The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-11-17

Its Time Has Como.
Republican managers and newspapers
make piteous appeals from time to time
to the voters of their party They inn
plore them to go to the primaries and
see that proper nominations are made.
They entreat them to turn out on cleo
ton day, and save the dear old party |
from destruction. They complain that |
Republicans seem so adverse to taking |
part in active political work, and SO in
different to the general breaking up
which threatens the party.
So far as influence upon the great and
increasing mass of Republican indifer-
entism is concerned, these appeals are
likely to be wasted. The more intelli-
gent and thoughtful are sick of going
to primaries where proceedings and
nominations are controlled by set
of men who make politics their bust
ness, and paying business. They are
ashamed of supporting candidates in
whose selection they had no voice, and
of whose unfitness, in too many cases,
they are convinced. They have sacri-
feed not only their prejudices, but their
honest convictions, at more than one
election. They have been betrayed by
q strained sense of party fealty into
casting votes for candidates whom they
knew to be unworthy. More than once,
after show of opposition, they have
played into the hands Of party man.
ayers. .
They have learned by bitter expert
ence to distrust and despise most of
A. 90 BALLAD Loo or, ~ thar v.ovfu
Many of these dissatisfied voters have
become perfectly Indifferent to its fort
unes, and have determined not to vote
at all until some great and now hardly
possible change shall convert it from q
party of plumber into a party of prin-
ciples. Many others, ON whom party
allegiance sits more lightly, have re-
solved to vote with the Democrats,
either permanently or until the Re-
publican party forsakes its evil ways.
The absence of the one class and the
presence of the other at the polls last
| fall helped to give the Republican
party severe and deserved punish
ment. 1t shows as yet but the faintest
signs of recovering from the effects of
that punishment. The Republican
voters who struck it down show No per-
ceptible signs of repentance.
The organs and the managers may re-
monstrate and supplicate, but these Re-
publicans will remain deaf to their APP
peals. The hordes of office-holdcrs and
Of professional politicians are about the
| only Republicans who are still deeply
interested in Republican success. 1t is
matter of bread and butter with them.
A large number of voters, especially in
the country. where political affiliations
are slowly made and slowly cast of, still
cling to Republicanism from force Of
habit and old associations, trembling as
yet to 90 to the side whittier their con.
sciences are beginning to point them.
But where are the Republicans who are
Republicans from well-founded convic.
ton, and who cleave 20 that party from
their admiration of what it is and not o.
what it was?
There would be no need Of calling OF
Republican voters to do their politica
duty if the party still had great prin-
ciples at stake and great public ends il
view, as it once had. In its better day.
it filed its adherents with earnest enthu
siasm and faith. There was not one indif
emit voter In it then. Every man in il
thoroughly believed in it because it hat
. definite object and had proposed to it
self noble work. 1t grew into power
because it believed in itself.
Never did q party sink from great
ness toward a more disgraceful end. i
now has no principles, no convic
lions, no honesty. 1t advocates
no legislation by which the publi'
interests may be benefited. 1t stand.
for nothing which touches the popu
lar heart. 1t sits shamelessly witt
one hand in the public till, and with tn
other "points with pride y to the rec
J ord of the few years in which it was un
: dishonored; and upon that record
J asks to be allowed to keep on stealing
Its own voters can find in it, as it ex
} lists to-day, nothing to inspire enthusi
asm or even respect. Its work wa
done long ago. It can succeed n
: longer on false pretenses. Its time ha
: come.-M Y Sun.