Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1881-09-01
New Democratic Issues.

1t will puzzle the platform makers in
the next convention that represents ''the
great national Democratic party of the
Union to construct one that will repre-
sent all the new issues that have recently
been Matched in the different States. So
many new-fangled notions have been
adopted into the old creed that Democ-
racy now looks like the spotted horse in
the circus, which the boys admire so
much. The Bourbon party has long re-
semhled the trick-mule, which every
cand date who has tried it has failed to
ride INTO power since the days when
poor old Buchanan allowed the Southern
traitors to proceed with their dlabolical
work under the spurious plea that u
State could not be coerced.
Nearly all the old issues that Demoe-
racy was formerly so proud of have be en-
abandoned, and new and strange theo-
ries-strange to the unsophisticated
Bourbon mind-arc finding adhereris III
the different States. In Ohio, for ex-
ample, the party is running a renegade
Republican on a high-tarit platform,
and is playing hide and seek with the
Prohibitionists. In New York such
recognized friends of the dear people as
Tilden, Schell, Belmont and Company
will raise the cry Of civil-service reform
leaders advise the abandonment Of the
old party entirely, and the Inauguration
of new one on mi-Republican
basis. Down in Mississippi, where the
Democratic practice was to quietly re-
move opposing candidates for office
with the use of the shot gun, ne
cording to the Yazoo plan, they
now proclaim equal rights to all. with.
out respect to race, color or previous
condition. The party leaders III South
Carolina declare that, as a matter of OK
pediency, they consider it wise to quit
killing negroes simply because they are
Republicans, which is almost as undem-
ocratic as allowinga negro to marry your
daughter. In North Carolina the good
old whisky-lovinS party has recently
been disappearing III the stolen gar
ments of total abstinence. In Virginia
they have devised the new way of pay
ing the State debt by first cheating the
creditor ont OF q portion of his just dues
by the scaling-down process, and fore
ing him to accept 3-per-cent. bond,
and then practically repudiating the
whole debt, principal and interest, by
refusing to levy a tax. Happily, here in
Illinois that party is too dead to have
any opinions worth mentioning, and Car
ter H. Harrison is Is only prophet, with
the editors of the Quincy Herald and
the Bloomington Bulletin as its chief
organs.
Ait old traditions OF the party seem
to have been abandoned, and all the old
battle-cries hushed to silence. In the
different States those in command are
trying to invent new issues that will
win popular support, but are no sooner
tried than given up. Better turn the
old thing over To the possession of Mr.
Iilden, clad in its Dolly Warden cos
tune, and let him manage it for his own
benefit. He is the only man in it that
has shown any capacity for leadership
intirm and paralytic though he may be,
and is the only person who seems ac-
quainted with its eubterranean methods
aud possibilities. Modern Democracy
is like an undeveloped silver mine it
requires large amount of ready capital
to work it successfully, and the man
with the we'll filled "bar'l is the only
person who ought to risk an inves hnent
Chicago Journal.