National Republican., 1883-08-24
A Prescription for Political Dry Rot.


cheated into trusting shallow protenders and
dishonest conspirators, can again become ire
sistible, The manhood and patriotism of the
land can, if it WILL send slander and cant to the
rear, and give hearing to men who have some
thing better to offer than the muddy calumnios
of our opponents or the water.gruel of self
lauding selfstyled political reforlners. IL Is
now ten years since there arose within the
republican party a crew of noisy disturbers
calling themselves reformer5. Their calum-
nies against the party in general, and who
ever was prominent in particular, were only
equaled by the fulsomeness of their praise of
themselves. The democrats had almost tired
of the stock falsehoods which had been worn
threadbare by them in belaboring republi-
can administration, when up sprang these
new prophets of reform, and discovered that
the half had not been told, They had but
tn have suggestion from the democrats
of bad motive in some republican
leader for q praiseworthy act, when
the sewer gates would be opened by them
and tho country would know only Of q great
stencil. revolution against state govern
| ment in 1874 was to them the occasion, not of
pretended horror at their dispersion by the
president upon the call Of the state, as re-
quirod by the constitution. The party was
put on trial for the transactions of score of
| .sl. -, flo.s Il 6. H. g
gross, and the upstart reformers cackled like
hens over now laid eggs, when they could
smito themselves on the breast and exclaim:
Behold our party full of thieves and
we the few good men putting them
out" Tho tainted wethers of the
flock were used by those mountebank Gre
formers to show the country how vile were
all republicans excepting only the coterie to
which they belonged, and then were taken
to their bosoms as cowOrkers in the next
great work of reform, to wit, tho "bossing"
of the distribution of the government clerk
ships. The decline of tho republican party
from 1877 until its fall temporary if we learn
its lesson in 1882 has been very rapid. The
masses of the party have been bewildered by
seeing pretended republican newspapers and
hearing pretended republican orators de-
nounce the republican organization as pub
lie enemy to be hunted to death. They
hear appeals at q presidential election to save
the country by standing by the republican
organization, and when that is over they see
and hear still more earnest appeals from some
of the same men to save the country by stab
bing the republican organization to the heart.
No sooner was the last presidential election
ended than the work Of disntegration began.
In Pennsylvania the nominee of the repub-
lican senatorial caucus, one of the leading iron
men in Pttsburgand a model business man was
found to be unworthy the support of the re-
formers, and after weeks of balloting the re-
publican party surrendered to the minority.
This resulted in the election of a democr
governor the following year. In New York
the administration bolted the party which
had given it life, and broke down the
party in senatorial contest. The
l'Shlp hho pCph
which extended to both factions of the party,
and gave tho state to the enemy last year by
two hundred thousand majority. Nothing
daunted by these disasters in the two great
middle states, and by the election at the same
time of governors in one-third of the repub-
licau states of the union, the disorganizers
continued the work of tearing down during
the winter The majority of the republican
members of the legislature in each of half a
dozen states were obliged to accept the dicta-
tion of the minority to secure republican sem
ators at all. The rule appears to have been
established that tho prevailing sido at re-
publican caucus or convention must neces-
sarily be>wrong. The majority is relied on to
be too much devoted to the cause of party to
resent wrongs inflicted by the minority.
The combinations by which weak men, pre-
ferred by nobody, are foisted upon the party
in national conventions to defeat the mon OF
the people would not be entered into but for
, are too true to party to fail in the campaign.
1t is impossible TO say how far tho contempt
for party discipline which now seems to pre-
vail would extend beyond another national
convention in which the minority should
succeed in seizing national power by the de-
vices which have been known to prevail
The best way to cure all this is to prevent it.
Let the masses Of the republican party as.
sert themselves and exterminate the dudes
and tho rogues who praise themselves as re-
5 formers when they arc really political tramps
> and impostors. Let the voters who carry the
o elections determine to have voice in the
l. affairs of tho party. And, above all, let VI
t have some nobler aud more inspiring war cry
( than the wickcdness of the republican party
" of the past and the divine right of minorities t.
rule. And as to bossism, let no man be allowed
to exercise any influence he does not possess
% and no man be allowed to lead any who do no
t choose to follow, Thus shall the republican
party again ground itself on the solid founda
l tlon of common sense, and the gates of democ
o racy shall not prevail against it.