Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-11-27
Win the Republican Party Dieq

VIII the Republican party die? It
was thought by many that its mission
was ended with the adjustment of
slavery and the close of the war. It
has lived some time for the most part on
false pretense, and has achieved success
by purchase and through schemes bad
enough to threaten the destruction of ey-
erything for which a party ought to live.
The Star-Route vi1lainy, both as to
the robbery and the trial which followed
it, had perhaps as much to do with Re-
publican defeat as any thing else. The
corruption in the Navy Department, the
whisky and other rings of Grants sec
ond Administration, the Republican
craze for vast wealth and wild specula-
ton and the widespread ruin wrought
by it, the unjust tariff, the heavy taxa
ton, the depression in business as re-
suit of Republican rule and the suffer-
ing of labor interests in consequence,
afforded evidence enough that the party
deserved to go out of power, and are
perhaps evidence enough that it ought
to go to pieces.
If it survives its present defeat what
will it do? 1t has declared itself against
temperance and is hard at work at this
moment in denunciation of st. John
and his disciples. 1t will still be the
party of the monopolists, for Democracy
is opposed to monopoly and its success
is built largely upon that opposition;
but four years is long time, and with
in that period monopoly will be robbed
by judicious legislation and Govern
ment of much of its power 1t is at its
best sectional party-with every OPP
portunity to establish itself in the South
it failed to do so. and it can look for no
hope there. Neither can it recover its
lost power in the North by creating an
unjust prejudice against the other local
ity. The time for this has gone by.
The effort in that direction made by
John Sherman just previous to the late
campaign was wretched failure. The
miserable falsehood that Democracy
means restoration to slavery which
has brought such terror to Southern
whites and blacks alike will have an eff
feet upon the voters of both the North
and South which will hurt the Repub-
ican party badly. 1t will strengthen the
Democratic ranks in both sections, for
the lie will be shown to be lie, and the
truth will bring discredit upon most of
the stories of Southern outrage on which
If the Republican party lives, how
will it manage to get back the indie
pendent Republicans who had so large
an influence upon the late election?
Why should they go back on it if the
Administration of the man for whom
they voted proves to be good and the
party at his back proves to be worthy
of the confidence placed in it? How
can they serve both monopoly and
labor, or will they repudiate the one
in order to serve the other? VIII they
come out openly for protection? That
would be more dangerous than it has
yet been, for the people have learned,
and will become more and more familiar
with the fact, that protection in Re-
publican hands means protection for
capital alone and insists that labor
shall be without protection in every
market. This tariff question is not the
bugbear it has been. 1t will be more
discussed during the next four years
than it has been during the past thirty
years. Democrats may now have the
courage of their convictions in favor of
tariff reform, for they have nothing to
fear; and the people have discovered
that under Republican protection they
have grown poorer until hundreds of
thousands of them are suffering hui
initiation as workers that they have
never suffered before
How can the Republican party live?
What shall it live for? Who, outside
OF the beaten monopolist and the perch
NAL office-holders, cares whether it
lives or diese-N Y Gra7hic