The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1882-04-13
We've Got En-"

a.
ganization. With no defined principle Of
polcy-with perverse dis
potion to oppose everything. however mer-
itorious, that is supported by the Republic
can party-obstructing every measure and
every enactment that finds its justification
in the necessities of the country, and con-
stantly grasping after catch-penny notions
and inflammatory sensations, it deserves
nothing but the severest and harshest con-
domination. We've got EN- was the
classical utterance of almost every Demo-
cratic newsmonger and place-hunter around
Washington, when the President sent in his
veto OF the Chinese bill. forgetting that the
calm Judgment OF the American people has
not for the past twenty years failed to place
it's brand of condemnation upon Democrat
ic expedients. 'We've got EN-" with like
was the response from this
same class of discerning patriots, when the
tariff question was introduced for general
discussion and an opportunity presented to
resurrect the obsolete arguments OF ante
bellum times on the subject, ignoring the
changed relations of the country, and the
fact that the whole Industrial system of the
Southern States had been revolutionized.
1t will be found in the further and more
popular discussion of these subjects-when
the people shall be faced and called upon to
pass their judgment upon them. that the
Democratic statesmen have not so ef1ectu-
ally ''got 'em." as they may now think
Certainly when the votes and record of the
Republicans on the Chinese question are
compared with the votes and record of the
Democrats on the Mormon question, there
will not be much for the latter to boast of
in the way of morality, and it is simu-
lated regard for the purity of American so
ciety that constitutes one of the arguments
of the Democratic statesmen and philan-
thropists against Chinese Immigration
And when it comes to the tariff and the eff
feet of the two policies-that of Protection
and Free Trade--upon the interests OF the
Countrywide very class particularly-that
of labor-which it is essayed to protect in
manship will be found wanting in that prac-
tical usefulness which practical people
demand. When the question is presented and
argued, whether the 5000, 100000 raised by tar
if duties, shall continue to be collected in
that way, or by direct taxation, adding to il
lustrate, about So. 900, 900 to the State county
and municipal tax, as Virginia's proportion
Of the aggregate named, it will not be such
a clear case of .'got 'em" as our Democratic
friends now think.
1t is singular indeed, that many OF the
prominent and trusted leaders of the Demo-
cratic party in the South never think of the
changed relations of their section. A mo-
ment's impartial reflection ought to con-
vince them that no policy or argument that
was applicable to the condition of the
South twenty years ago, is appropriate now.
Our political and industr ial structures were
based upon the Institution of negro slavery,
methods and policies must necessarily be
changed. There is no compulsory mental
labor now. All is free, the landowner just
as free as the laborer, with no obligation
resting upon him to support that which
might not profit him, nor is he restricted to
any one production or branch of industrythat
he might the better utilize the labor element
he in other times had to care for. Virginia
stands to-day pretty much as Pennsylvania
stood thirty years ago, with her resources
undeveloped-her vast mineral wealth dead
capital, and Virgins is interested in the
same policy which brought Pennsylvania
from poverty to riches and gave her aug
mented material and political power. Our
minerals must be unearthed and utilized
through the establishment of industries for
that purpose. This cannot be done with
free labor in competition with the pauper
labor of Europe. Diversity of industries
must be encouraged, that by mutual ex-
change of the results of products, every
branch may prosper and general prosperity
follow-the miner and the manufacturer
consuming the products of the farm and the
ties to advantage, with the mechanic and
merchant sharing in the benefits of the ac-
tivity thus created.
If Free Trade or Tariff for Revenue on
ly was the true policy for the South in
slavery times, it is necessarily wrong now,
when slavery has been abolished, for COM
pulsory labor is no longer the basis of our
industrial future. We must look to mines
and furnaces and the policy which develops
and encourages them, if we would emerge
from the condition of mere hewers of wood
and drawers of water. To avail of our ma
tional advantages, we must adopt the meth
DDS and policies which other sections have
adopted to utilize theirs. So long as we
delegate the apostles of obsolete theories to
legslate for us in the national councils, we
| will have to be content with dead sea fruits.
Our political sentiment must harmonic
with the progressive ideas which are blu lid
not so highly favored by nature as we are
Our ores and cotton must be converted into
fabrics by our own machinery-emp.oying
our own labor and creating a market for
policy which encourages such results be-
comes crystalized into permanent prin-
ciple, accepted and appropriated in the
South. we can never become what our re-
sources should assure.
1t is natural for Bourbon stupidity to lin
ger in the past and hug the remembrance of
its revelries in place and power. But the
progressive minds will look to other fields
for sympathy and employment, and turn
away from the graveyard of Demo-
cratic theories and notions, long since
eliminated from American policy. The
people will not join in the acclaim, 1--WE
got 'em'' so long as they know that Demo-
cratic politicians originated it, nor turn
their backs upon the political power which
has directed the affairs of the nation
through twenty years of trial and trumph
to condition of prosperity never before
realized and a position of influence in the
front of the nations of the world.
just now the Democrats are flying sew
eral of their periodical balloons, which, as
heretofore, will experience the usual COL
lapse, at time they least anticipate. When
they think we've got EN-" and attempt
to place their hands on the game, they will
realize that it is only an ignus fatuus
that has been deluding and leading them
them into entanglements from VI hich neith-