Litchfield enquirer., 1881-09-01
Tendencies.

Succttueu I1caccusnciu; uc is Icsolutloii1iuss the land tenure of Ireland, and threatens the land tenure of England. In France the pre- dominance of Gambetta is opposed only be- cause he is no longer thought radical enough. In Germany even the iron hand of Biscarck can barely control her democrats. Italy, Spain, Russia, Denmark, all show radical progress, or radical tendencies. Here it is very different. Every observant person must have noticed the conservative tendencies of our later American politics. After seventy seventy years of almost unbroken success, American radicalism seems at last on the waDe. The Nineteenth Century began with the decisive victory of the old Radicalsm of Jefferson over the old Conservatism of Ham, ilton. After twenty-four years of uninter. rupted defeat. and after finding itself beaten in New England, the very citadel of its strength, Federalism finally gave up the ghost. Then split in the old Democratic party gave rise to the Whig party, whose ablest leaders were old Democrats but which inherited from Federalism many of it's con servative tendencies. But the history of the Whig party is in inc main one of defeat Its national bank was destroyed; it's protective tariff was repealed and Mir. Clay lived to see the whole frame work of his political policy laid low. It was only when a radical par- ty-the most radical that has ever appeared in American politics-sprang into being, that the Democratic party finally met it's match.
 The rise of Republication, it's final political success. it's defeat of Democracy in arms. and it's tremendously radical policy of recoustruc. tion through negro suffrage, have at last ar- oused reaction which has paralyzed its vigor and changed its character in spite of it's uniform career of success. Grant came to power in 1868 as a radical, Hayes on the other hand, was conservative. Throughout his four years term, his Southern, as we'll as his financial policy, was of decidedly con- servative character. Garfield has indicated a similar tendency. What is there really left, then, of the radicalism which burst into a flame when pro.slavery conservat ism carried the Kansas. Nebraska bill, and which finally forced emancipation and negro suffrage on the unwilling Southern white Half the old Alb, olitionists supported Greeley against Grant in 1872. The leading Republicans of to day are ID longer the men of radical views who, like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, gave the Republican party of the early and mid dle period its fred" tinge, as Frenchman would term it. There is undoubtedly a strong determination to demand fair play for the ue- gro as against the bull .dozer, but even this is no longer radical but rather a conservative tendency.
 lf American politics is to keep true to the progressive tendencies of its former history it is time that some new form of radicalism should spring up among us. The Repub- lican party is no longer a radical party :, Its financial policy is that of the old Whig rather than that of the old Democrat. Mum. bering as it does great majority of the veal. thy men of the country in it's ranks, it natur. ally favors the great corporations in thelr fight for the control of legislatures and congresses {: it naturally looks with little disfavor on the practices by which wealthy men carry elec- tions; and it scarcely appreciates the neces- sity Of civil service reform. and other meas. ures of the kind. The Democratic party seems in still worse plight for taking the role of the radical and the reformer. In the first place the intense conservatism of the last forty years of it's long political existence-lts pro slavery career before the war, and it's Bourbon persistencyiin wrong doing since the war-have driven out nearly all the radical blood that once circulated SO freely in it's veins. In the foul practices that marked the Tweed regime in New York and the Barnum regime in Connecticut we see a corruption that is apparently incapable of reform. Nor does it show the vigor in combating the en. croachments of the great corporations which was characteristic of the Democracy of Jack. sons time. ,e ....r.
 In short. the more closely we examine the history and character of existing political par ties, the more evident it becomes that neither can lead the way to those reforms of which the country is in such great need. It is a comparatively easy matter to discern the signs Of an approaching financial crisis, but no one can predict the exact time when the crash will come. So it is easy to see the necessity Of new parties long before the political crash comes; but no man can predict the year or even the ten years within which the genesis of new party may be expected. We can only wait with patience, and do everything we can to bring about SO desirable a result.