Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1880-05-28
''Amen." I"

A hearty "Amcnr' put in the right
place often encourages the exhorter.
Put in the wrong place, its effect may
be confusing If not disastrous.
Senator Hill, of Georgia, is a we'll
known revivalist He is a revivalist of
old political questions. He believes
with the Democratic-Grant organ in
this city that, inlsmuch us his party
was defeated in the controversy which
Immediately preceded the war, Us it
was defeated in the controversy of the
war itself, rs it was defeated in the re-
construction controversy, as it was de-
feated in the controversy growing out
of the extra session of Congress, as it
has been uniformly defeated whenever
and wherever historic subjects have
been forced into the contest, therefore
proper thing for it TO do is to relight
the dying fires again in 1880 and adj
vance amid the blaze ouce more to the
familiar catastrophe. The only theory
by which he can justify this eXtraordi-
nary proceeding is that his party has
become so accustomed to a beating that
any other sensation would be strange
and disagreeable.
Republicans find no fault with this
logic, but some Democrats who are
tired of the laying process object to it.
Senator Hills latest revival movement
has taken the form of an effort to de-
prive Senator Kellogg of Louisiana of
the seat which was awarded to him
long ago upon the understanding that II
seat should be at the same time award
ed to Senator Butler of South Carolina
Most men would have shrunk from the
task of making martyr of the materi-
al furnished, but Mr.. Hill addressed
himself to the work with boldness and
energy. Some Democrats discouraged
the undertaking, if not because they re-
garded the rc-opcning of an adjudicatcd
contest fora seat Us bad precedent, if
not from conviction that the time to
reject the Kellogg-Butler bargain was
when it was proposed and not after
! they Lad secured their share of its ben
/ eiits, at least because they saw that il
could only result in the fatuous revival
of old and to them fatal questions.
But Mr. Hill persisted. After several
of his colleagues had recalled the of
fensive history of Louisiana politics
and the disclosures made by inveSti
eating committees on both sides, he
went over the ground again himself il
a two days speech, emitting nothing
that could re-animate the old sectional
controversy and array one part of the
country solidly against the other part
and forgetting not even the dull Kel
logg cipher dispatches relating to Off
cial appointments, which, by their con
trast with the far livelier cipher dis
patches considered by the Potter Com
mittee, freshened the popular recollec
tion of those scandalous revelations
Mr.. Hill finished with the fervent eX
preston of hope that the people il
this auspicious year would rise up anC
declare that party which was willing
to seize and hold the Government b,
F.. fraud against the popular will shoult
never afterward be trusted with powe
by that popular will" This etlectiv,
peroration was greeted with a loud AM
hearty Amen ~
Now if this sympathetic and appro
batory ejaculation had been uttered b,
one of the speakers Democratic col
leagues, say Senator Bayard or Senate
Thurman, or by faithful Democrat il
the gallery, it would have given poin
| W inc pCIOIublOns anu bHO npCdh
er. would have acknowledged tn
timely response with grateful JOY
But the fact that ii was reall
uttered by stout Republican, by non
other than Senator Edmunds, of Vel
mont, may well have startled MIR. Hi
with the suggestion of Il popular appl
cation very different from the one in
} tended. The report says that Mr.. Ed
r munds delivered the "Amenn' g with
out taking his eyes off the manuscrip
, he had been studying for an hour"
! 1t is not hard TO imagine what MI
Edmunds had been thinking of durin
this studious hour He had thought {
Mr.. Marbles adventures with tn
"ague smitten Pariah' in Florida, {
: Mr.. Smith Weeds missionary activitie
in South Carolina, of the Cronin negC
| tiations in Oregon, of the sudden cor
solidation of the South after it ha
| pledged itself to equal rights upon tn
: discontinuance of Federal interference,
| of the Mississippi shotgun plan, {
, tissue ballot frauds in South CarOlin;
, of the thieving conspiracy in Maine.
l his thoughts wandered still further h
probably recalled the history of M
: Hill and his party for the last quarter I
} a century and marveled at the etfrOn
3 cry of lecture from such source G
} good political behavior. M Y. EUenti
D,oT Ind \