The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-12-25
DASTARDLY REPUBLICANS.

The Efforts of Republican Leaders to Gre
ate Distrust and Disturb the Peace for
the Sake of Discrediting the Democ-
racy.
Since the election of President Cleve-
land the Republicans of the Blaine
stamp have been devoting their energies
to two points. They have been trying
to persuade mill owners to shut down
and turn their hands adrift, and have
been predicting all sorts of persecution
and suffering for the negroes of the
Southern" States. Fred Douglass
thinks the return of the Democracy to
power means ''the political death of the
negro" Other less intelligent Repub-
Leans are foolish enough to assert that
it is the first step towards the re-estab-
lishment of slavery.
1t is evidently the wish of some Re
publicans to disturb the peace and dam
age the business interests of the coun-
try as much as possible for the purpose
of discrediting the Democracy That
was the object of the long delay in adj
hitting defeat. These disappointed
politicians are Indifferent as to the inju-
~ they may infiict on business or indi-
viduaI so long as they can make it APP
pear that disturbance and distress result
from Democratic success.
Manufacturers will soon find that an
honest Democratic policy is far better
for them than the unhealthy favoritiSm
of Republicanism for which they have
had to pay very dearly. As to the col
ored citizens of the South, whose rights
are entirely safe under the Constitution,
no greater blessing could have befallen
them than the overthrow of the Repub-
lican party. Designing persons have
taught them that they had some great
advantage to expect from the Admins
tratiOn at Washington of which the
Democrats at home deprived them, and
this has served to keep them restless
and dissatisfied. With this deception
exploded they will settle down to the
consideration of their real interest and
the intelligent exercise of their political
rights
Democracy seeks to make people en-
lightened and happy. 1t raises the OPP
pressed, instructs the ignorant and pro-
tects the weak. Democracy would not
have conferred the franchise suddenly
on millions of negroes sunk in ignO-
rance, but since they have been in
vested with the privileges of citizens,
Democracy seeks TO make them capable
of using them intelligently.
The negroes only study their own good
when they resist the attempt of the Re-
publicans to hold them as political
chattels and vote as their own Judgment
dictates. The interests of the citizens
of a State are identical, whether their
skins are black or white, and it is quite
natural that where a majority of the
whites are Democratic majority of the
colored citizens should be the same.
Four years of Democratic rule will
dispel all the illusions raised by partisan
unscrupulousnesS for political effect.
The South will be ''solid'' in the future,
because ignorance will gradually disap-
pear and the negroes will learn that the
white residents of their own States
have naturally more regard for their in
terests and are more honestly concerned
for their prosperity than Republican
partisans, who only enfranchised them
because they believed they could use
them for their own purposes. and who
to-day, if they could, would reduce
them to condition of political servitude
only a little less degrading than the
bondage from which they were released
by the war WASHINGTON Post.