The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1881-03-31
Wise,s Pronunciamento.

lished in the Wing of the 26th, ostensibly adj
dressed to Mr.. N. B. Meade in response
to letter from that gentleman. The mat
ter of correspondence between these two
prominent Re-adjusters related to the Guber-
material canvass OF this year. Mr.. Meade
wrote to know whether Capt. Wise would
object to the use Of his name in connection
with the Re-adjuster nomination for Governor.
Mr.. Wise announces that he does not object
that if nominated he will accept and make
the best canvass he can. He further says that
effort on his part to procure it.
This is all very well. There are other
statements and sentiments in the paper of
Capt. Wise from which we cannot dissent
The principles and policies he declares,as they
affect State and Nation, are what we have
beer laboring to inculcate and establish for
years-have gone through fiery ordeal to
maintain They are the principles and poll
ces OF the Republican party-had their bap-
tism in that party, are primarily essential in
its creed, and to adopt them is to endorse that
party and accept it as the great political force
in whose keeping the destinies of the coun-
try rightfully belong.
Singularly enough Capt. Wise, while &C
cepting as the true principles and policies for
the State and country the ideas and doctrines
of the Republican party, proceeds to denounce,
Islander and villify those who have stood in
the front in proclaiming them. Fresh from a
conflict to defeat them, he suddenly rushes to
the advance to seize and uplift the standard
which he had but recently directed his best
efforts to trail ahd dishonor and mathematics
those who stood by it in the fercest of the
fight, enduring prescription, opprobium and
ostracism in maintaining it against all of its
assailants, whether masquerading under the
colors of the Liberal Re-adjusters or Bourbon
Funders. Capt. Wise attests the zeal of his
conversion in tae manner and style OF all new
converts, and relieves his pent up ardor for the
new cause by the following TRADE:
"The great bulk of the republican vote here
hitherto has been negroes. A large proportion
of the white Republicans vote in Virginia
has been made up of men who were not Re-
publicans from principle, but as matter of
| trade and barter; men without character and
| influence, apostates for the price of their
apostacy; men utterly worthless in the COM
munity, who would starYe without office, who
became Republicans for office, and whose ten
| ure Of office not only added no strength to
| their party, but BROUGHT into disrepute and
| forced respectable men away from it."
Mark the men he thus arraigns and de-
nounces are those who have battled for Repub-
lican principles under the most adverse cir
cumstances, when the combined strength of
the Conservative party, embracing Re-adjus-
tiers and Funders, had to be confronted. They
followed the flag and kept step to the music of
| the Union, under Grant against Greeley, under
Hughes against Kemper under Hayes against
Tilden, under Garfield against Hancock, en-
during the taunts, the sneers, the venom and
persecution of the party to which Capt Wise
| acknowledged allegiance. and in whose behalf
he .battled. They stand to-day where they
stood in those fierce and unequal contests
true to the Republican party, to Republican
principles and to their convictions. Many of
them-most of them are the peers of Capt
Wise in everything that is manly. They have
tested their sincerity as with fire. Some of
them have walked deliberately into the jaws
OF social and political hell and there stood
fighting Democratic malignants on their
| chosen ground in defence of their convictions
and the Republican party. Their blood is as
blue, their name as fair, their honor as sacred
as any Capt. Wise dare lay claim to- They
have not found it necessary either, to vind-
cate their convictions, to SANDER and villify
any class of Virginia citizens. They have
fearlessly stood to what they believed to be
right and maintained it by legitimate argu-
ments and fair and courteous disputation-
This wholesale charge of mercenary motive
too, does not come appropriately from prom
I nent me mber of a party, whose following is
swarming about Washington city, to catch the
crumbs from the table they would have broken
and destroyed had their voice and votes been
potential There are more offlce-seekers from
the Re-adjuster faction asking for favors from
Republican administration which they Ia
bored to defeat, than there has ever oeen
under any administration from Virginia Re-
publicans, who have in season and out OF
season, prayed all the enginery of Democratic
prescription in defence of Republican princi-
Piles.
Before Capt. Wise goes before the people of
Virginia to ask them to elevate him to the
Executive Chair of the State we would sug
gest to him the propriety of modifying his
gratuitous ISLANDERS. There was no provoca-
ton to call them out. There is no Justice in
their use, nor will there be profit result
ing from their deliberate utterance. If Of
fiee-holding be such crime and such badge
OF infamy, a rigid regime of reform should be
introduced into his own faction, for if mani
tested desire is gratifed, there will be but few
of them who will escape the ignominy
Personally we have the kIndest feelings for
Capt Wise, and regret that he should have
allowed a chronic temper to denounce some
thing to lead him into the unjust and totally
uncalled for utterances to which we have re-
ferred. Without intending an unkindness we
may publish his letter hereafter in full, as a
matter of political record, not of the harsh
language he employs against Republicans,
but because he really says well some very good
things and proclaims political progressive
ness, which ifconsistently adhered to will land
him square into the very company he has so
UNNECESSARILY denounced. He may protest
his independence" as vociferously as he
pleases, but it will argue the absence of that
frankness which has directed those he de-
nounces in their political affiliations, and
which will haye, probably in a more prop-
tious season, to be declared by him, if he ad-
heres steadfastly to the ideas he has asserted
in the paper under consideration.
=
No Extra Session.
After due reflection President Garfield |
has decided not to call an extra session of
Congress. Taking a financial view of the
question he bases his action on the belief
still no certainty whether a 8 per cent |
or 81 per cent interest bearing bill would be |