Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-10-25
DEsPoNDENCY IN WASHINGTON.
The Republican Party just Before 1t
Has to Go.

Neao York SIN Washington Letter. 22d.
No political event has happened for
many years which has made so profound
an impression on the office holders in
Washington as the recent election in
Ohio; and yet many of them had passed
through the harsh experiences of 1874
and 1882, when Republican majorities
were east out of the House of Represen-
tatives by an indignant and outraged
people.
The OllicehOlders are party barOmeters.
Since the advent of Grantism, they have
been taught to regard politics as bust
ness, superior to public duty. All the
States have "Republican Associations
at the capital, organized for political
work. They send voters home at every
important election, and furnish speakers
to represent the wishes Of the President
and of the Cabinet individually.
Each association keeps minute record
of the votes i'll every precinct of its own
State at all the elections, national, State,
county or municipal. Changes are care
fully noted, with the causes that may
have brought them about. This machinery
is maintained at public expense for the
benefit of the administration.
When Ohio elected Democratic Secre-
tary of State and a majority of the Con-
gressiOnal delegation last year. the office
became reconciled to that defeat, and
explained it by the smallness of the aggre-
gate vote and the default of Il, 900 Re
publicans, who stayed at home to punish
the successor of Garfield.
They looked forward with confidence to
the contest this year, in the full belief
that the State would resume its place in
the Republican line. But with the largest
vote ever cast at local election, and
with The issues made for effect by their
leaders, the Republicans are defeated by
Il crushing majority.
The Democrats have thus carried Ohio
in two successive elections immediately
preceding the Presidential contests. for
the first time since the organization of the
Republican party. All the attempts to
explain away the causes of this great re-
action, and all the promises of the re-
jected leaders for better work in 1884.
have failed to console the office holders.
| They take no comfort in future eXpecta-
tiOns. They have lost faith in the ability
OF the party to rally successfully in the
face of such reyerses.
1t is an open secret that the President
and his advisers were as much stunned
by the result in Ohio as their subordi-
mates in the departments, who are begin
ming to prepare for the exodus III 1885,
which they believe to be inevitable.
These high officials, who have passed the
summer in wandering about the country
and in apprOpriating public property to
their personal use and pleasure, do not
understand why neglect of duty should
be rebuked. The party organs had as
sured them the administration was i'm
mensely popular, and that the President
would be nominated by the Republican
Convention without fail.
N this delusiOn has not entirely passed
away, there will be little left of it after
the November elections, a fortnight hence.
When these returns shall be sifted, Re
publican candidates for the Presidency
who have been posing with much COM
placency, and who have accepted the
sweet incense of adulatiOn as testimony
of personal merit and political strength.
when it was only the fulsOme flattery of
selfish partisans seeking office or jobs,
will discover they are not wanted in the
nuhlit. SprNicp