Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-04-21
Twenty Years Too Late.

Twenty Years Too Late.
Would it not be well for the Demo
cratic Senators who are engaged in the
pursuit of Malone to overhaul their cal
endarsp This is the year of grace 1881
full twenty years beyond their apparen,
reckoning. Prior to 1861 the snap of the
drivers whip was familiar music on the
floor of the Senate and House. 1t pune
tuated the periods. in all political de
bates and had great efficacy in bringing
Northern Democrats to toe the mari
whenever the slave oligarchy had need
of them. But when the slave-driver
went out they took the whip with them
Since then, as they seem not to remem'
ber, there have been great changes. The
whip has now no proper place in debate
1t serves NO purpose. The race of poll.
ticians that covered under it has passed
l-away forever. 1t is of no use to bring
it back or undertake to reinstate it. Its
influence perished with the institution
of which it was the instrument and en-
blem. 1t is too late by at least twenty
years for the bluster and threats with
which they have been and still are con-
Quoting their campaign against Malone
twenty years too late for the Senators
from South Carolina, Georgia and Mis-
sissippi to ride rough-shod over all op-
position to carry their points by domi-
neering insolence or the social ostracism
of opponents.
No one can read the debates in the
Senate of the past few weeks without
being struck by the fact that the Bour-
bon Senators are pursuing tie old game
OF bluster and intimidation in their con-
duct toward Senator Malone. In the
same way they tried to browbeat Doug
las; by the same policy they pursued
Broderick to his death; and whenever
any Northern Democrat asserted his
convictions in opposition to their wish
es or plans, they brought the same tao
tics to bear to either frighten or crush
him or drive him from the field. The
first attack upon Malone by Hill was
senseless, causeless and unprovoked. 1t
started out with gross imputation
upon the integrity and honor of Sena-
tor whose newness to that body should
have protected him from so indecent an
assault, and proceeded upon the assump-
tion, which it was hardly attempted to
conceal, that he had sold his vote and
bartered away his honor at the threshold
of the Senate. The attack was followed
by other Bourbon Senators in the same
strain with personalities of more or
less offensive character, the whole pur-
pose of debate being, so far as they were
concerned, to fix upon the Virginia Sem
ator the stigma of personal dishonor.
Political differences, though dwelt upon
to the extreme of tediousness and with
endless repetions, have been merely in
cidental; the objective point of the
Bourbons has been and is the personal
character of Senator Mahone. Their
only excuse for the policy of obstruction
and delay is based upon the assumption
and upon these charges or insinuations
they have rung all the Changes that par.
liamentarY usage or their own wise dis
cretion would permit.
The crowning pitch of arrogance and
insolence was reached in their refusal
to the Virginia Senator of the ordinary
courtesy of pair Whenever he is ab-
sent he must lose his vote, as no Demo-
cratic Senator will pair with him. 1t is
the first instance we have ever known
of such a refusal. Obviously, this course
is the result of concerted action, and must
have been agreed upon in causus. There
can be but one pretext upon which this
refusal of the most ordinary courtesy is
based, and that is that Senator Malone
is notjan honorable man. So they resort
to social ostracism-an old and favOrite
weapon Of theirs-to put down the Sem
ator who has the audacity to have con-
victions of his own and act upon them.
They flourish the whip, it must be con-
fessed, with all their old skill, and they
seem not to have lost any of their conf
dence in it as a weapon for inspiring
terror. Whatever soaring power it has
they mean to avail themselves of. But
it is too late. Too late by twenty years.
1t does not scare men who have heard
muskrtry. Senator Malone, who, if he
has not the patience of a saint, has cer-
tainly great self-restaint in sitting as he
has through four weeks of as bitter and
calumniOus personal assaults as were
ever made upon public man, so far
from being swerved by them from the
course he has marked out for himself,
seems only the more determined; !; while
the Republican Senators, so far from be-
ing shaken in their purpose, grow more
resolute every day.
Revise your calendars. gentlemen
Bourbons, and change your tactics. The
crack Of the whip scares nobody, and
your social ostracism only works loss
and Inconvenience for yourselves-N.
Y. Tribune.