The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1882-09-21
Fusion and Confusion.


ly disturbed the equanimity of our con
temporary of the Prog. Age. His edito-
rlals last week We're as inconsistent as
the Democratic and Greenback plat
forms on which the Fusion candidates
stood astlide, one article fatty contra
dieting another, while his views as to
political morality are peculiar, to say the
least. In one article he charges that the
election was carried by the Republicans
by the systematic distribution of bride
money, and says that, Had the barrel
held out, not a single town in this county
would have escaped the corrupting intlu-
ence." In another article the Age attri-
butes the Fusion defeat to the bringing
home of absent men by the Republicans,
stating that forty absent Republican vot-
ers were returned to Monroe and twenty
seven to Isesboro, while the Fusion
voters could not be got home on account
OF lack OF funds And in third article
the Age philosophers on "Tides in Poll
ties 1t says that parties have their
tides, their Gibbs and flows like the tide
of the sea-" and that.
These tides are for the most part unaccount-
able. Towns and counties and sometimes States
will face about without any adequate reason be-
ing discovered for their doing 30; and perhap,
the very next wear they resume their former
cha sxxrin
same town from the spring TO the fall elections.
even where the party candidates at each election
We're alike unobjectionable. The probable fact
Is That men are sometimes guided by their inn
pulses. rather than their reasoning Judgments
The results i'll many of our cities and towns
Monday. are easily accounted for. but in others
the changes are without any apparent cause
| ne tide of the opposition party. which evil
IDENTIFY has been at if ebb in the present cam
paign. may be ut its flood in 1881 Let tt> not
lose courage.
thus, we have, first, a charge that the
Republican victory was secured by the
purchase Of votes; secondly, that it Vas
brought about by the return Of absent
Republican voters, and thirdly, that an
unaccountable tide did it. As the Age
suggests that the Fusion tide MAY be at
its flood in looI, it evidently does not
believe in its own charges of the corrupt
use of money in 1852
The Age is certainly not compliment
AIRY to its followers, or to those it claims
as belonging to the Union, Fusion. or
'What is it" party. In one article it
states that, ut is gratifying to know
that Of all those who went back on Us
on election day. in this county, none
did 50 on account of any change Of their
political principles" and then goes on to
say that, ''Many came to the polls to vote
the Fusion ticket, but after a two mo-
ments' interview with a Republican
bnber, they accompanied him to the
polls with a Republican vote in hand"
Elsewhere it admits the use Of money by
the FuSionStS in 1880. 1t saws that "the
opposition had raised some funds to hold
Their poor class Of voters against the
temptations held out by Republican
voters, and thcy succeeded to a con
siderable extent il doing 50. But this
IS what the Age said Of the election that
year in It's issue Of Sept. 18th The
patriotic, unpurchasabIe men of Maine
who believe in the rule Of the people and
not in the rule of the Money Power. have
stood like a rock, against which the
surges of sectionalism, bribery, and cor
ruption have beat in vain" Then it
called its voters unpurchasable; now it
SAYS they We're, in lo-O, ITO 4 considera-
bic extent bought to vote their couyic-
tons. Md this year it says they were
bought by the Republicans, but have NOT
changed their political principles 10
this picture Of Fusion, drawn by one of
its chief supporters, we need add moth
ing; and then, we are mindful of the
concerning the dead say only
what is favorable"