The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-02-24
Still Blundering..

we never had any doubt that our
Democratic friends would blunder'
away the fruits of their late victory
and the prestige which their success
in the November elections gave,
them. That of course was the expec-
Iation OF every intelligent citizen
who had watched the course of the
party and known its history for the
past twenty years. 1t has so often
upset its own dish so soon as it was,
fairly filed that we have come to-
look for nothing else. I'm the very
hour of its victory public opinion dis
counts its defeat in the Immediately
succeeding contest. 1t was in con-
sequence of this feeling of the COM
Portable and confident assurance that
however noisily they came in last
November, they had not come TO-
stay. that the great good natured
public took it so philosephically as it
did, enjoying it as a huge joke in
stead of lamenting over it as a calam-
ity. Everybody understood that the
first purpose being answered, of
bringing the Republican party back
to its senses and out of control of the
"Bosses," the second was to give the
Democratic party rope enough to-
hang itself.
But no one supposed the leaders in
the present Congress were going to-
begin the laundering so soon. 1t
was thought they might possess their
souls in patience, and not begin adj
justing the moose around the party's
neck until the XLVIIIth Congress
should have chance at it. There
was a period of few weeks, as all
remember, Immediately f flowing
the elections, when the party seemed
quite sobered by the responsibilities
1T was about to assume. Some of its
newspaper organs discoursed very
sensibly upon the subject. They
seemed aware that the place Of great
est peril for the party was just ON the
edge OF power; that it had been so
long its habit as to have become al
most its second nature to go wild with
excuses on the heels of temporary
success, and so throw away the furth-
er fruits of victory; and they set
themselves at work to counsel reason
and counterfeit the ruinous tendency.
They seemed so conscious of the reak
state Of affairs and common sense,
and the whole party had such an APP.
pearance of being impressed with the
necessity of behaving itself deco
rously and properly, that we really
had no idea that they would com
NIT any serious blunders during the
short session of the present Congress.
We counted too much on their dis
erection and good sense. The Demo-
Gratis of the XLVIIth Congress could
not wait for their successors to begin
the laundering. They wanted to
make the people sorry for having
given them a majority in the next
Congress before that body meets.
They have entered upon that enter
prise with every pro spect of success
They are proposing to saddle them
selves with the responsibility of de.
feating every attempt to pass Tariff
Dill during the session. The result of
such a policy will be that in the first
place they will make themselves obi
Gus to the manufacturer and business
men of the country by their persis-
tent and factiOus opposition TO the
passage of any law adjusting existing
inequalities in the traffic. Second,
they will take the tariff question
upon which they have never been
able to agree, and with which they
had most melancholy experience in
the last Presidential campaign-over
into the next Congress, where they
will be very likely to quarrel over
and perhaps split upon it. Third,
the chances are that they will have no
better success in the next Congress in
agreeing upon tariff than i'm the
,hree Congresses in which they have
already failed miserably. If they
all, they have an element of weak
hess and discOrd for their Presiden-
ial canvass of 1884. If they should
succeed in agreeing upon and passing
tariff, they would have something
positive to defend, and experience
caches us that their only hope before
ne people is never in Offering any
positive policy of their own, only in
the policy of their oppo-
rents. In other words they are never
but always destructive
n their tendencies and practice.
1t seems almost incredible that
hese people can be so blind. It is
lnestion out of which Democrats can
certainly make no capital except as
hey can find opportunities to criti-
Use and condemn Republican treat
nent OF it. And now that Republi-
ans propose to take the responsibility
y OF passing a measure upon which
hey are willing to go to the people.
eaving it open for Democrats to pick
laws in for the next eighteen months,
he Democrats are resorting to parlia-
1entary tactics to defect them.
What elemental stupidity.-N. Y.
Tribune,