Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-02-02
SHERMAN'S HARANGUE.
An Independent Journal on the Decay o
the Republican Party.

the Republican Party.
Mr.. Sherman is a man of great ex-
perienee in public life, and he is one OF
publican leaders. The defeat of the
party in 1884, and the reasons of the
defeat, made it very interesting in.
quiry whether those leaders, or any OF
them, would understand the actual
change of public feeling indicated by
the campaign of "a and its results, or
whether they would look upon it as
mere mischance to be avoided in '8a
by Tightening the lines" and '.reor-
ganizing"-in other words, by dull
appeal to party spirit and traditions,
instead of a readjustment of the party
to the times. That, indeed, may not
be practicable with any party. The
signal illustration of its difficulty, at
least, is found in the earnest endeavor
of the Conscience Wings in Massachu-
sets forty years ago to persuade the
Wing party to adopt the anti-slavery
issue. In 1S47 they proposed resolu-
ton in the State convention that Mas
sachusetts would not support any cam
didate for the Presidency who was not
a well-known and active anti-slavery
man. The debate was very hot. Mr..
Webster opposed the resolution. 1t
was defeated, and the Conscience
Wings renowned the party and organ
lied the Free-Soil party, and in 1858
the Wings disappeared.
Since 1884 the Republican party
seems to have lost the power of re-
cuperation. 1t has certainly done very
little to show that it is the party of
progress and reform. Its chief cam
vass during this year was in Ohio.
paign conducted upon hostility to the
Southern States. But Mr.. Foraker
| was re-elected not because of such hos
tility, but bee ause of the general hon.
esty of his administration. The argu-
ment, however, that Republican Ma
tional ascendency would necessarily
be more honest than Democratic
ascendency is annulled by the history
of the whisky ring-a scandal of a
kind from which the Democratic Adj
ministration has been wholly free
and by the fact that the candidate
under whom the Republican party was
defeated, and who has stronger sup
port in the party than any other leader,
is the only leader who is believed by
many of his own party to have
| trafficked in his Office and was for that
reason defeated. Nothing has oc-
Cured to show that he would not be
as acceptable candidate in '98 as he
was in 'S4; and so far as the enthu-
siastic preference of the party is con-
| cerned, he is still the favorite candi-
date. The significance of this fact, as
indicating the condition of the party,
| escapes the attention of many Re-
publicans.
Last spring Mr.. Sherman made a
speech at Nashville which seemed to
show that the progressive movement
| of the party, if such an impulse there
| was, would find in him a representa-
tive. This was so evident that ap-
parently he was himself alarmed, as if
he had ventured quite beyond the gen.
eral sympathy of the party. Soon
after, at Springfield, in Illinois, he
nlaue anOtnef speech, III WHICH he
| withdrew all the lights of hope that
he had displayed at Nashville and
| blew them out. He has now made a
third speech, in the Senate. which Of
fers to the country, as Mr.. Sherman's
view of the true Republican policy.
| repeal of the internal taxes except the
| whisky tax, profuse public ex-
penditure to extinguish surplus and
maintenance of high protective tariff;
and he has already suggested National
regulation of elections in the Southern
States. But this spirit of financial
recklessness and expense is one of the
| causes which disturbed National con-
| fidence in the Republican party. The
policy of taking money from the people
merely to divide it again is not
one which the country will approve,
and the effort to regulate elections
| would not only be repudiated by the
country, but even if it should pass into
law, could not possibly accomplish its
intended purpose. Mr.. Sherman's
speech, both in what it says and in
what it omits, does not seem to prove
that the Republican party is resolved
! to show that it is us it once was, the
| party of to-day and of the future
Harper's WeekEy.
| COMMENT