The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-06-25
THE REPUBLICAN, NOMINA.
TON.

Harper's Weekly Republ
The nomination of Mr.. Blaine does
not change the views of its inexpediency
that We have freely expressed. Harperis
Weekly has said nothing upon the sub
/ ject without careful consideration, and
the fact of the nomination does not
change its conviction that the Republican
campaign with the candidacy of Mr..
Blaine must be prolonged explanation
and defense. The campaign of this year
will be one in which the personality of
candidates will be more vigorously scru-
tinted than ever, because there is no
great supreme issue of national peril or
national policy which will engross the
attention of the people, and this scrutiny
invites defeat.
Under such circumstances, when A
party appeals to the country for vote of
confidence, it. will naturally be Judged by
the representative whom it deliberately
selects. To him the country will turn
to see what the party honors, and what
qualifications it holds to be essential for
the highest trust. 1t would, We think,
have been possible to name candidate
whose nomination, with the present
feeling of the country, would have been
equivalent to an election, a candidate
who would have aroused all the old
Republican enthusiasm by appealing to
the desire of pure and progressive poll
tics, which was the animating principle of
the other Republican empaigns. Original
ly the Republican party was reform
party and having achieved the greatest of
reforms emancipation and in an amended
Constitution, freed of all faint of slavery,
it is strongest when its young and ar
dent workers, the real workers" of
party, feel that it is still essentially a
progressive and aggressive reform organ
ization, and when they know that it is 1
led in Presidential year by candidate
who is in character true and fitting
representative of political progress and |
reform. The fact that candidate is |
selected who is not such representa- |
tive properly alarms them and shakes |
their faith in the party.
The nomination of Mr.. Blaine
although it is doubtless agreeable to |
the majority of the party, as shown at
Chicago, because large part of the APP
parent opposition, as in the Indiana and |
Illinois, and even in the Ohio delegation,
was friendly to his nomination-ought |
to alarm honest Republicans as showing
how dangerously far the Republican
standard has fallen. The nominations
at Chicago, made against the most friend
" Republican remonstrance, have forced
upon Republicans the conviction that
the great objects of the Republican party
honest and economical administration,
peaceful and honorable foreign relations,
the progressive publication of the public
service at home, wise reduction Of the
revenue, and that sense of general seeu-
rity which springs from the moral ele-
walton of the Observation-Disclosures not
to be expected from Republican success.
To this statement it is no reply that less
is to be expected from the Democrats.
Those who have aroused the deep and
general protest of the Republican con-
science must bear the responsibility of
the result. Fidelity to Republican prin-
ciple requires indifference to the present
success and HarpeI's Weekly
which more than once has not hesitated
in the interest of public morality and of
party publication to oppose other Re
publican nominations, cannot sustain
the significant one against which it has
so earnestly protested, and which is a
practical abdication of Republican
character and purpose The sad and
kindly face of Lincoln, whose portrait
hung in the hall, seemed to watch the
of the Convention with an
air of earnest solicitude and apprehension
and it had disappeared from its place
before the nomination was made.