Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-02-23
What Conversion to Republicanism Does

The purging and cleansing power of
conversion to Republicanism is one of
| the most remarkable things about mod
ern politics. 1t matters not how low
and vile and contemplate an opponent
may have been in Republican estima-
| ton. 1t matters not what his political
or other heresies have been, or what
abuse the Republican party has show
cred on him therefor. The moment he
proclaims his intention-or manifests
any indications of a disposition to vote
the Republican ticket, he becomes in
vested with all the virtues in the Repub-
lican calendar, while his vices and short
comings fall away from him and are
heard of no more.
There are familiar instances of this
along the whole line of Republican deal
ings with the ex-Confederates. So long
as they vote the Democratic ticket they
are 'unreconstructed rebels,n vile
copperheads' and other terrible things.
But let the charms OF office beguile them
as they did in the case of LongStreet-
into support of the Republican party,
and they become at once trustworthy
friends of the Union, bulwarks of the
Constitution with all the amendments
and staunch supporters of the Nation
with big IN"
1t has been precisely the same with
those who have come into the Repub-
ican camp by the Greenback gate. The
moment they have fairly landed inside,
their denunciation of the banks, which
was once regarded as so wicked and
communistic, and their belief in the
ninety-cent dollar, which was once an
objectionable crime, are forgotten and
condoned. Scion Chase. of Maine, the
great Greenback apostle who drove
them steers in the last campaign,
was reviled and ridiculed by every Re-
publican newspaper and speaker in that
State, and every other where he lifted
up his voice. Now. that he is in full
communion with the Republican party,
the steers and the cowhide boots and
the other objects, which seemed to that
party so absurd and ridiculous, are only
alluded to as worthy surroundings of
worthy man, or ignored altogether.
Similar illustrations might be made
from the reception given to Republican
converts from the Greenback party in
this locality. but for the fact that
such converts are, for the most
part, only apparents converts. They
are men who, being renegades
from the Democratic party, merely pro-
fessed to be Greenbackers in the belief
that under that disguise they could aid
the Republican party more effectively
than by open communion with the lat
ter. Their being found now in such
open communion cannot, therefore, be
called conversion from Greenbackery.
1t is worth noting, however, that the
sins they committed, even when they
were Democrats. or protested to be,
are no longer laid up against them. A
very remarkable instance of this Re-
publican popularity is furnished by the
case of Senator Voorhees,. During the
many years that he has been a Demo-
cratic leader in his State and prominent
in the National councils of the party, he
has been villified and denounced with
every epithet which Republican malig-
nifty could invent. Senator Voorhees,
support of protection, however, and his
approval of the Arrears of Pensions
fraud are accepted as evidence of con-
version to Republicanism, and he has
suddenly become whittier than wool, in
the Republican estimate, in respect to
all iniquity of a partisan or other char
acter.-Detr0H Free Press.