Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1881-09-07
The Wane of BOurbOnisum.
You've DEMOCRATS OF rHE SourH Refusing
TO THINK BACKWARD.

Men may insist that Bourbonism is what it
was, solid and firm, but these very men are,
if honest in venturing such a declaration,
sitting on cakes of ice, unconsc scious both of
their progress along the stream and of the
decomposition of the cakes. man may as
well seek river, skates in hand in July to
skim over its service as to announce that
Bourbonism offers any good resource longer
or justifcs any further trust. Travellers re-
late that in lands where flourished ancient
civilizations they have encountered walls
which seemed solid To the eye, yet crumbled
under the heel, and even the hand, as they
mounted. The Bourbon fathers of the South
were in many cases, great and exemplary
builders, but the stone they quarried block
upon block has for some time past
been crumbling back to its original
sand. not because war shattered muth
of its great wall, but because
the quarry has yielded an imperfect
stone whose usefulness is spent. In Alaba-
ma last year Democrats by the thousand an
nounced themselves as Greenbackers, not be-
cause they cared jot for new issues of pa
per, but because they chose to dissociate
themselves from the old Democracy, and
were constrained to assume the designation
of Gr.enbacker or the more distastefnl one
of Republican. Thereupon the Democrats
upon the truants, and stung them into per-
manent and more angry enmity. In Mssip-
pi, Gen. Chalmers has declared himself rs a
Greenback True, he foresees a possibility
of dsquieted tenure in Congress, and wants
to commend himself to its few Greenback
members; but the only important suggestion
derived from his change of base is that he
recognizes at last the formidable Greenback
element which has detached itself from the
old Bourbon Democracy of his State, and is
willing to cooperate with Republicans in
common hostility. 1t cannot be supposed
that shrewd politician would forsake a
stronger for a weaker side Gov. Stone went
down as a candidate before the late Missis-
sippi convention, but with vote that denoted
he was was nearly as strong there as Lowry.
Yet Stone and Lamar, whose fate is thought
to be portended by the formers defeat, are
distinct representatives of conservatism as
opposed to the Bourbonism of Lowry and
Barksdale, the latter of whom expects to
supplant Lamar. The Bourbons will achieve
triumph, but there will be dry-rot at its
core. They will not placate the storm of
malcontents, but simply drive them to
ground where they may league themselves
with Republicans for future combats. Al
though Mrs. Partington had the broom on
her side, she could not keep the rising water
hammers as two opposing parties is
very apt to weld them to-
gether as perilously strong organization.
In North Carolina the democratic leaders re-
Gently espoused the question of prohibition
as an issue, and felt sure of forbidding the
sale of Intoxicating liquors. But the rank
and file were irreverent enough to think for
themselves, and leave the leaders in the
lurch. In Virginia the question of the
State credit is not the cardinal question.
There is a determined democratic remon-
STRANGE against Bourbon methods, and be-
cause of its success to 50 considerable de-
gree as to seat Malone in the Senate and
wrest many of the offices of the Common
wealth from the old martinets, a logical re-
suit has ensued, as it will in every other
Southern State under similar circumstances,
in a breakup as well in the republican ranks.
The significance of these events lies in the
obvious restiveness of the old democrat un
der the Bourbon yoke, and in the fiat refusal
of the young democrat who was mere lad
when the war closed to think backward
NeU Orleans Times