The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1882-03-30

Senator-elect Harry Riddeberger, has con
trbuted an interesting article to the "Nortl
American Review" on "Bourbonism in Vir
gnia." Alter presenting in lucid and forci
BILE manner the whole history of the Old Do
mnion he closes as follows:
, The Conservative Democratic party, as /
delights to call itself, had been as false in it
professions touching the negro and the eectv
franchise as it had been concerning the deb
and the schools, By system of trickery
through disqualiications for petty offenses
and requiring the payment of head tax as
prerequisite to voting, and using every mean
to prevent its payment, they had virtually
dlsfranchised the negro, and by system 0
frauds III the counting and certifying OF re
turns they had guarded against any accidents
resulting from him casting vote. The sys-
tenn was too complete to require any violence
Science in this, as in other perfected systems
had overcome friction. The people of Virgin
la are an honest people, however much
they may be traduced. They abhor fraud and
punlc faith. They are simple and contiding
people, and were loag led in paths whose
Nervousness they did not know; but when they
realized that they had been made the dupes
OF the Bourbons they rose in thr majesty and
hurled their oppressors to the earth. 1t was
day OF wrath when their eyes were opened
and the political coast Of Virginia is strewn
with wrecks, from the "tall admiral" who un-
dertakes the championship of States honor
he has done so much to ipjure, to the petty
tlshing-smacH of the cross-road politician The
Riddleberger bill speaks oritsef The reasons
for every enactment it contains are given in its
preamble Space forbids discussion of its de-
tails. Suffice it to say that the people who have
enacted it believe that it makes liberal allow
ances for the payment of every dollar of prin-
cipal and interest justly due by the people OF
the State, and r. stores equality among credi-
tors who were originally on the same footing
IN favor Of some of whom and against Others
OF whom gross and objectionable discrimi-
nations have been made under Bourbon rule
Senator Johnston's party feels no repug-
nance to the ADVOCATES of the Rddleberger
bill, for at the moment his article was in
press, and from that time to the present it has
voted solidly tor leader who holds to the
North Carolina theory of debt settlement, and
in the last campaign placed the author of the
Barbour bill second on his ticket as compro-
mise between debt-paying professions and
pronounced reputation as expounded by the
late Gov. Vance Virginia occupies an excep-
tional and anomalous position No other State
in In TTnin
State suffered one-half the losses she sustained
Out of these grew equities and endorsements
to which no other State il the South can lay
claim. She has, in the Riddleberger bill, pro-
vided for the payment of larger per centum
of her Indebtedness than any other Southern
State. Yet has Virginia been subjected to n.y.
pocritical ASPIRATION by men who cover their
own outrageous reputation by diyerting the
public mind to her with their wild cries, until
the country will, in the end, be made 20 be-
lieve that she who has done most to meet her
honest debt is really the laggard and de-
Eaulter.
1t is not the first time old Virginia has been
made the scape goat by her Southern sisters
and her people are beginning to realize the
fact. The bitterness of her former allies and
the kindness OF her former foes work their
effects. She is beginning to learn that she
is not the newer of wood and drawer OF water
in peace and the bulwark III war tor in
CRATES and false pretenders. She is beginning
to look elsewhere Tor alliances, and to realize
that she cannot thrive chained to the rotting
corpse of obsolete IDEAS She begins to realize
that great revolution has swept over Ameri-
ca; that with 1t came new ideas, change-so-
cial, moral and political; that unless she
adapts herself to existing conditions of affairs
she will soon lapse into oblivion and insignifi-
canoe even greater than she experienced I'M
der Bourbon rule.
Under Readjuster rule she has aroused her
self. Her schools have increased from 9 49l to
over 5000; her scholars from 1881 74 to 220,-
1856; her school term from three to FIVE
months. The funds diverted have been par
TALLY restored, and normal institutes are be-
ing founded Defauters have been made to
disgorge. The eleemosynary institutions have
been once more put upon their feet, The
schools and colleges have been paid what was
due them. Reforms and curtalments have
been made in the management of her public
institutions The debt question meets prompt
settlement. Manhood suffrage has been restor-
ed, with recognized constitutional quallfca-
TONS Population and capital re-attracted
Railroads are built. New industries spring
up. Mines are opened. Manufactures art
started Vgor, thrift and industry are seen
everywhere.
Virginia is awake and alert. She begins a
new career, not only materially but in thought
md action. Our people to-day are as little
welded to any old idea because it is old as the
people of New York City, and as susceptible
TO The Influence of reason and kindness as any
upon the GARTH There is class, small and
growing smaller, which never learns and never
regrets, reminding one of the nursery song:
There was old owl that lived in the wood,
Wisky, wtsky, weeAe,
And the only tune that he could sing was
Fiddle, PADDLE, feadie;
who Represent that type of Virginia manhood
history will one day record. In my opinion,
the people of Virginia have reached that state
of mind that Democracy has no pre-emption
upon their allegiance, and Repubcanism ex.
cites no terrors in their breasts. In the COM
ing National contest they will cast aside the
blind servitude of the past and ally themselves
with that party whose candidate is the best
man and whose platform strikes them as best
embodying their true interests. If, perchance
Virginia becomes Republican State, it will
be because Bourbonism walked her up to
sense of its oathsomeness, and Eye ancient
Bourbon" will doubtless take his flight for
ever to realms OF bliss, croaklng with his ex-
piring groan, bastard" Yet English history
records that the bastard was more than once
the hope and stay of the declining monarch
when the sunshine pets of legitimacy had fled
as cravens.
| KEEP PURE BRED FowLs.-Aside from the
| greater pleasure which it affords, it pays bet
| ter to keep and breed pure-bred fowls than
| to breed and feed lot of mongres, which lat
! ter many do for fear of the expense of buy
ing few pure-bred fowls to start with In
determining which breed offowls to get, make
up your mind at the start that no one breed
can or does possess all the qualities you are in
/