Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-02-15
Webster and Plaisted.
BOSTON DENOUNCES THE GREAT Elk
FOUNDER AS COMMUNIST!
utica Herald, January 2Sth. ]

U Llca deIalu, january LotuJ
The good people of New England are
laughing over joke upon sundry Re-
publican papers of Boston, which is
broad enough to be enjoyed all over the
Union. 1t appears that when Governor
Plaisted was inaugurated he delivered
speech which the whole rank and file
of the Radical organs bounced upon as
incendiary and socialistic. There were,
it is true, certain financial theories ad-
vanced, which Democrats, no less than
Republicans, condemn, in the Govern
or's speech. But the criticism did not
stop with these. The loudest abuse was
reserved for this paragraph in Govern
or Plaisted's address -
"Unive rsal suffrage and great landed
estates cannot long exist together, for
either the owners of the estates must re-
strict the right of suffrage, or that right
of suffrage will in the end divide their
estates"
The Boston Advertiser declared that
eff these words were put into good
French they would read like extracts
from the speeches of Blanqui, Roche
fort. and Louise Michel Communism
and agrarianism more open and undis-
guised was never uttered" The Boston
Journal followed in the same line, say
lug VI tuc pdSShSc. IL COuld1uS UAC
same sentiments which inspired the
with cruelty and assassination. Moth
ing which we could say would so plain
ly indicate the shameless demagOgism
of Governor Plaisted as does this pas
sage" These papers set the tunes for
the rural organs in Massachusetts, just
as the Times and Tribune do for the
country Republican press in New York,
and this terrible passage was quoted
from one end of the State to the other
rs the solemn portent of Names i'm
pending doom.
There is not as much lamentation
over Governor Plaisted's agrarian fren-
w as there was. The Portland argus
pricked the bubble by reprinting the
following extract from the memorable
Plymouth Rock speech of Daniel Web
ster, delivered on the 22d of December,
1920:
1.-THE freest government, if it could
exist, would not be long acceptable if
the tendency of the laws were to create
q rapid accumulation of property in few
hands, and to render the great mass of
the population dependentand penniless.
In such case the popular power would
be likely to break in upon the rights of
perty to limit and control the exercise
of popular power. Universal suffrage,
for example, could not long exist in q
community where there was great in
equality of property. The holders of
estates would be obliged, in such case,
in some way to restrain the right of
suffrage, or else such right of suffrage
would before long divide the proper
ty.n
It will be observed that Governor
Plaisted, who is scholar of wide at
tainments. took the meat of Webster's
words, and put it in few terse, strong
lines. The ideas are identical. If Har
ris w. Plaisted is ga shameless dema-
gogue," "a Communist" and "agra-
rian," then Daniel Webster deserved
these epithets as well. Confronted by
this proposition, the Boston organs have
shut up like the most peremptory-
springed of Connecticut jack knives.
There is a mOurnful moral in all this,
the bitter taste of which remains long
after the laugh has died away. Twenty
years rule by corporations and mOnOp-
olies has led the country far down from
the plane on which the fathers stood
The grand words of Thomas Jefferson
fall now on impatient ears. The memo
~ OF Jackson has faded into shadowy
impression of an absolute fogy. Even
Webster, Federalist and Wing that he
was, is "a Communist" in the eyes of
Administration organs in 1881! How
much further shall we have drifted
from the ancient moorings four years
hence?