Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-10-31
THE MOST HOPEFUL SIGN.

Oi national sanity ana moral force. Ii the
American people sat down quietly under
party degeneracy. and continued to vote
straight tickets with unhinching fidelity,
notwithstanding the elimination of princi-
Piles and honesty from politics, the fact
would prove that the existing political de-
cadence only reflected national democrat
ization. Il is unfortunately too true that
Americans possess a patience under such
circumstances which may easily pass into
that apathy which produces the loss of lib
erty. But though they have in the past
often tolerated political abuses to an
unreasonable extent, they have always at
last reached the end of their patience, and
have risen and thrown off the burdens CD.
pressing them. And it must, we think,
be concluded, that powerful agency in
producing the liberation of political
abuses is the force of habit. 1t is proba.
bly, mistake to suppose that all men, or
even most men, think out their political
faiths for themselves. In a large proper.
ton OF cases they take such convictions
from others, or from circumstances. No
doubt many are influenced by the attitudes
OF their friends and relatives. Compare
lively few take the trouble to sit down
deliberately and compare tbs principal
party creeds, with view to intelligent
discrimination and selection. As conse.
quence political affiliations become matters
of habit and custom. Men are Repub li.
J cans or Democrats because they have been.
They continue to vote as they have voted
from habit, and this is one principal rea
son why parties are allowed 30 60 so far
on the road to dageneraoy before their
leaders are warned by serious detection
among the rank. and file.
1t cannot be assumed that the majority
OF men are Indifferent to the growing cor
ruption of their parties. 1t is far more
probable that they are careless and iAdo-
lent that they shrink from the trouble of
investigation that they take the least
troublesome way, which is to go on in the
old grooves. This is why parties are en-
abled to outiive the most fragrant proofs of
their demonstration, and why, even after
they have lost all their principles, and have
become thoroughly insincere and dishonest,
they still retain so large proportion of
their original strength. But it is not in
the nature of free and intelligent people
to put up with abuses permanently. They
may tolerate abuses for considerable
time, but day is cure to come when the
necessity of remedial action applies stim-
illus capable of overcoming their inertia,
and then they rise and repudiate the pc.
litical managers who have been imposing
upon their good nature. And such an up
rising appears to be foreshadowsd in Cali
fornia to-day. The two parties in this
State have become hopelessiy corrupt.
They no longer have any principles or con-
victions. They have both undertaken to
play the demagogue, and it is question
between them which can out-lie and out
iuggle the other. They have both taken
for their point of departure the offensive
assumption that the voters upon whose
support they depend have no sagacity, and
are capable OF being deceived by the most
transparent sophistries and misrepresenta.
tions. Tney are 10th in conspicuously dis
honest attitudes, and for this reason it
might be thought at the first glance
that the voters had no means of rebuking
them. But the Republican party has mani.
testify staked everything upon a display of
demagogism which is deliberately intended
to surpass anything the Democrats can do,
and therefore the Republican managers are
marked out as the most Objectionable of
the two.
California has suffered more from dema-
gogues than probably any State in the
Union. They have during the past ten
years cost her several millions year
They have prevented immigration and set
Element; they have given her a bad name
abroad they have driven out capital and
enterprise they have diverted valuable
investments they have set class against
class; they have kept up a sort Of
internecine war which has been felt from
one end OF the State to the other. The
railroads have made the State, and the
demagogues have set themselves to destroy
the railroads. They are responsible for
Kearneyism, for the Communism of the
new Constitution, for all The malignant and
subversive measures which have been
urged SO vindictiveiy. They are response.
Bile for the decline of San Francisco. They
deserve the heartest cures of every
thinking man in California. This year
they have come forward with declaration
of their intention to renew and carry still
further the old blind and suicidal assaults
upon capital and enterprise, and they i'm.
pudently appeal to the people to indorse
their villainous programme, and to help
them still more effectually to iniure and
keep back the State. But the people are
too intelligent to be inhaled by these con-
scienceless Adventures. They understand
that all these communistic propositions have
been advanced solely for the lust Of Office ;
that the anti, railroad howl is simply and
merely device adopted in the absence OF
any honest and genuine Issues The DEM
sgogues, however, have made their cam.
paign on these false issueg, and they have
challenged the people to declare them
selves. Unless we are very greatly mis-
! taken In our observations OF popular
sentiment, the people will respond to this
challenge in way that will aetonish the
dsmagogues, and once for all disillusioniz,
| them.
For the voters see clearly that there is
no honesty or sincerity or regard for the
welfare of the community, behind all this
rant and can't. They perceive that the
present campaign was begun without real
Issues, and that the pretended issues pre-
sented are really nothing but the result of
desperation upon interruptions office seak.
era and adventufers. Under the circum.
1 stances there is but one course to take, and
all the most trustworthy indications point
| TO it as the course which will be taken.