Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-12-16
Hunting for an Issue.

now engaged in beating the air for some
sort of political issue that shall offer
the party an excuse for being, have our
sympathy. We have rarely seen them
so earnest and thoughtful. With all the
machinery and the organization of a
great political party; absolute control In
many of the States. and powerful NIL
nOrity in the remainder, they lack a
cause and an aim upon which they can
agree among themselves or hope to
draw strength from their opponents.
The late canvass was fatal to the last
surviving shams and shadows of priil-
ciples upon which they depended for ce-
herence. Nothing is left them but tie
hunger for Office, and that it Is not
enough to make a party Formidable,
though it undoubtedly is very effective
in holding a desperate minority togeth-
er. They must have something to be
l!eve in, or pretend to believe in, if they
would gain votes and achieve success.
and this they are blindly cropping for.
What shall be the next Slibboleth?
Free Trade or Civil Service Reform?
The Free Trade issue seems impractica-
BILE, since they put it in their platform
at Cincinnati, and were first frightened
into d surrender and then beaten on 1t.
Whe ther they were beaten on the plat
form or the reputation OF it is of no
consequence. Is is obvious enough that
it is no doctrine to make hopeful fight
on. And as to Civil Service Reform, the
only proposition they offer on that sub
ject would weaken, instead of strength
ening them, by depriving the party at
once of the active support of the office
seekers upon whom it chiefly relies.
Here is a splendid organization bank
rupt of belief or or a cause, coherlng
only in its traditions, its name, and its
appetite, with just votes enough to be
tantalized with its nearness to the pub
lie crib and a consciousness that it can
get no nei r4r unless it can find some
thing to hang out in theway OF princl-
pie, doctrine, or creed that will attract
reinforcements. In the Southern States
they have very definite principles; but it
happens, unfortunately, that the avowal
of them is a source of strength only
where they do not need it, while it weak
ems them where they most need rein
forcemeDt.. At the North they have ex-
perimented in all directions, and always
without success, for the reason that the
party here is a combination of men for
selfish aims and not for a political pur-
pose. They act and work together not
because they think and believe alike
upon any current question of politics,
but because they have common inter-
est in securing spoils to be divided. BY
this we do not mean that every person
who votes the Democratic ticket does so
from the hope of Office for himself; for
many voters are Democrats by birth,
training, and habit, and vote the tickt
asking no questions; many are mlsguld-
ed; and some honestly believe that
change of the party in power would be
beneficial. But the party leaders and
managers, almost without exception,
have selfish aims; and solely for their
furtherance, and not for any political
purpose, keep up the organization. The
fusion in Maine illustrated perfectly
this state of things. We have constant
illustration of it in this city, where
mans Democracy is never tested by
what he believe in, but simply what
leader he follows. Here are factions
within the party almost without end,
but they differ only as to division
of the offices; not as to any doctrine or
policy.
And now for National purposes they
are hunting an issue; more correctly,
looking for mask. 1t is a strange spec
tacle. Ordinarily parties grow out of
some great emergency, or crystalize
SOluO SpCClllC VI uOuhtSC
purpose. Thus the Republican party
sprang up and came into power because
the men who founded it had positive
belief upon the question of the eXten-
sion of slavery and a well-detined pur-
pose to resist it. The party grew up
around the idea; it did not organize and
go hunting for something to believe in
and try to accomplish. But here is the
great Democratic party, boasting its age
and traditions, that for twenty years has
been hunting about for something it
could profitably pretend to believe in.
1t has tried its hand at everything that
offered, from declaring the Ution inca
pable of self-preservation down to its
adoption of the doctrines of soft money
and imitation, and has been successfully
driven from every position it has taken.
Of all the pretences it has put forward
during the past twenty years, not one
remains. But here still is the party,
strong in discipline, organization, and
machinery, and still searching with
lighted candles for some reason for Its
being, other than its Unsuitable hunger
for Office. 1t has used up all the availa-
BILE issues. Hadn't it better disperse p
N. Y. Tribune.
1t all depends upon how you view it
whether teachers life seems pleasant
or otherwise. Josh Billings said:
,Io f,ir- fo,