The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-10-12
HEDGING AGAINST DEFEAT.

HEDGING AGAINST
1t requires no very close reading between
the lines of the dispatches lately received to
perceive that the republicans see in advance
an overwhelming defeat IN Indiana, and in
Ohio such a reduction of their old-time ma
~jorlties as will be equivalent, i'll the moral eff
feet exerted upon the nation, to a defeat. On
no other hypothesis can the tenor of those
dispatches be explained. The press reports.
as we have had ample opportunity to learn by
experience, are strongly tinged with republi-
canism. Their everv utterance. except the
bald description of events, is carefully weigh
ed and considered with reference to the effect
1t way he expected to exert on the party
and this not only in respect to occurrences
which have already taken place, but equally
as much so in the case of those still to come.
Accordingly, when republican managers fore
see inevitable defeat in Indiana, the wire Is
brought into requlsition in advance and we
are RECALLED with stories Of colonization from
Kentucky, and Of the hundreds of thousands
of dollars which have been provided as a cor
iuppioh Aohu W puy uP iii1CiliSciiI CltiLcAS vi
Indiana, at so much a head, like sheep in the
market. On this subject the worthy republic
can chronicler does not do his work by halves
for we are seriously informed, in an extract
from the Tribune, that "British gold" with
all its maletic influences, is aiding our Ameri-
can raised corruption fund in the unholy
work Of destroying the political morality of
Hoosierdom entire. All this can have but
one meaning, viz. that the republicans, fore
seeing defeat, are taking time by the fore
lock by furnishing in advance what they
would like to have us accept as a rational ex-
PLANTATION of the defeat in order that there
may be left them ever so small a shred of a
desperately forlorn hope tor November. The
intelligent reader may be inclined to ques-
ton this explanation, for to him it seems
clear that with Indiana lost to The republic
cans in October, and Ohio carried by a re-
November may be accepted as confidently as
if Hancock were already elected and inaugu-
rated. In this opinion we entirely coincide
but downing neil will grasp at straws, and
it has been in grasping at one straw after
another that the republicans have been vast
ing their energies ever since Hancock's nomi-
nation. Their first straw was the hope that
the enthusiasm which greeted the hero of
Gettysburg's nomination would speedily sub
side; but we are now within less than thirty
days of the November election and Hancock
has even a tirmer hold Oh the peoples respect
onI cnrfdapoa tI,r 1a I,i ,n tI,,t l,,,,
day when the convention at Cincinnati de-
clared him the nominee of the great national
democratic party for til highest Office in the
gift of the nation. Next was their attempt to
injure his record by their enquiries respecting
the Shermal-Ilancock correspondence in the
uncertain days of IS, and by the doubts they
protested to feel with respect to the position
he would take in the matter of southern
claims. But the letter to Sherman was given
to the world, and recently, in his letter to
Cook, General Hancock has treated tbs sub
ject of southern claims in a manner aud in
language only too decisive and o%utspoken to
suit his republican critics. With each Of
these letters there was such a lowering of re-
publican hopes and a corresponding improve
ment in democratic prospects that it is quite
safe to say the experiment OF eliciting from
Hancock a letter Oh any subject whatever
will not be again attempted. AS their last
hope and standby the radicals professed to
see in democratic differences in New York a
chance of their carrying the Empire State,
but hope died within them when they wit
| messed the great democratic demonstration
OIL theeveniug of the 23d ult. In that dem
onstration they not only found that all
swings of the democracy were participating
in the utmost harmony, but they also found
hundreds o. old line republicans marching in
the procession, and thousands of well-to-do
citizens who had never previously taken any
part whatever III politics, but who, seeing in
the present campaign an issue transcending
mere partisanship, turned out voluntarily TO
| contribute their quota towards the uprising
of the people. Since that demonstration the
republicans have abandoned all pretense of
carrying New York. Their recent utteranc. 5
amount almost to an equal confession in the
Ease of Indiana and Ohio, and tu-day the
party stands in the desperate condition OF the
Insolvent business man who, looking ahead,
can tel! to ali hour when ruin is to oyertake
him, but still hopes against hope that some
thing will happen TO avert the threatened ca
! lamity.