New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-03-26
LEARNING SOMETHING.

1t Is a good time this ycar for Republican
voters to consider somewhat seriously the
causes of their past successes, and the causes
Of their past defeats There can be no live
controversy between parties until the next ses-
sion of Congress shall have assembled and the
Democratic party shall have committed itself
TO some position Oh living questions. The Re
pubhcaus have eight or nine months for med
itation. The results of the latest elections
indicate that a season of sober determination
may do them good.
| The time has gone by when a party could
be made successful by becoming the tail OF
one man, or defeated by refusing to make one
man it's head. Not many years ago some luna
ties imagined that the Republican Iarty had
neither right nor chance to succeed unless
it became a mere pedestal on which to
lift up Grant. That notion long ago
became ridiculous even the 1906" are
now ashamed of it, The country exists and
prospers, and the party has won two Prcsi-
| Dental victories. and has discovered that it
needs him no more than a coach needs a fifth
wheel. The stilted leadership of Mr. COnkling
| has in like manner become an exploded idea.
| The notion that the President must be its
| leader was buried under an adverse majority
of 100000 in his own State, while the party
succeeded not ill in some other states where
different ideas prevailed. The party cannot
be made successful by hitching it to the coat
tail of any leader whatever, and it cannot be
doomed to defeat by rejecting the leadership
of any individual.
But the party must have learned that it is
not profitable to thrust some men forward as
| nf lie N
1t did not gain anything by setting up Mr.
Keifer and Mr.. Robson as oxemplars of iis
sagacity or its worth. In every State where
it has met with disaster. those who choose to
read events can see that 1t was more
or less loaded down with men who have
become unacceptable to independent voters
for one reason or another, but whom the party
machinery was nevertheless used 20 thrust
| forward. If the party wishes to succeed it must
find to represent II men VINO are acceptable to
those whose votes it needs. 1t does not much
matter whether man has been merely worn
out by long ol1ice-seoking or exercise of power
or has been found wanting III sagacity, or has
been detected in unworthy acts; in either case
if he has become unacceptable to those whose
votes the party needs, an attempt to make the
party a hospital for him will lead to defeat
In a larger sense. the success or the party
has always been due to real or supposed hdel-
ity to its principles. Its defeats have always
been due TO real or apparent want of fidelity
to those principles. 1.-THE machine" without
the principles, has a bad knack of getting
smashed. Any leader, however popular, whC
shiIks Republican duties and hampers with Re-
publican convictions, is apt to lead into the
ditch. There has been SO much experience
of that sort, and such convincing proc
that sturdy fidelity to convictions wins the
hearts and the support of men, that the lesson
ought to sink deep. Mr.. Conklng was un-
questiomably popular. But he lived for sell
and for the offices, and shirked the electoral
question in 1872 and the money question re-
peatedly, while saving his force for the flesh
pots. Slr. Hoar was strong in Massachusetts,
but he failed to represent the conscience o.