Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-03-07
CAN THE PARTY AFFORD ITEn

Al tI SiOiuSuI pSiOTdllOl tiAdt tIic hepuD-
Hcan party is not strong enough to stand
up under the outrages perpetrated at the
primary of Saturday last, and still third
announced that he was opposed to the
venality and corruption disclosed to the
Convention as having been perpetrated in
the name of the organization, because he
wanted to see the party triumphant in its
battles.
Each of these citizens was right in his
declaration; each was moved TO it by
clean impulses and for honest purposes;
each thought it necessary to address the
grosser, or polite, sense of the men of the
Convention. But it was in fact the argu-
ment that clothes the misleading proverb
that honesty is the best policy" The
speakers were, in truth, battling against
the outrage being perpetrated in the name
of the Republican party, because it was an
outrage upon humanity, crime against
civil liberty, blow to the system of free
government, and a moral and political
crime. Yet they each realized that the
most forceful argument they could advance
to reach the political conscience was that
addressed to the fears of the party men
present.
1t is humiliating that this should be
true, and probably no one more keenly felt
1t than these courageous, protesting men.
But we have an abiding faith that away
down below and underlying the plea of
expediency, the heart of the people is
stirred against the infamies of Saturday at
the primary-no matter by whom COM
mitted or in what interest-and their con-
donation and Endorsement on Monday in the
Convention, because the wrong done ,oas
wrong, and not merely because it endangers
party success.
But passing by this view of the ques-
ton, let us see where the infamy of Satur-
day and Monday will lead us. The nom
nations for offices under modern CO..
rupt boss rule are peddled out; sold for
coin and promise; traded for spoils and
advantage, and parceled out for a consider
alton. Just as long as this is done, the
sellers of the goods must have a market
The evil will therefore continue until the
people break the backbone of that market
by putting it out of the power of the
bosses and their lieutenants to deliver the
goods. To do this they must repudiate
the means employed by these vicious in
fuences-condonation of them is equiv
alent to participation. 1t mortgages
the party to the schemes Ct the venal; it
letters party principle with the bonds of
the spoils system, and the result is as in
eyitable as the rising and setting of the
sun. In local application it will amount
to the running of the Republican party
out Of the city of Sacramento, unless
drastic remedy is applied.
So then after all, when the speakers
declared that the party cannot afford"
to become particeps criminis to the
infamous outrage upon it by those
of its own household, they uttered a
truth in political economics. For the
heart of the people being right; the
moral sense of the community being sound;
the men of the city who believe in fair
play, cleanliness, decency and order, will
disembark from ship that is being piloted
by such influences straight upon the rocks
of disaster, or they will themselves take
the helm and save the ship.
The fundamental principle of this Gov
eminent is that the people shall rule
themselves. Let no man make any MS
take about it, they will so rule. For it is
not given that free government shall be
handed over, bound foot and arm to one
man power. Until the destiny of the Re
public is fulfilled free government will not
lay down its scepter. The only way known
to our system of defeating this funda-
mental principle Of the rule of the people
by the people, is by the wrong use of the
ballot. When that wrong use succeeds,
self-government becomes a counterfeit and
a sham. 1t is not true, and never was true,
and never will be that everything in party
must be yielded for the sake of victory.
Whoever breaches that doctrine to Re
publicans is political hereto and false
prophet. Principle cannot be safely
yielded Tor temporary triumph, certainly
never when that victory can be attained
only by the Endorsement of the identical
infamous scheme against which protest is
entered.
The truth is, as Simeon Stetson has well
put it, we are but one party in this Gov
ernment-a party of two parts. There is
no partisanship in economically admins
tering municipal affairs, in protecting life
and property, in providing for the common
comfort and common safety Americans
govern themselves as free men, having
mutual obligations, and receiving mutual
benefits from their discharge. These are
not conserved by vicious boss rule, and
submission to it under the party lash is
confession of basest slavery The abuses
of our political system never stand still;
they are either reformed or increase until,
by their own momentum, they plunge into
and are lost in revolution. A man can
only be free in free country, for liberty
so far from being a sentiment is prac-
teal fact. evidenced by the preservation
and purity of the machinery through
which the popular will lis made manifest.
Neither is liberty giant standing in its
own strength; it is the product of eternal
vigilance land neyer-ceasing effort; it fol-
lows that if we are not free and self
governing community, it is our own
fault. So, too, if the local Republican
party is not rescued from the control of
the vicious elements that now dominate in
Its councils, and misuse its machinery.
Republicans viii have no one to blame but
themselves. The party has ample reform
atory strength. is capable of purging its
own system, and it will do so, as certainly
as that its destiny is unfulfilled, and that
the ,aacops for Us continued exisfa,,ca lie