National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-03-15
The Georgia Bull in the Senatorial
China Shop.

SiIlhd SuOp.
Mrs. Partington said of her erratic son
Isaac that whenever he opened his
mouth he put his foot in it. Every pub
lie body, as we'll as every family, has its
elJdnt terrible. Such visitation has the
Bourbon party in the Senate in the per-
son of the great Boanerges from Georgia
Senator Benjamin Hill. That doughty
champion of the past age rose to his full
height yesterday. Perhaps he had never
had so grand an opportunity to break
things before. He swung his horns as
only roaring bull can do, and paved the
ground as if he had been bedecked with
gayest ribbons at a county fair.
He had mission. The strictly
confidential manner in which General
Malone, of Virginia, had thrashed the
Bourbons of his State in 1879, resulting
inhis election to the United States Senate
in opposition to Senator Withers, the
Bourbon caucus nominee, had prevented
Senator Hill from real knowledge of
the facts. He thought the anticipated
failure of General Malone to consort with
Wade Hampton, Bayard, and Vance in
the Senate ought to be brought to light
in time to scare him from such course.
He scented in the tainted air some op-
position by General Malone to the eau
Gus programme of Chairman Barnum's
friends Only to othink of it! Here was
Senator from the State of Virginia elected
to oppose the Bourbons, and actually in
tent upon standing by the party which
elected him. And so Senator Hill
plunged around, and roared, and gesticu-
lated, and misrepresented, and threat
ened, and mathematical, until he
thought his big looks and bigger voice
had entirely subjugated the new Senator
from Virginia when 10! to his feet arose
the latter, a fragile and delicate little
figure, less than a hundred pounds in
weight; but when he spoke there was
such an outpouring of derision, denial,
scorn, sarcasm, Indignation, and grand
selfassertion that he electrified the vast
assemblage, astonished the Senate, and
established instantly his strong individ-
uality of character before the country.
He is a free and Independent Democrat,
bitterly hostile to the criminal methods
by which the bogus Bourbon Democracy
maintain themselves in power in most of
the Southern States. He gave the fiat de-
NAL to Senator Hills untruthful state
ment thathe was chosen by Democratic
Legislature. The Legislature which elected
him was Readjuster Legislature. He
did not receive the vote of a man who
was not elected in opposition to the
Bourbon or regular Democratic
nominee for the Legislature, and the
Bourbons in the Legislature nominated
and voted for Withers for the Senate.
General Malone was elected in opposi-
ton to the Bourbons, and would not be
justified in cooperating with them in
the Senate. His scathing of Hill will
long be remembered, and the subject of
it writhed visibly under his lash. He is
plucky, honest, and independent Sena-
tor, and his course is the beginning of
the end of Bourbon rule in the South, as
it is the guarantee to Northern Republi-
cans that in that section are new friends
who must be respected and trusted.
The country and the South owe great
debt of gratitude to Senator Hill, of
Georgia, for he gave General Malone q
fine opportunity, which he improved ad-
mirably, to puncture the gaseonading
fraud of Bourbonism-falsely called De-
mocracy-of which his antagonist is par
excellence the exponent. When next
the Bourbons send out their Goliah of
Georgia let them pray that he encounter
not the David of Virginia.