The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1884-08-14
The Independents.


The indications are that the indie
pendent voters will exert a remarkable
influence in the presidential election,
on account of there being several
tickets in the field to widen the range
for independent voting. In a GER
tain sense the independent voter is
the true nobleman of the elective
franchise. In parties, as among indi-
viduals comprising them, there are
periods of caducity from which the
tendency is to degeneracy and the big
oted partisan who imagines that the
pathway of any political organization
is to be perpetually strewn with sue
cess has but lived in the frig1dity of
the coolest abstraction. New parties
are the inevitable results of 1ndepend-
ent thought and action, and
it is independence in voting
that upsets political combination
and eventually overturns the power of
the dominant party if not very largely
in the ascendant. The fact that the
strength of the republicans is almost
exclusively confined to the northern
states, and that the democrats are so
much stronger in the north than the
republicans are in the south, argues
the decadence of the republican and
relative growth of the democratic
party as a national instead of sec
tional organization. The republicans
have already so far lost the limited
foothold which the vote of the negroes
afforded them that they can Only count
upon a single southern state for
Blaine. The negro vote, too, has in
| creased southern representation in the
electoral college to the advantage of
the democrats, since it no longer turns
the scales Of the popular vote in the
south in favor of the republicans
No matter what the principles of a
party may be, parties live as they OBJ
serve, or eventually perish as they be-
come corrupt and disregard them.
Reform is the fat of political indie
pendence, the tocsin of the independ-
ent voters of all parties. History
attests this, and nowhere so emphatic
ally as in this county, where the plia-
bility of republican institutions and
liberal form of government affords
scope and elasticity to political COM
binations. On this view independent
voters feel that what is so often
boosted of as party fealty" is too
tenacious for their honor as indi-
viduals, or their patriotism as citi-
zens, and that it is only when
they rise superior to partisan
dictation and party corruptions that
they properly assert their manhood
and exercise the true philosophy of
craftsmanship. A bigoted partisan
becomes but a spoke in the party
wheel, revolving with right or wrong;
but the independent voter who boldly
slams the door in the face of party
abuses despite party power or the
party lash, Is one who acts most in
harmony with the machinery of good
government. Certainly whatever
party fealty with its too susceptible
appetite and relish for the spoils OF
Office means loyalty to the general
welfare of the country, signifies some
thing far more enobling and it
is by the exercise of a
manly independence by the
| independent voters that right and
justice may be expected to triumph al
the polls. All honor is due then tc
the Independents" who, with zoe
men eclecticism propose to vote fol
Cleveland rather than Blaine in the
broad interests of the whole country
rather than the limited interests Of
the republican party, or indeed of any
party not loyal to the general welfare
Sticking to party, and voting for a
candidate Of the party right or wrong
smacks too strongly of consistency
known as the consistency of fools, to
be virtue, but there is &
virtue and consistency too in main.
tanning it in changing, not only once
but dozen times if necessary to as
sert an honest principle and voting
tor an honest man as the representa-.
tive of such principles. This is the
influence which seems calculated to
elect Mr.. Cleveland, especially in a
complex campaign in which candi.
dates of one or more independent par
ties are likely to remain in the field
to affect the leading political organi-