The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-09-16
Some National Issues. .


campaign Senator Sherman has shown
that the true principles of the republic
can party, to which it must adhere in
any event, and which form the ground
work of its opposition to democratic
administration, are broad and easily
understood. The democratic party is
weak and radically wrong in its posi-
tons on national issues. Its general
policy is one of make-shifts and eva
sions. The time since the accession of
that party to power has been spent in a
desperate struggle for Office and futile
efforts to find grounds for the WORKOUT
democratic charges of fraud in the eX
ecutive departments. The promises so
profusely made of administrative re-
form are shown to rest upon an UNI
stable foundation. Likewise the prom
Use of business revival to follow
Cleveland's election; for the improve
ment in trade conditions just setting in
is clearly due to circumstances beyond
the control or power of the admin
istration.
The republican party still has high
duties to perform in relation to national
affairs. There is hardly need of new
issues to draw to the party the needed
elements of strength that will restore it
to national control. AS Senator Sher-
man has said, the republican party was
not wrecked in the campaign of last
year; it suffered temporary defeat
through the recreancy of disgruntled re-
publicans in three important states, and
the disappointments, personal contests
and controversies incident to a long
lease of power.
The issues of that contest still re-
main, and they need again to be pro-
claimed. 1t is manifestly the duty of
the republican party to carry on such
reforms in the civil service as will Sc
cure the best practical results; but in all
efforts to divorce public administration
from partisan and personal spoliation it
must be careful to observe constitu-
tional limitations, to respect the free
political action of individuals and avoid
the danger of burdening the nation
with a privileged office-holding class
and large civil pension list. This
will prove the most difficult part of its
great task, but there is certainly enough
of intelligent and profound statesman
ship in the party to formulate rational
and consistent policy on this great issue.
The republican party must continue
to maintain the conclusions of nation
ality determined by the civil war, while
respecting the constitutional rights re-
served to the states. 1t will recognize
always the duty Of healing the wounds
of the war, but it must always insist
upon the observance of every principle
that is essential to popular freedom
and the maintenance of equal political
rights. 1t must continue to advocate
protection of American national and
industrial independence. 1t must in
sist that education is duty that be-
longs to the nation when any state
neglects or is Unable to provide for it.
The republican party must also con-
tinue to sustain sound financial policy
and just arrangement of the burdens
of taxation; and press measures for the
encouragement of our shipping inter-
ests, the judicious regulation of in
ternal commerce and the develop
ment of the vast material resources of
the country. 1t must antagonize any
policy that would make loyalty odious
and treason respectable and obliter-
ate the distinctions between patriots
and unrepentant rebels. 1t cannot,
consistently with its past record, ac-
quiesce in policy that practically
nullifes the results secured by the wal
and reconstruction, though it can con-
sent to the most generous policy of
paciication when the southern bour.
bons cease to retain their political
supremacy by unconstitutional and I'M
righteous means.
1t will appear from this brief and in
complete generalization that there are
many important and irreconcilable
points of difference between the two
great political parties of the country
and that administrative reform" is
not the only national issue, as the
mugwumpian oracles would have us
believe. 1t is also made apparent that
the republican party has no need tc
thrive upon the errors of the party il
power, that it has no need ever
to rely on its past grand achieve
ments-though the nation should evel
hold them in grateful and just remem
brance-but that it has well-defnet
principles and policies of present anC
future concern to stimulate it to agrees
i've action and to win the support of th,
best political elements of the country.
DakOta's Demand.
The arrival in Washington of tn,