New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-10
ARECORD TO BE PROUD or.

Now, as heretofore, the Republican party
relies fol public confidence mainly upon great
services actually rendered. 1t has given the
country prosperity and progress never before
witnessed. No other claim to popular support
can be greater. 1t has overcome obstacles
deemed insuperable. Difficulties and dangers
which, to many at home as well as to nearly all
abroad, seemed certain to overwlelm the Re
public, have been met and vanquished by the
Republican party. 1t has earned this vast
advantage over every competitor; 1t does not
need to rely upon its promises alone, but can
point to its deeds as its best vlndlcatlOn
Twenty years it has marched on unfatering
Almost all the world believed that dsuniOn was
inevitable. The Republican party resisted and
conquered. Even close to the end of the war
the Democratic party sOiemny resolved, as
observers elsewhere began to fear, that the war
was failure but the Republican party per-
sisted until rebellion was crushed. The prob
lem Of reconstruction seemed insOluble to many,
and there were wise men who predicted fifty
wears of anarchy and guerilla warfare; but the
Republican party found means to force a con-
0uered and sullen South to take an active
mart in the Government which 1t had tried to
destroy. Never before, since Governments
were instituted among men, had nation man
aged TO restoIe the value of an irredeemable
paper currency But the Republican party I'M
dertook that task also, and finished 1t. The
cOllapse of initiation caused tremendous losses,
and the struggle for resumption caused inn
mense sacrifices. Never before had any party,
in n free Government, dared to propose such
struggles and sacrifices without submitting to
Temporary defeat. Yet the Republican party
led the nation onward to financial honor and
prosperity and never lost the power to carry
out its measures.
This wonder working party, for which no
task has vet proved TOO difficult, has the right TO
point to the present condition of the country as
proof Of its fidelity, courage, and wisdom.
When dangers have thickened, the party has
dared TO do right and to trust the people, and
they have never failed TO meet trust with trust
Where would the country be, politically, tinan-
cially, or industrially, If diSunion had pre-
vailed 1t is for the Democrats to say.
Where would it have been if Democratic re-
sistance to reconstruction had been permitted
to gOw into a guerilla warfare What would
have been the condition of business now if the
| Democrats, led by Mr. Pendleton, had been
| able to pay the bonds In ereenbacks, Us they
proposed to DO in 1872 What would now be
| the state of the public credit, if the sOlemnly-
promised resumption had been defeated by
| Democratic success in 1867 Every capitalist
and every workingman in the country knows
| what grand prosperity has resulted from the re-
| sumption of specie payments eighteen months
ago: is there a single one who wishes that
| Democratic hostility to resumption had pre-
vailed at the last electiOn2 How many of our
mills and factories, how many of our furnaces
and mines would now be i'll operation, if the
| blind hostility of Democrats to tho present
| form of tariff had succeeded in causing sud-
den, radical end sweeping change, three years
| ago2 What the country Is to-day the Repub-
lican party has made 1t. What sane man Is
| sorry that the Republican party has conquered
for twenty years, and 50 has had the power TO
make the country what it is I
Virtually, that is the question for 1880; is
the country sorry that it has attained the Won
derful prosperity which it enjoysi Mistakes
are to be found on every hand, as in all human
Governments and errors in the record of every
year. But the country knows that In "a. the
greater matters 1t owes Its present condition to