Omaha daily bee., 1881-08-18

80 far this almost universal feeling has
has not taken definite or working
shape, and meantime the active can
didates, who know and fear this great
sub-current of public opinion, are in
dustriously working the state and get
ting legislative candidates instructed,
a practice which is not meritorious in
itself, and prejudicial finally to the
best interests of the party and state.
What, between men chosen for the
legislature because they happen to be
for some certain man for United
States senator, and others chosen be-
cause of their views for or against the
temperance amendment, weare likely,
to have legislatures not chosen for
their capacity for general business.
About next winter, the people will
see that it would have been better to
choose a legislature well qualified for
the duties and re possibilities of gem
eral legislation. But it will be too
late to mend it then.
OF course all this is treason in the
eyes of the factions who would make
two questions the only questions in
politics just now, and who would
drag the whole party at the heels of
some one mans individual and selfish
interests. Doubtless we shall catch
bark for it from the men who are in
one pool or the other for general and
special benefits. But we con-
slider the interests of the party and the
state Of more Importance than those
of any mar or faction. The practice
of instructing candidates for the leg
islature on the question Of United
States senator, we have always OPP
posed. 1t is something no man has
an actual right to ask for, and is an
evidence of weakness on the part of
any man who asks for it, we don't
care who the man is. 1t involves the
party in ouarrels and endangers the
party candidates to chances of defeat.
In the Harlan-A Allison contest a mum
Der of Republican candidates we're
defeated because of this policy of
instruction. We doubt not the same
will be true this year. For human
nature is the same now as then. We
know of no fair excuse which can be
made for any candidate for the United
States senate imperiling the cleo
ton of any party candidate for the
legislature. Opposition Oh sup
port of any applicant for United
States Senator is a personal matter,
and there is no warrant and no excuse
for a party making a personal matter
a party test On any of its members.
H~igh-spirited and hiyh-minded men
always have resented such tests being
placed upon them, and they always
will resent them. Why should it be
made for any man who is strong, or
whose friends claim he-is strong2
There is no danger of our Iowa legis-
lature electing a weak or unfit man to
the United States Senate. A man
who cannot be trusted to do what is
right had better be defeated outright
in a county convention than sent to
the legislature witha public pledge
made in advance of his public oath. !,
All this will start up the big and
little wheels of the big and little ma
chimes. But as the senatorial can
vass is getting so sharp, and is being
prosecuted in the interest of some of
the candidates, with an activity and
industry and system never before
known in Iowa, and which is all the
more to be noted because of the secre-
cy of a great part of the work, it
would seem it were time that some
body said q little something in behalf
of the general interests of the party
and the state. They are two things
not to be lost sight of, even when
compared with any individual man
however great, or any faction however
strong. Let the practice of forcing
instruction of legislative candidates be
continued in Iowa a few years, and
the party will weaken under it to that
same result of doubtful strength to
which the same practice, more than
anything else, has brought the party
in Pennsylvania and New York.
Whenever the party gets on an in
clined plane, where the interests of
any leader or any faction is made
major to the general interests of the
party, and the unity of the party is
held JUNIOR to the passing ambition of
some one man, it is on the road to
small majorities and early decay.