Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1884-09-04
AN ABLE ADDRESS.
A Review Of the Republican
Party's Record.

counting the Republican Par
fgs gg,,ce n.sfory a,,a e shd.ss Esfraga- rress
Acts OF JoB6e7-v.
The recent address to the public by the
committee of one hundred, representing
the Massachusetts, anti-Blaine Republi-
cans, contains the following:
eve are told that the past of that
party is glorious, and that we are there
fore bound to support its candidate to-
day. We yield to none in our pride at
its great achievements or in our devotion
to its principles, but when the lesson of
its past is forgotten and its principles are
abandoned, its name alone cannot COM
mand our allegiance. The question is
not what the Republican party has done,
but what it will do; not what it was,
but what it is, not whether Lincoln and
Seward and Sumner and Andrew and
Stanton and Fessenden were great men
and leaders, but whether Blaine and Robe
son and Keifer and Elkins and Clayton
and Kellogg are men to whom we can
safely confide the future of our coun-
try. For many years corruption in high Of
fee has been conspicuous. 1t has shown
itself in every department Of the public
service. We have seen Vice President
driven into private life by proof Of per
sonal dishonesty; secretary of war i'm
peached for participation in felony;
secretary of the navy charged with cor
rupt practices and leaving Office under
cloud of suspicion, only to appear asa
Republican leader in the House of Repre-
sentatiyes; a secretary of the interior
forced from his Office by charges affect
/ ing his personal and official character;
an attorney general compromised by evi-
dence Of petty fraud. We have not for
getten Colfax and Belknap and Robson
and Delano and Williams.
In the treasury department we have
seen prominent officers implicated in San
born contracts and suspected of COM
plicity in the gigantic conspiracy to de-
fraud the revenue known as the whisky
ring, and the private secretary of the
President indicted as a conspirator, while
the minister who sought to punish the
criminals was dismissed from Office. In
the postoffice department we have seen
an assistant Secretary conspirirg with
Senators of the United States in Star
route frauds, and the conspirators boldly
defying the government, which was pow.
erless to secure justice in its own capital
city. We have seen the last Republican,
Speaker disgraced by proof that he had
shamefully abused his appointing power,
and in face of this evidence, which mas
destroyed the confidence of his constitu-
ents, again the chosen candidate of the
Republican party for the same high
Office. In the signal service we have
seen a superintendent. in the treas
ury department chief clerk,
and in other departments trusted
officers guilty of stealing the public
money. We have seen the guilty pro-
tected, but we have yet to see them
punished. We have seen the whole
patronage of the Federal government used
openly to support q leader in Virginia,
whose principal is repudiation and whose
methods violate every rule of political
morality. We have seen the public
business neglected, the reform of the
civil service sneered at, and political
assessments levied in defiance of party
promises and public opinion, until the
wave of popular indignation forced a re-
luctant Congress to inaugurate reform.
The evils of debased currency have
been disregarded; our navy is monu-
ment of ma administration; the surplus,
with all its temptations to extravaganza;
remains substantially undiminished
:" Finally, we have seen the Repubh-
can party relying for its continuance in
power, not ON its own achievements, but
on the mistakes Of its opponents, and
we have seen its leaders not seeking to
prevent, but 10 encourage these mistakes
In order that thereby, at their countrys
expense, they might be furnished with
arguments for their continuance
in power We have seen all these things,
and have been told that the party must
be reformed from within; that our
remedy lay in its caucuses and conven-
tions. For years we have Welded to
this advice, and have struggled against
the men who have sought to use the
party for base personal ends. At times
we have thought them beaten, and have
hoped that the party, which was once
so great, might emancipate itself
from the control cf the men who had
degraded it and reassert its original
character. Instead, we now see these
men promoted and their influence in
creased, while under their inspiration
the party turns its back upon its princi-
pies. and, in place of declaring in clear
words its policy on the questions Of the
day, BY equiyocal declaration and un-
manly appeals to prejudice, seeks to
secure votes only to perpetuate the power
! of to apd ~ ~ o1x- tha
prosperity of the country.
Its candidate Tor President is a man
charged with the basest of public crimes
the abuse of political power for his
own pecuniary advantage who for
eight years has never dared to demand
that full investigation of the charges
which his political associates would
gladly have accorded, and by which
alone those charges can be met. Upon
the evidence already produced we believe
him guilty, and we know that many Of
his prom nent supporters share our be-
| lief. Their declarations before his nomi-
nation, their silence or their guarded
language in public addresses since, are
conclusive evidence of this. He is CON
victed by his own statements of delib-
crate faIsehood on the most solemn occa-
sion. The men who in the past have
disgraced the Republican party are united
| in his support, and admitted to con
trolling influence in the conduct Of ms
campaign. while of the honest men who
are joined with these, the leaders are
largely either holders of or candidates
for public Office, who urge their fellow
citizens to follow them more to preserve
the party than because they approve its
chief In fine, the Republican party has
to-day no policy which it dares to avow
and leader whom it cannot defend
'1t is idle to hope that, with such
leadership, the abuses of the past can be
corrected or the party reformed. I'm
der the influences which now dominate
its councils. its tendency must be down