Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-07-29

it is more than folly to expect the
people to be governed solely, or even
mainly, by their ideas of the personal
fitness Of the candidates, in choosing
President. They should of course
insist that the candidates be honest
and capable, but upon the question of
capabillty, they must of necessity be,
and are, more or less in the dark.
What can the people know of the
personal qualifications of Gen. Han
cock for the Presidency? He is alb
solutely untried in all the qualifca-
tons which a successful Chief Magis-
trate must possess. And no one knew
this better than the men who placed
him in nomination. He was not nom
mated because he was suspected of
being statesmen, but solely with a
view to success. He was nominated
because he had no civil record. and
because the party whose candidate he
is were afraid to risk the campaign
under the lead Of candidate who has
a civil record which has given him
prominence in It's councils No man
who has been prominently identified
with the principles and policy Of the
Democratic party for the last fifteen
years could hope to lead that party
TO success in the pending election, and
therefore a man was selected without
civil record, with whom it was hoped
to induce the people to forget the
record and real policy of the party,
and by reason of such forgetfulness
enable it to grasp the reins of power.
Gen. Hancock, with all his respecta-
bility as a soldier, and Gen. Garfield,
with all his learning, experience, and
fitness for the Presidency, are respec-
lively the representatives of the par
ties which placed them in nomination.
Either, if elected, will carry out the
policy of his party and the contest
in which the American people are
about entering, is not to decide
whether Gen. Garfield, or Gen. Han
cock shall be President, but simply
and only whether the Republican
party, and the enlightened and patrio-
tic policy which has characterized it
from its organization, shall continue
in control of the Executive Depart
ment of the Government, or whether
the Democratic party, so-called. with
its record of failures, corruptions and
crimes, and its policy of hating sub
serviency to the enemies of popular
government, shall once more, by pop
ular verdict, possess and control the
Executive arm. This is the cues ton,
plain and simple, for the people to
pass upon, and the only one which
the vote for President in November
will decide.
Let the people candidly judge be-
tween these parties. The Democrats
were driven from power in 1860, be-
cause they had become the mere abject
tools of the Slave power. That party
in its earlier days was the party of
the people, and the advocate of the
interests of free labor. Long before
1860, however, the Slave interest
united, took complete possession of
the Democratic party, and by its
agency sought to reyolutionize our
whole theory of government. 1t
openly and defantly proclaimed that
capital should own and control labor
that the laborer should be slave; and
that the foundation whereon our fathers
had builded, that all men were by ma
ture equals, and should have an equal
chance in the race OF life, was falla-
cious and false. This new doctrine
controlled the whole South, and thus
controlled the Democratic party Of the
country, driving the old Wing par
ty out of existence. Democrats of
the North, sufficient in number to
control the party organization, were
ready and willing to do the bidding of
the Southern dictators; and when in
1860 the people aroused and hurled
that party from power, it sought by
open war to dismember the Union, and
by force of arms to erect upon its
ruins a government resting upon the
idea that the rich were made to govern
the poor, and that labor should be
enslaved The issue of that struggle,
and all the accompanying circum-
stances are wildly fresh, or ought to
be, in the public recollection. The
lives and treasure which the country
gave for its salvation, are almost be-
yond estimate. And where was this
Democratic party, now clamoring for
power, during the dark years of that
struggle? Individual Democrats,