The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1881-03-24
The Explosion.


Philadelphia lawyer-that traditional piece
of humanity to which all knotty questions
are presumed to be submitted for solution
will be able to fathom its mysteries or ex-
pose its possibilities The sudden eruption
in the United States Senate on the occasion
of Senator Hill touching the fuse which
communicated with the train of the Peters
burg Crater. causing an explosion which
scattered states and party plans hither and
yon, has thrown everything into confusion,
which cannot be well understood until
the pieces are gotten together. The vibra-
ton has been felt throughout the country.
The Executive Mansion, the various De-
partments OF Government, and the august
Senate, each has been somewhat shaken up
and new phase of party relations presented
for consideration. Very few, if any one.
not even Gen. Malone himself, could have
foretold the effects of the rash adventure of
the Georgian, when he undertook to sun
cover" the dynamite that was concealed be-
meath the small surface of Virginia Read
juster, as it quietly reposed in the Senate
Chamber. The explosion was terrific and
the CONSERVATION created more demoraliz-
ing than the bursting bomb that sent the
Emperor of all the Russias to his final ac-
sa;.'-s.- --s5sg0aw in it their broken
sceptre and departing power-their retinue
of retainers weeping bitter tears over the
sad havoc of their hopes and expectations
The Republicans discerned the open path
way to the full frution of the iralabors and
hopes; and the Re-adiusters caught the
glimpse of the promised land-the golden
streets and purling brooks and pastures
green, which doomed up before their vision
in the dark days of their pilgrimage
through the broom-sage and persimmon
forests of Virginia. There has never been
experienced such a sudden eruption and
complete transformation, as that which
followed the studied periods of the impet-
uous and reckless Georgian. Even the i'm
purtable Senator himself must have felt
the shock Certainly his party reeled
and groaned under the conclusion, as
the fat things of the Senate slipped from
its grasp, and the denounced and repu-
dated Virginian asserted his mastery over
the situation.
The excitement growing out of this general
arrangement of pre-conceived plans, and
the influence resulting to Gen. Malone
from the bold and defiant attitude he as
sumed in the Senate. in repelling the as
sault OF Senator Hill, and declaring his
purpose to give, by his controlling vote, the
organization of the Senate to the Republi
cans, must be succeeded by calm. 1t is
there where the reimbursement of the party
relations of the Virginia Senator in State
and Nation will be looked for with solicit
tude. Gen. Malone still asserverates that
he is Democrat. but not one of the Bour
bon school. He claims to be better DEM
ocrat than Senator Hill, or any of his kind
Of political obstructionists. In what man.
ner and by what methods the phase of De-
mocracy he represents is to be manifested.
is for the future to develop. Up to this
time he has thrown himself with the Re
publicans, but that was the only possible
way he could have struck blow at the
Bourbon Democracy. His position was
critical-his vote decisive. To have hest
tated or shrank from graphing with the
opportunity, would have given his Demo-
cratic foes the advantage, and thus placed
himself in an attitude of isolation and
helplessness, that would have stripped him
Of all power to punish his enemies or re-
ward his friends. Had he voted with the
Democrats, it would have been to perpet-
fIo Of ubo boI
he entered the Senate, denounced him as
traitor to that party; have excluded all of
his personal and political friends from all re-
cognition in body where his voice was DO
tential. He had to decide between his enc
mics under the political nomenclature he
had avowed, and his friends. nominally.
ranged under hostile party colors. To have
acted with the first would not only have
been surrender in the Senate, but fatal
compromise of his postum in the State -
He would have lost confidence where only
courage and daring would retain and crys-
talize it. To vote with the Republicans he
not only struck deadly blow at Bourbon
ism upon a great national arena, bat in
spired renewed confidence in his leadership
at home, and won to him sympathy and
possible support he could in no other way
have commanded. He accepted the glove
as thrown at his feet by the chosen knight
OF Bourbonism on the Senate floor, and hav-
ing borne himself with intrepid courage and
signal success in the contest thus invited
he is thus strengthened for the more pro-
tracted, detailed and sanguinary conflict in
State affairs.
There is nothing inconsistent in the ac-
ton of Gen. Malone in the United States
Senate with the ideas and policies he had
declared before he took his seat in thai
body. If he could properly claim to be
Democrat in assaulting the strongholds of
Democracy in State affairs, he can with
equal propriety claim to be Democrat ia
turning lance in the same direction on a
national theatre of action. 1t is war upon
Bourbonism wherever he finds it-war up
on the prescription which read him out of
the regular Democratic organization in the
State in 1879, and war upon Bourbonism as |
represented by Barnum 6 Co., in expelling
him from the national organization in 1880. |
II his followers and friends could stand by |
him then, they can with more consistency
do so now, because he is fortified by addi-
tional guards to what he had then, and is
strengthened in his position by national
sympathy that was then averse to him.
What is to be the outcome of this changed
relation of party recognition and sympathy
in Virginia we cannot now tell. Much de-
ponds upon Gen. Malone himself His
present attitude is the result of accident,
and was surprise to himself, no doubt
Whatever may have been in his mind, the
sudden unwilling of his purpose was not in
the programme, but we have no doubt
was, for him. the most fortunate occurrence
of his pol itical experience. After the i'm
mediate effect of the rather artling posi-
ton assumed in the Senate, the calm will
come. The popular mind will be better
then to weigh the facts and their
HOG RING and arrive at a sOher conclus ion