New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-12-13
THE FUTURE or REPUBLICANISM

A sick man is sure to be deluged with advice
and medicine. The Republican party is now
supposed to be enough of an invalid to warrant
the political doctors and quacks in overwhelm-
ing it with prescriptions aud nOstrums. For a
month past all the old women in the party
have been rummaging through garrets and
musty trunks and bringing to light a quantity
of dried herbs and seeds any one of which is re-
commended rs an infallible cure for political
defeat And they stand around with bandages
and bowls of steaming tea and hot foot
baths, ready to undertake the task of restor-
ing the patient to political health. They seem
to imagine that by sticking on plaster here
and applying lotion there and pouring in lit
tie oil elsewhere the party can be stood upon its
feet again and entered for the Presidential race
of 1884.
The mistake all these well-meaning political
doctors make in gi,if advice is in viewing the
party as the end and not as the means. They
fail to recognize the changed condition OF SEN
timent in the country. The spread of intelli-
gence consequent upon the growing reading
habits Of the people and the increased means of
communication have made 1t impossible any
longer at least in the North, to keep the ranks
which once hung about party titles has been
dissipated. That period in cur political history
when to label policy Republican or Democratic
was enough to bring to it u solid party support
is passed. The people are considering and
deciding questions for themselves They have
become emancipatcd FROM the rule of bosses
and the control OF political machines and nat
uraly they are little anxious to exhibit their
new found freedom. The sentimental era of
politics is ended and the business era has
begun.
But how can the Republican party be rein
stated in the confidence of the people ? the
politicians ask. If the party merely wishes to
retain power for the sake of power, it il not
worthy of lhe peoples confidence and will not
regain it, The Republican voters who stayed
at home or cast Democratic ballot in Novem-
Der cannot be made Jealous party men again by
seeing one sop thrown to the Civil Service Re-
formers in Massachusetts and NewYork,
another to the German voters in Ohio aud Indi-
ana, and a third to the opponents of Chinese I'M
migration in California. None of these exOedi-
ents will serve the purpose. They have been
tried, and rejected with contempt by the people.
For quarter of a century the great majority of
the intelligent voters In the Northern States
have acted with the Republican party. They
care very little about it as an end but great
deal as means. They want to see reforms car
ried out and abuses corrected and the country
well and economically governed If the Repub-
lican party will work steadily toward these
ends they will stand by it loyalty But if it
forgets its mission and merely fattens itself
upon spoils and patronage they will reOuke it
sternly.
The Republican party, then, if it wishes to
cor tinue tho dominant party in the country,
must take positive and aggressive ground upon
the questions Of the day, and trust to the
intelligence of the people to sustain it. 1t has
never yet shown that it was in earnest in advo-
eating a great moral question and failed to
receive the support of majority of the intelli-
put