Democratic ad-
hesion to them.
This political Wandering jew is becoming
curious aggregation of elements. To it
go by natural selection all the vicious, igno
rant and criminal classes in our cities and
large villages; to it belong the night riders
and bar room swaggerers and shooters of
the South and West; to it go from the Re
publican party all the soreheads, disap-
pointed office seekers and, men who have
lost caste and position with us;
to it go few young men of good
character and attainments who have the
misfortune of being born into the party
without the independence and strength of
mind to break the fetters of habit AID tra-
dition. This last element is really most
unfortunate addition, for it renders the con-
tinued existence of the party possible by
furnishing respectable veneering to the
gnarled and rotten fabric beneath, which
would otherwise fall to pieces of its in
herent badness. 1t is of course menacing
to the country to have all the dangerous,
ignorant and vicious elements organized
into oe mass, but it is most unfortunate
for the decent young men who thus furnish
vitality at their own expense to this dilapi-
dated old Wandering Jew. There are men
now past middle life who have never voted
on the successful side in national election
and who never will, so long as they ally
themselves with The evil Democratic party.
Nor have they the consolation of sacrificing
themselves for principles sake, for the
Democrats long since abandoned all just
claim to principle and have adopted every
shift and pretence and have randered to
every popular delusion which seemed to
promise success.
Whether the boon of death will ever be
granted to the Democratic party, or it must
always go on approaching near to success
but never attaining it, is a curious problem.
Perhaps when the old men who controlled
the party from 1856 to 1865 have died, the
party will die too, particularly if it should
happen to occur to the young and middle
aged respectable men that they are offering
themselves up in very silly fashion. But
as things stand now, the party seems
doomed by gloomy and inscrutable fate to
wander on and on without even the limita-
ton of time promised to the original Wan
dering Jews