The Monitor., 1884-10-31
MISS wILLARD's ELOQUENCE.
Her Reasons for Becoming q PrOhf.
bftiOntSf.
Her Distrust of the South Dtspe1led-
Necessity of a New Party-A Raiiyfng
Cry for all SeetiOns-TemPeranc
is in Politics TO stay-The Ac.
fiAu of the BreNers.


women were invited to attend as delegates.
But while admired the progressive spirit
thus indicated, it seemed to me clearly my
duty not to go. Always profoundly inter
ested in politics as the mightiest force on
earth except Christianity, and trained to
be stanch Republican, both my educa-
ton and sympathies were arrayed on Gar
fields side. Besides, labored under the
hallucnation that the South secretly wait
ed its opportunity to reopen the issues OF
the war. During all that stormy summer
of the Presidential campaign did not hear
Neal Dow's candidacy spoken of with in
terest by the workers of the W. {. L. u,
and vet we all honored and gloried in that
brave father of the Maine law. In contrast
to the apathy With which We regarded the
Third Party movement, you will remem-
Der the profound enthusiasm that greeted
Gen. Garfields name at our annual meet
ing in Boston, and that later on we hailed
his election as an answered prayer.
Dear sisters, since then, by your COM
mission. have visited the Southern States,
and met in every one of them representa-
tives and leaders of opinion. ! have seen
their acceptance in good faith of the issues
of the war-a good faith sufficiently attest
ed by the great loyalty they invaribly man.
ifested toward President Garfield, in spite
of his army record, his radical utterances
in Congress- and the uncompromising tone
of his clear-cut inaugural. | have seen
Northern capital pouring into those once
disaffected States in uneounted millions,
and | know there is no stronger bridge
across the 'bloody chasm' than this one
woven out of national coin and supported
by the iron -jointed cables of self-interest.
have seen their legislatures making State
appropriations for the education of the
freedmen and helping to sustain those ''col
ored schools" whose New England teach
ers they once despised | have learned
how ex-masters cheered to the echo the
utterances of their eX slaves in the great
Prohibition Convention of North Carolina,
and my heart has glowed with the hope of
a real ''home government for the South,
and color line broken not by bayonets
or repudiationists, but by ballots from
white hands and black for prohibitory law.
Seeing is believing, and on that sure basis
| believe the South is ready for party
| along thelines of Longitude party that
shall wipe Mason md Dixon's line out of
/ tJn ri oil off ha
Anglo-Saxons of the New World into one
royal family, and give us really reunited
States With what deep significance is
this belief confirmed by the South's tender
and the unbroken group of States that so
lately knelt around our fallen hero $
| grave.
But this new party cannot bear the name
of Republican or Democratic. Neither
victor or vanquished would accept the old
war cry of section. Besides, 'the party
of moral IDEAS has ceased to have dis
tinctive policy. Was its early motto Free
Territory ?" We have realized it. Later
did it delare that the Union must be pre-
served and slavery abolished Both have
been done. Did it demand negro enfran-
chisement and the passage of bill of Civil
| Rights? Both are accomplished facts, SO
far as they can be until education completes
the desired work. Was the redemption of
our financial pledges essential to good faith?
| That noble record of the Republican party
| I,a
tions still unsettled, as Civil Service Re
| form, both parties claim to desire it; or a
National Fund for Southern Education,
each deems it necessary. But when We
name the greatest issue now pending on
this or any other continent-thc prohibi-
ton of the manufacture and sale of intoxi-
eating liquors as drink-behold, the Re
publcans of Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont vote for and the Republicans of
North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois against
it, Willie the Democrats of Kansas oppose
and of South Carolina favor it, Now.
blame neither party for this inconsistency;
it is simply the handwriting ON the wall,
which tells that both are weighed in the
balances and found wanting. For they are
formed Of men who, while they thought
alike, and fought alike on many great ques
tions Oh this greatest of all questions are
hopelessly divided; and "a house divided
against itself cannot stand" This is saw
ing nothing whatever against the house; it
is recognizing the law Of gravitation, that
is all. In 1868 slavery was the determining
factor IN American politics. In 1881 that
final factor is the liquor traffic. Then,
while the Prohbitonists of Maine marched
to the front with Gen. Neal Dow, the Ger
mans were proud ITO fight nit Sigel' but
to-day the bayonets OF these two champions
and their followers no longer point one
way. Gen. Sigel approved the Sabbath
breaking demonstration at Newark, and
Gen. Dow is the chief defender of law
which shuts such men up in jail John b.
Cough and Philip Best, the brewer, voted
the self-sane ticket; So did Gov. St. John
of Kansas, and Boss Hesing. editor of
the Stoats Zed,ng, Of Chicago. But it is
morally impossible that they should do so
now. The Republican party in Ohio and
Illinois can only win throuoh German vntos