Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-08-12
Garfield's Letter Of Acceptance.

acceptance of General Garfield. It re-
pudiates an unnamed portion of the
Chicago platform on which he was NOM
mated; plainly seeks to make the issue
of the campaign one OF Capitalization
against civil liberty; waves the bloody
shirt behing transparent screen; de-
mands that the Executive Department
of the Government shall elect the Con-
gress of the people; paves the way for
the emigration Of negroes to the States
where their votes are needed; talks of
schools that are beyond the Jurisdiction
of the Federal Government; bids for the
votes of soldiers whose Arrears Of Pen
sions bill found an enemy in him; di-
vides his pleasant words upon the ques-
ton of protective tariff between the
Golden Club, of which Garfield is a
member, and his hope of carrying
Pennsylvania; compliments the founder
of the Democratic party when he speaks
of our splendid domain; denounces Cen
eral Garfield as a hypocrite in mention
ing the Chinese question:; and actually
has the audacity to allude to Civil
service reform while Arthur is at the
tail of the Presidential ticket. This is
the substance, this is the essence, of the
letter of acceptance.
Garfield repudiates q part of the
platform on which he was nominated.
This is singularly impolitic. He leaves
in doubt the portions which he refuses
to indorse. If there is any class of Re-
publicans devoted to any doctrine al
legged to be contained in the Chicago
platform that may be the doctrine which
Garfield says he does not indorse. Cen
eral Garfield has already arrayed against
him a majority of the people of the
United States; he can i'll afford to array
against himself any fraction of his own
party not already opposed to his cleo
ton. He says that he indorses the
platform "on nearly all the subjects of
which it treats This is ''nearly alp
that need be said concerning the wis.,
dom, or sagacity, or popular efficiency
OF the letter of acceptance. Has Car
field the vanity to suppose that he is
stronger than the Republican party of
the United States? Does he think that
he can afford to defy his own party
upon any public question: How can a
man Of Garfeld'S sensitive moral and
intellectual composition accept nOmi-
nation at the hands of a party all of
whose declaration of faith he does not
approve? Is not this worse than Gar
fields melancholy days of Novem-
her," and worse than placing Xerxes,
the Persian, at the head of the armies
of the Greeks? Did he not build wiser
than he knew when he urged upon that
portion of his party which he has not
repudiated the need of schools? Is he
not guilty of insulting the Convention
that placed him upon the platform it
had unanimously adopted?
After repudiating the Republican
platform in part, General Garfield antag-
onizes a doctrine of "State supre-
macy" which, in the sense in which he
speaks of it, no man in this country
maintains, and then announces the doc
trine of centralism, to which an i'm
mense majority of the people of the
United States are opposed. When he
says that ''the right of the Nation to
determine the methods by which its
own legislation shall be created can not
be surrendered he means that the
Executive Department of the Govern
ment, if it happens to be in the hands
of his own patty, shall be permitted to
stalk into all the States and all the Con-
gressional Districts, and all the cities
and all the towns, and by the army and
the Marshals and the Supervisors to
elect a Congress. What greater GEN.
tralism than this? What is more I'M
democratic? What more unrepublican?
This is the doctrine that the Executive
Department OF the Government shall
elect the Legislative Department of the
Government.
General Garfield should have omitted
illusions to the right of electors to have
their vote honestly counted" He
should not have invited attention to his
own record in the matter of stealing
two States about four years ago-a
matter in which he stultified himself
most shamelessly under one oath pro-
claiming one theory as to the Electoral
Commission, and under another oath,
another. In one subtle sentence Cen
eral Garfield encourages negro immi-
grafton. The only Inference is that
negro votes are needed in Northern
States. He pleads the cause of minori-
ties--none hath greater need-but he
can only see the minorities in the South.
He speaks of the sacred obligations
to the soldiers of the Union" This
was doubly unfortunate allusion. One
of the most splendid and distinguished
of these soldiers is General Winfield
Scott Hancock, the opposing candidate
for the Presidency, and if these obliga-
tions are really sacred in the eyes of
the American people Hancock, of
course, will be elected. 1t was also
unfortunate because when the Arrears
extensions bill was pending in Con-
gress Garfield didn't regard those obli-
cations as at all sacred.
In speaking of the tariff, Garfield
aims not to be driven out of the Cob
den Club or out of all hope of carrying
Pennsylvania. He pleads for river and
harbor improvements, and pays a
tribute to the founder of the Demo-
cratic party in so doing. The vast ter
ritory which the Democratic party Sc
cured for these United States receives
handsome mention.
General Garfield is compelled to play
the hypocrite upon the Chinese ques-
ton. He is on record on this issue.
The Republican party is also on record
upon this question by the most solemn
ly formal acts. Garfield's words in this
letter cannot balance his votes in Con-
gress. The words in this letter on this
subject mean next to nothing; but if