The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1882-10-26
LIk ENESS OF EIEERs
NV n RReDubliCAm Artlae.
New York Times. 18th.

y.
has been re elected to Congress, and
will las things now look probably have
the proud satisfaction of being present
Speakership of the Forty-eighth Con-
Congress. He will then, we suppose,
regard himself as completely vindica
ted against the aspersions cast upon
him by the malicious and narrow
minded critics of the Eastern press,
and will be prepared to take the lead
ership of his party on the floor, and
fondly guide it to such fate as may be
in store for it in 1884. Or he may pre-
fer the position of Chairman or Act
ing Treasurer of the Republican
Congressional Committe and emulate
Hubbell in the work of squeezing the
purses of depal tment employees prepar-
atory to the great Presidential stIug-
GLE But whatever may be in store
for Mr.. keifer in connection with the
Speak kership, he is just the man to re-
gard his own reelection as an evidence
of cordial and discriminating approval
of his course in the high and difficult
post to which he was assigned last
December.
But the real evidence of the manner
III which the people regard Mr.. Kei-
fer's performance of his duties is to be
found in the general result in his state,
not in the result in his particular dis
trict. His position was National one.
Whatever he may have done or left
undOne for his immediate constituents
his real work was for the Nation. He
was personally responsible for the Sc
lection OF the committees. 1t was he
who gave Mr.. Robson the prominence
which he had, and enabled him to as
sumo in fact what by practice and Gus
tom he WAS not entitled tO--the lead
| ership of the House. It was he who
maue MIR. Kelley the Chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee, and
practically defeated efforts at any eff.
fectual reduction of taxation. 1t is
| impossible in the confusion which
prevails in Ohio politics, to say exactly
how far National questions contributed
to the result. but the result is so deci-
ded as to leave little room for doubt
! tn tn National issue alone the Re-
pub leans must have b en- beaten.
Now, in National matters Mc Keifer
stands Ior about every thing which the
peoll, disapprove in the Forty sew
enth Congress, and for very little of
that which they desire in the Forty
eiyhth Congress Such vindicati0n
as he may have from ret, ioiug his at
is hard y enough to offse: the Sweeping
condemnation which h, and his meth
ods received at the polls throughout
the State
We az Iot at all prepa, ed to see Mr..
Keifer unit this fact. obvious as it is.
| He is a representative man of the class
to which he belongs. Coarse, tough
empty, pretentious, ambitious, and
vain, it would be quite in his character
to ins It that If all the Republican
| Co1g. easmen were like him Ohio wo'd
have ueeu carried with rush. He
believes in taking the world as you
finds it, and he finds full of oppor-
tunity for sharp, pushing, unscrupu-
lous politician. VIII" is lin politics for
all it 8 worth" He N hardly be
mac e 10 understand the disgust with
| VIII ch honorable and sincere Republi-
cans, who adhere to their party for the
oppt rtunity it affords to c lrry out GER
tain b gh purposes, re ard him and
those who work with b m. He would
as soon question the ri>ing of the sun
as throw doubt on the theory that pol
itics is game for the spoiIs in which
he wins most who plays the sharpest,
sticks to his friends, aud puts the knife
in his enemies on every occasion. Did
| not he, hlmSelI, play Tor the Speaker
ship al gain 1t by a shrewd bargain,
which he stuck to In every particular?
If the est of the Republicans had not,
to some extent, weakly given in t. the
| hubbub raised about "reform," and
that sort of thing, and given aid and
comfort to the enemy by criticising
| the measures of their own party, there
would have been no such trouble as
there has been. Of that the Keifer
type is confident. To them the revo-
luton in politics which begins in the
silent conscience of the voter and
works it's way out until the party
which betrays its principles is ruined,
and the men who led it to its ruin are
dismissed, is only whim of theorists,
or the revenge of malcontents and
soreheads. They do not realize its
force, its purpose, or its permanence
until their own acts have made it ire
sistible. If on the verge of such a
catastrophe as now threatens the Re-
publican party they can retain their
petty hold on the machinery, they are
satisfied.