The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-04-19
WELLINGTON, LoRA1N COUNTY, OHIO APRIL 10, 1882
[ The Political Outlook.


The political situation throughout the
whole country at the present moment IS
somewhat anomalous The Republic
ans are holding power on the general is
sue of their demonstrated fitness and ca
pacity as against the unfitness and inca
pacity of their opponents, made plain in
the last three Congresses The country
is prosperous, business thrives, the
wheels of Government are not crea<ing
much more than usual, the people are
moderately contented, and Thus far in
the present session of Congress no
'sburning question: has been opened
upon which the Democrats can base a
reasonable hope of disturbing the hold
of their opponents upon popular favor
at the next election 1t might almost
be said that for the moment there are
no politics, certainly no pending ques-
ton upon which party lines can be
drawn, They are drawn, to be sure,
whenever the fit takes Democratic MEM
bers to obstruct proceedings and delay.
the public business, as the other night
when Blackburn and Springer cried:
.. To your tents, o Israelr' and they ar
rayed themselves solidly against the
passage of a simple resolution relating
to the order of business. But they seem
to do that instinctively or from force of
habit. No other emergency is capable
Of hudd ding them together. Upon every
question OF any moment or gravity they
are either divided or all at sea. They
make confession of bankruptcy when
they go hunting for an issue as they have
been doing for the past six months or
more, and the desperate straits to which
they are reduced are disclosed by the
clamor of the free traders, to which no
answer can be made, that the tariff
question Is absolutely the only issue left
them. In the light of the last cam
paign, and in view of the recent utter
ances of some of their most eminent
leaders, it hardly needs to be pointed
out that when they adopt that they fall
hopelessly asunder.
So, there being no burning ques-
tion, " we have something like polite
al calm. We do not recall the time
when political questions were so little
discussed and with so little partisan
feeling. Not even during the brief
period which intervened between the
final defeat of the Wing party in 1852
and the reopening of the slavery
ka bill, was there such an abb
ScuCO VI COuIIONCISldl DlItCInCSS III
political discussion. Not that there
are no controversies nor that bitter
ness has disappeared. We are not so
near the millennium as that. But they
are controversies within, rather than be-
tween the two great parties; and are so
largely personal in their character that
the masses of the people take only a
languid interest in them. This state of
affairs cannot last long, of course. 1t is
not in the nature of our democratic in
stitutions nor in the temper of our peo-
pie that this period of rest from political
controversy should long continue. Po-
litical agitation is the safety of free insti-
tutions and the life of self-governing
people. We had our off-year elections
last fall with very little excitement or
noise and much more strife between
leaders in the same party than between
the parties themselves. Our State Leg
islatures have held their annual winter
sessions and are drawing near the period
of adjournment without having opened
any serious new causes of difference be-
tween the great parties, local or other
wise, and without having done anything
to change materially the aspects of the
situation. Congress has been four
months in session, and, strange to say,
the party in the majority has committed
no blunder to furnish capital for the
opposition, and the minority has not yet
found feasible issue or principle of
cohesion. ~
But we elect new Congress next
November, a Congress that holds over
to the Inauguration of a new President;
in few months we shall be in the midst
of the Congressional campaign, and to
all appearances nothing of the old diff
ferences between the two parties re-
mains, except the names, upon which
issue can be joined. Each party dwells
with satisfaction upon the fact that there
are internal dissensions in the other,
but Republicans are comforted by the
thought that while their divisions are
local and temporary, those of their op-
ponents are general and permanent.
Moreover, they are in possession and
entrenched, and their adversaries have
not been able as yet to discover point
of attack. To a casual observer looking
over the field, seeing how the Demo-
cratic party, after suffering great de-
feat in the Presidential election. and
losing both branches of Congress. has
broken into factions in New York and
is disintegrating in its great stronghold,
the South, and how it has not only failed
to find APPOINT of attack in the Repub-
lican lines, but even to hold itself in line
upon any party question in Congress,
it would seem the most natural thing
in the world for. that party to
throw up the sponge and abandon the
fight. But that is not to be expected.
They will keep it up though all the ques-
tions upon which they began it are dis
posed of. "What are you fellows fight
ing for, now that Lee and Johnston
have surrendered and the Confederacy
has gone up?'' shouted Union soldier
to a rebel picket in the Southwest in th{
last days of the war. 81 For our rights
in the Territories under the bred Scott
decision" was the stubborn answer.
And perhaps that is what the Demo
cratic party is fighting for. Who knows?
1t is curious outlook. At no time
in its history has the Democratic party
been so utterly destitute of either prin-
ciple of union or rallying cry. Nor has
the Republican party ever seemed more
deserving of public confidence; we
doubt if It ever stood higher in popular
esteem. We do not pretend to read the
political horoscope, but the existing
conditions seem to us to point to the
probable continuance of Republican as
cendancy for many years to come. Moth
ing but their own mistakes or the am
bifion and folly of their factional lead
ers can prevent TN 7. Tribune.
There have been almost as many
claimants to the authorship of Brannan's
"Harp-of-a-Thousahd-Strings" sermon
as there were to that of the Beautiful
Snow,"1 and it is q coincidence that
MANY 0f the claimants are minister's
of the gospel. A reprobate suggested
that perhaps this state of things may be
accounted for upon the theory that the
majority of sermons are so similar in
character and style of the :" Harp" SER
mon that the ministers who preached
them are so impressed with the similari-
ty that many of them really believe that
| it is one of their own.-C0ttrier Journal.
1t is significant and grateful fact,
and one to be noted in any future biog-