The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-15
THE MAN AND THE ISSUE.
A Ringing and Righteous Letter from
Hon. Edward Everett Hale.
The Men Who Furnish The Votes Should
Direct the General Policy of the
National Government,
Letter IN the Philadelphia Press.

Lettsr in the Philadelphia Press.
Gouverneur Morris said to Josiah Quincy
eighty years ago. 'The great mistake we made
was In the beginning, when we united eight re-
publics to five oligarchies."
The eight republics were eight free States of
Che old thirteen.
The five oIigarchies were the five slave States
Of those days.
The republics were governed by their people.
The oligarchies were governed by handfuls of
planters.
It is now proposed to the people of the North
err States, who are used to governing their own
States, that they shall give the government of
the country to the handful of men who govern
the Southern States. This is what is meant
when ii is said that government is to be trans
ferred TO the hands of the Democratic party
The real people of the North will be very sorry
IL this thing is ever done, even If it Is done
through their own negligence.
What is called the Democratic party means
the solid South with such help as it can pick up
among r few disconnected people at the North,
generally Irishmen who do not yet know the
way in which their race has always been treated
BY the people. If Mr.. Blaine we're to be chosen
by the Northern States only, as Mr.. Lincoln
was chosen by his second election, he would re-
ceive vote as strong as Mr. Lincoln. 1t is the
Southern aristocracy--what Gouverneur Morris
calls the Southern oligarchy"-which is ex-
pected TO defeat Mr.. Blaine and to govern the
country
They must not be permitted to do this, be-
cause they do not know how to govern the
country
They never did
They 90 not know the country nor the priuci-
pies of republican government, and there is no
L. 4, 49, Lao
They live in thinly -peopled States and they
despise the laboring people. They do not let
them vote. They do not want to have them
educated. They keep the government of their
own States in their own hands. And now they
want to take the government of the country into
their own hands
They had it, in substance, from 1901 to 1860
They would like to have it from 1884 for fifty
Northern 'sore heads" and by few adventur-
ers, that they shall be tried again"
You might as well try stage coaches again after
railroads-as few dainty young gentlemen who
probably call themselves independents" in
New York, are now doing
You might as well try fint-locks after Rom
ington rifles.
Government advances from age to age 1t is
idle to go back to an experiment which has been
tried and failed as completely as has this method
of governing by small selected upper class"
That thing cannot be started again, except to
ruin the nation which tries it.
The question before US is, in substance, the
same as the question at this moment before
England "Shall the country be governed by all
its people, or shall it be governed by small and
convenient body of men, used TO government
who dlstrust the people4"
It is common to say that the Democratic party
has Numbered whenever it has had chance.
This is substantially true. But why is it +rue7
lit is because the leaders of that party the men
kwho have the solid strength, do not know the
A = II IL
EAmerican people. How should Mr.. Calhoun,
sliving in that wilderness which we call South
carolina, know of the great movements of the
people of America2 The Southern States are
lBti1 very thinly peopled. They have very few
! of the Organizations of life with which govern
ment has to deal The simple, patriarchial life
which their writers boast of has very little in
common with the conditions of modern society
In other parts of the world.
1t has followed that the Southern government
of this country whether the Virginia dynasty
which lasted twenty-five years, OF the Carroll
MAN dynasty of Mr.. Calhoun. or the Mississip-
plan dynasty Of Mr.. jeff Davis, failed to de-
Veiop the country on the true lines of republic
America never knew what a republic could
aehieye-a government ''of the people, for the
people, by the people" until 1860.
Crotohets and theories of the governing hand
full broke to pieces the currency again and again
AN absurd prejudice destroyed the maritime
commerce of New England in the early part of
the century. A whim more ridiculous sci back
the internal improvements of the country, under
the pretext that the general government could
not interfere
Nor can it be said that the abolition of slavery
has substantially changed the Southern plant
ing class or the habits of Southern government
These men cannot govern their own States now,
lin the sense of the word govern" which belongs
to it in a republic. They have had twenty years
full swing since the reconstruction But they
cannot establish decent school system. Every
10 INC %1o Co. NJ.
cities craving money for Southern schools They
cannot attract emigration to their empty fields
There Is so little law there that emigrants will
not go. People will not buy their State stocks
and their finance is so wretched that they dare
not even put bond upon the market
All this shows that heVgoverning class cannot
govern. They can keep the power in their own
hands fSix thousand two hundred vote in
Mississippi send one member to Congress, where
IN Philadelphia it requires Al 900, one votes in
Mississippi being worth as much, on the tn cory
of these men, as six voters in Pennsylvania are.
But they cannot govern Mississippi. They can
mot make law and order there. They cannot
make prosperity there. They do not know how
to administer republic.
In the year 1860 the people of the North, for
the first time since 1901, got possession of the
national government The people sent into ad-
ADMINISTRATION men who knew the peoples life
The people, which had governed States before
and brought them to high prosperity, now as
sumed for the first time the government of the
Nation. The people applied methods unknown
Ia the history of the world before and achieved
results unknown m the history of the world be-
fore.
The Southern rulers Of the Nation, in count
dess whims and fancies, have kept the currency
of the country doubtful uncertain, and in one
Instance left the country without any
The people. business-like and not given to
whims, established national currency in which
the furthest outpost is as we'll served as tho
city OF New York, and the most ignorant man
Ia the Nation cannot suffer by banking insolv
Hnoy.
The Southern rulers had held that internal i'm
provenent by the Nation was impossible.
The people built three national routes to the
nnd Of this last success the result is that
xZ.laat Aanr is ahaa,,a. il, th. Eaat..,r !