The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-05-07
THE FRIEND OF THE ToILERs.

A Bill of Particulars Wanted to Show
Wherein the Republican Party Has Ever
Been Such "Friend."
The Cincinnati Commercial publishes
under long and flaring headlines su-
premely silly article upon '.Democra-
cy's deceit in its attitude as the friend
of the .workingrhan," in the course OF :
which we are told that ''the Republican
party is always the party of the work
ers as opposed to the friends of the
workingman. The difference is so plain
that one may run and read it. The
friends of the workingmen hold him
in bondage and thus protect him until
the party of the laborers break the
bonds, maxi, the serf citizen and pro-
vide him with homestead" If the
condition of the workingman has i'm
proved in the twenty-five years during
which the Republican party has had the
political charge of his Interests, it
would be interesting and instructive to
be furnished with bill of particulars.
The workin;yman has not found it out.
The general public has not found it out.
On the contrary the troubles and dis
content of the working classes
or, rather, the laboring classes.
for the great mass of Americans
are workers-have grown into
formidable proportions only as the Re-
publican party has been in power. Dur
ing that time we have had before us the
strange and significant spectacle of for
eign labor that supposed it was settled
for life in this land of golden oppor-
tunities pulling up stakes and going
back to Europe to better its condition.
We have had free trade in labor, but in
nothing else. We have seen a whole
empire that should have been reserved
for settlers given aw ay to corporations,
and the free. laborers, whose bonds the
Republican party claims to have broken
have been driven to the polls like sheep
and made to' vote the Republican ticket
or forfeit their situations. This and
much more to the same effect has been
the record of the Republican party,
under whose fostering care a great
plutocrcy has been established, having
for its cornerstone American labor. But
the writer, who propounds the absurd
propositions to which we have made
reference, attempts, in very incon
sistent fashion, to establish them. He
says: .Now that the party which is the
avowed friend of the laboring man is in
power, we hear about family and
] blood and coats-of-arms and family
crests and--heaven save the mar x!-
'pedigrees.' Hitherto in this free and
glorious country pedigree talk has been
mostly confined to horses, bulls and
dogs. Now we get plenty of it in con-
nection with Cabinet and other officials.
Secretary Endicott's pedigree takes
about half column in the Democratic
newspapers, putting beyond the possi-
bility of a doubt the ardent character of
his friendship for the workingman.
We do not see why coat-of-arms need
impair a mans usefulness or his De-
mocracy anv more than the possession
of piece of old family plate, or an
ancestral sword, or his grandmother S
spinning-wheel. We presume the gen.
tleman whom the new Minister to En-
gland succeeds, mas coat-of-arms,
and that every representative to the
court of St. James appointed by
Republican administrations, has been
equally favored. If we should
remove from the history of American
development and progress the part
taken by men who had possessed coats
of arms, and been justly proud of them,
we doubt whether there would be any
American Republic to-day to be repre-
sented. If 9. man makes fool of him
self on account of this family distinc-
ton, as Mr.. Edwards Pierrepont did in
employing the time that should
have been given to his country to at
tempting to trace out through the spirits
a blood relationship with British nobil-
ity, it is time to say that the family
business is being carried too far, but on
general principles man is no worse
for having had even a great grandfath.
er. His humanity and democracy are
more likely to be of kind to be trusted
than are those of the men or party who
have made gold their god and look upon
laboring men and women as SO much
raw material to be ground up and sifted
out for their enrichment and vulgar ag
grandizement- Post.
.