The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-10-09

who brides himself on holding aloOf from
political struggles, and letting the world of
ruled and rulers way along as it will, is
something more than an insufferable prig,
and something less than bad citizen. He
cannot plume himself on being no office
seeker, because he has no place or
title IN the social state. His home
should be apart from humanity, and
with whose aspirations he refuses to have
ANYTHING in common and whose organic
existence he recognizes only by the pay
ment of taxes under compulsion. Leaving
out of the lists this mere animal, the great
body of men are either politicians for the
sake of the spoils. or politicians for the
sake of the future of good government
and the state. 1t would be a libel upon
| the race to assume for a moment that these
two classes are anywhere nearly equal in
point of numbers. Society would be i'm
possible were more than half its members
secretly longing fer the plumber which the
destruction of all authority would bring.
Government would be a hideous tyranny,
and politics truly Machivellian art, were
the majority of men intereated in public
affairs only so far as their private interests
and hopes are concerned. But it is inev-
liable that the smaller class should be more
Extensively prominent, more conspicuous
to the eye, and far more powerful in pro
portion to numbers than those who serve
while they despise them.
But the very conditions of this complex
affair known as a political system, the
offices will to large extent find their way
into the hands of the office seekers They
have experience, skill in managing affairs.
plausibility, and the zeal in actual work of
the professional place hunter on their side.
1t is but natural that those who show the
greatest interest in and familiarity with
public questions should have the manage
ment of public affairs. And in addition, it
is fair to suspect when any one raises
hue and cry against Them that the agitator
is only an equally selfish but less success
full man. The fox is the finder" say the
children; and very often the foremost re-
former is one whose sole idea is to reform
somebody else out of office, and reform
himself into it. In gauging therefore, the
existing political situation, and the WORTH
ness of movements made or to be made, it
is necessary to proceed with the EXTREMIST
caution, lest we may be deluded by the old
mask of virtue, or expect and require "a
highmindedness which is not characteristic
of the average man. But after weighing
all these considerations, there re-
mains no doubt as to the real
nature of the desperate struggle now
going ON III LLC republican I1S
professional politicians have it by the
throat; and without leaders, without an or
ganized resistance, without a place or a
name of their own as single-fire to the
nation. the hosts of those who place coun
try above self and honest government
above pelf. are centending nightly with
the spoiler. Ii is now a time to cover
over this irrepressible conflict with soft
phrases, or to cry peace when there is no
peace In two great States Of the Union
it has taken visible shape. Pennsylvania
shows the republican party divided against
itself. There is no installing the issue.
The independent ranks may contain thous-
ands of sore heads and the Cameron clan
may muster many honest though misguld-
ed men. But rs fast as the great body of
the party understands what this division
means. that at last a standard is raised
against the leaders who have fed office
with office until their grossness knows
nothing else of statecraft but its pickings
and its stealings, thoy take their unswerv-
ing stand; and he who cannot pronounce
shibboleth must expect no mercy. In
New York the matter takes Il different
shape The plunderers were not as secure
in their places as Don Cameron. and
hence to compass their ends they were
Obliged to descend to the lowest forms of
fraud. They were met by popular dis
affection so general and so open that their
candidates letter of acceptance, dated
scarcely ten days after the convention.
reads like funeral Grafton after a sad and
dishonora5le defeat. Yet the signs of the
times do not brighten the men who care
not a button for republican principles, for
gains or losses, so long as their personal
emoluments are secure. Encouraged to
raise their evil heads by sudden revolu-
ton, they are bold with the courage of the
coward and the bully, when he discovers
that the man he has assaulted is unarmed.
Hubbell is as friskily impairment as a
street Arab out of sight of the police; and
the policy which Hubbel has made peculi- |
arly his own is carried out in state and
notion, although the republican gorge rises
at the name Patronage is used as boldly |
as it was in the worst days of the republic |
The renegade creature Gorham, through |
the columns of the paper of
Brady. the thief, announces before
hand the official policy of the |
president. The names of Conkling and
Plat and Dorsey and Filley and such other |
resurrected carrion ale spoken with |
JUNCTION, and all the unclean harpies of the |
past cry out in hoarse joy, as if the day |
about to break were one of victory and |
not of retribution. These are the signs |
the irrepressible conflict is close at hand |
What the republican party as it runs in
many of the states and in the nation at
large, most needs is a sound beating. And |