The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-08-05
Faeilis Est Descensus AvernI.

fa(lllS ESb OtStCLouS AvSs
The history of the Radical party since
1861 is series of monstrous and shame
less political iniquities. No twenty |
wears of the history of any party that |
ever cursed any country under the sun
can exhibit such an unyarying record
of shamelessness, corruption and mis-
rule During all this period there is alb
soutely not bright or respectable page |
in its history. The eight years Of stolid
and vengeful stupidity-of drunken and
lawless indecency, that go to make up
Grants contribution to this infamous
history-years of savage political pros
titution and proscription-years OF I'M
constitutional and unrelenting savagery,
that have never found respectable de-
fense-these years are the bitterest OF
them all. The four years OF the Great
Fraud constitute the period OF hypocrisy
and bribery, and all manner OF sneaking
unrighteeusness. 1t was essentially
Pecksniffian. 1t was brazen and oily.
1t crawled. 1t came in at the window
and went out through the cellar, cow
erino under the consciousness of its ut
ter and irredeemable meanness. 1t put
a premium on treachery by seeking to
buy Democrats with Federal offices, and
would have freely battered its charac-
ter, if it had possessed anything decent
in that line, to have captured solitary
Judas OF course the methods by which
the Federal offices were farmed out
gained nothing in the oily meanness of
HAYES as compared with the rugged
meanness of Grant.
Some Democrats thought that other
and better methods-an era of at least
comparative cleanness, would come in
under Garfield and Arthur. The new
Administration began the exhibition OF
its devotion to the methods of its inn
mediate predecessors by striking out on
line of policy which recognized the
perpetuation of Radical supremacy, by
any and all means as synonym for
patriotism. 1t put premium on rene
gadism. 1t took Malone to its bosom.
1t placed the Federal patronage at his
disposal, in the hope that a sufficient
number of Democrats, to control Vir-
ginia affairs, could be bought for few
messes of pottage. But Garfield leaned
to the methods of Hayes, and G. j.
Guiteau-poet, statesman, orator and
Grant missionary, removed Garfield to
the happy hunting grounds. And then
Chef went up to the head. He had no
spelling to do. Guiteau attended to all
that, for he was Chefs forerunner. The
fullness of the times had come, when
the worst features of all the preceding
Administrations, as nearly as possible,
were to be blended into one inharmoni-
Gus, diabolical whole. His deliberate
purpose to galvanize into new life the
carcass of Grantism was soon apparent.
He affected Grant methods, and aped
even his stupidity. He viewed things
from the standpoint of the ward poll
tician and the pot-house bully. A very
discernible purpose to bring to the front
again, all through the South, the car
pet-bag and scalawag elements speaks
out in all of his political schemes, as
they have been. and are being, unfolded
to the disguised gaze of this Grant-rid-
den people. Devotion to -Grantism,
with all which that implies, has become
! the one great test of qualification for
office-holding. The sentiment uttered
by John Sherman in the Senate-that
anything is right that tends to the de-
feat of the Democrats, is expected to
find Judgment in the creed, and be
illustrated in the lives, of all those who
hold Federal offices throughout the
South. An ability to appreciate Dor
seys humorous tribute 10 ''soap'' as a
means of s.saving the country from the
calamity of Democratic rule, is thought
to be a very strong indication of fitness
for the responsibilities of exalted sta
ton. A willingness to Afric'inize the
South, desire to bring every Southern
STATE once more within the control OF
beastly and ignorant mobs, and a pur
pose to exclude the virtue ard intelli-
gence of the South from active partici-
patton in the affairs of the State and the
Federal Government, seem to constitute
the highest tests of patriotic usefulness
under the dispensation of C. A. Ar.
thur. There is something frightful
in the character of the Office seek
ing mobs that congregate in Wash
ington. Considering the test for Office
holding in the South, nothing better
could be expected. Where the good Of
the country in not sought in making ap-
pointments to office, it need not be ex-
pected that office-holders, as rule.
will be above the faint of baseness
Where the appointing poweris actuated
by the single person to perpetuate itself,
it would be singular if mere tools were
not preferred to men who would be
actuated by high and noble purpose.
Where shameless men hold high carnival
in the most exalted stations in the land
It is not strange that the ear of power
is open only to men of question
able methods. Under such circum-
stances, it is not strange that Offices o.
responsibility and trust, involving the
rights and honor and interests of the
people, are put into the keeping Of
semicivilized negroes. Under such 9
state of affairs, it is not STANCE that the
better class of people, all through the
South, look with aversion upon Radica
administration OF the affairs of govern
ment and lose no opportunitv to re-