Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-08-02
Discredited Prophets.

For many years the Republican party
did a most profitable business i'm the
line of prophecy, by predicting all
manner of evil to the nation in case the
Democrats should ever come into pow
er. Indeed, it would hardly be too
much to say that this sort of thing
came at last to be almost its sole stock
in trade. 1t would be hard to exag-
gerate the gravity of its demeanor as it
assumed the prophets garb, or the con-
sternation which its gloomy words
aroused in the bosoms of its hearers.
Time moves rapidly, the public men,
DRY is short. and it will be worth while
to revive the fading memory of those
fast receding days.
For some years before his death, in
1877, Oliver P. Morton was the leader
of the Republican party in the United
States Senate. Through the recon-
struction period he represented In the
upper branch of Congress the same
potential forces as Thaddeus Stevens
in the lower. A more positive figure
has seldom been seen in public life-a
man whose logged will kept him in
his place, still the terror of opponents,
while his energies were steadily being
Slapped by mortal disease. Turn back
over set of Congressional Records
until you reach period sixteen years
in the past, open the volume which
contains the proceedings for January
%, 1872, run your eye over some re-
marks made by Oliver p. Morton in a
running debate with Allen G. Thur
man and others over bill proposing
to grant universal amnesty, and you
will find these predictions:
1 now make the prediction that, if univer-
sal amnesty shall be granted, the next step
will be to pension the rebel soldiers and put
them on level with loyal soldiers; the next
| step will be to pay rebels for their property
taken by our armies and put them on level
with loyal men; the next step will be to pay
for their slaves; and the next and last step
will be to pay their debt rs well as ours.
/ tell you, sir, that if the Demo-
cratic party comes into power, one of the
| first measures will be either to put the rebel
soldiers upon All equality with the soldiers
! of the republic, or to vote no pensions at all.
Can any intelligent person doubt that prop
| osition?
Again, if the Democratic party have ma
| jority in the other house, controlled as they
will be by the South, ask you if they will
vote money to pay the interest on your pub
10, JaLk s- do 70.
| theirs? Will they voluntarily tax themselves
to pay the interest on that debt which was
| contracted for their subjugation? tell you,
sir, they will never do it, and those interest
ed in our national honor and those interest
ed in our national debt must understand
| that the Democratic party, made up, as it
will be, two-thrds in the South and one
| third in the North, and that one-third sub
missive to the other two-thirds, acil neUer
| Uote to pay the interest on your debt except
upon the condition Of paying for their slaves,
or of consolidating the rebel debt ,o,th ours;
and they ,ciN neUer pay a dollar to the one
legged and one-armed soldier Of the North,
or to the acido,os and orphans of those soho
fell, ercept upon the condition that you put
theirs upon the same teUel.
The Republican party to-day is pre-
dieting that, if the tariff be reformed
by putting some articles upon the free
list and reducing the duties upon 9TH
ers, ruin will overwhelm the American
people, and "the United States will
sink into a mere commercial depen-
dency of Great Britain" The only
answer that seems necessary is the re-
mark that the party which is predict
ing these ills i'm 1883 is the same party
which vas predicting in 1872 that, if
the Democrats should ever come into
power, the rebel soldiers would be PEN
stoned, the slave-owners would be re-
imbursed for the loss of their property,
and the rebel debt would be paid.-N.
Y. Post.