The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-18
THIS Senate is certainly not Episcopalian.
1t does not believe in confirmation.
Boston Herald,1
IDOstVH HtIdIu,I
A Hint to the Bourbons.


sob, wad ye tax thought an mend!" said
blithe Bobby Burns to the devil. After con-
ceit SO quaint as that is it too much to wish
that our Southern Bourbons would "tak' a
thought" and learn something without having
it knocked into them by the hard logic of
events?> They are not incapable of progress.
They are far beyond the place where they
stood ten years ago. But their movement is
quite too much like that recorded by the vera
cious Mark Twain in his account of taking
passage on glacier on tho Alps. IG moved,
he was assured, but tho rate seemed to Justify
him in getting off and walking. Year after
year the Bourbons, finding themselves left be-
hind by the march of events. have been COM
PEELED to quicken their pace. One by one
they have given up their stupid delusions.
Why not accept the inevitable at once, instead
of taking it piecemeal, with wry faces and USE
less protests, far in the wake of progress. That
is the Bourbon way, we know, but one would
think it would become monotonous, even to
the most moss-backed among them, after a
while.
Take the question of full, free vote and an
honest count, for example. 1t is about the
only remnant of an issue which the Republi-
cans have saved out of the Southern question.
The people are with them on it, Malone is
wrestling Virginia from the Bourbons, on his
demand for fair play and equal rights. They
know that it must come, just as free speech, a
free press, free schools, diversified indus
tries and all the accompaniments of
new civilization were inevitable when slavery
fell. All these things were settled at Apo
mattox. How much better to have accepted
them little more philosophically! But if this
were too much to expect of human nature at
the South, after an hundred years Of isolation,
the Ignorance, the cruelty and the tyranny of
slavery, it does not seem too much to expect
than the last remains of the incubus of the past
be thrown off with a little more alacrity. The
negroes are a dOcie and easily governed race.
They ask very little of the government under
which they live Their dream of dominion if
they ever cherished it, is past. The worst ex-
which they took part were due to false leaders.
There is no evidence that they wish to repeat
the experiment. They are eager for knowl-
edge. Give them good schools They
share that most conservative of all
influences in a government, the old
becoming small landowners. Taxpayers do
not become plunderers of the public. Liberty
to labor and to enjoy the fruits of their labor
is already theirs. Give them fair show in
other things. About the only fear which the
Bourbons appear to have concerning negro
suffrage is that they will vote the Republican
ticket. Abandon your deal issues, 60 in for
fair play and equal rights, choose questions
upon which the voters will divide according to
their real interests, and deprive the Republi-
cans of their vantage ground. We do not be-
lieve there are three Southern States, if, in
deed, there are any, wherein free suffrage,
fairly expressed and honestly canvassed, would
produce any worse local government than now
exists there provided the voters were divided
upon what may be called natural questions, as
distinguished from the forced issues of the
past. The Bourbons ought to have learned by
this time that they cannot lift themselves and
the Democratic party into power over free
suffrage suppressed or subverted at the South.
Having given up ''the principles for which Lee
and jackson fought" why should they con-
tinue the search for last bitches to die in? If
they will match Malone on his strongest
ground, reputation can be taken care of ON it's
demerits, and the northern Bourbons will be
compelled to look about for anew issue. Can't
they possibly "tak' thought and mend?''