The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1888-04-14

appeal to party spirit and sraottionss
ipstead;of rcadjuetment Of the psrty
- The times. That indeed, may NOS
be practicable with any party. Tho
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 tho
Wing party to adopt the anti-slsvery
issue. In 1847 they proposed rcsolu-
ton in the State convention that Mas
sachusetts would not support any can
didatc for the Presidency who was not
q well-known aud active anti-slavery
man. The debate was very hot MIR.
Webster opposed the resolution. 1t
was defeated, and tho Conscience
Wings ren6unccd the party and organ
lied the Free-Soil party, and in 1853
the Wings disappeared.
Since 1884 the Republican party
seems to have lost the power of re-
cupcration. 1t has certainly done very
little to show that it is the party OF
progress and reform. Its chief can
vass during this year was in Ohio.
There it was successful, after CAM
paign conducted upon hostility to tho
Southern States. But Mr.. Foraker
was reelected not because of such hos
tility, but bee ausc of the general hon
esty of his administration. The argu-
ment, however. that Republican Ma
tional ascendency would necessarily
be moro honest than Democratic
ascendency is annulled by tho history
of tho whisky ring-a scandal Of q
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 q 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
traffickcd in his Office. and was for that
reason defeated. Nothing has oc-
CURED to show that he would not be
as acceptable candidate in '8S as ho
was in '84; and SO far as the cnthu-
siastic preference of the party is con-
cerned, he is still tho 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 .
speech at Nashville which seemed to
show that the progressive movement
of the party, if such an impulse there
was, would find in him representa-
tive. This was so evident that APP
parently he was himself alarmed, as If
he had yentured quite beyond the gem
eral sympathy Of the party. Soon
after. At Springfield. in Illinois no
made another speech. in which he
Withdrew AL the lights of hope that
he had displayed at Nashville and
blew them out He has now made .
third speech, in the Senate. which Of
fers to the country. as Mr. Shcrman'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 a 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 win approve.
and the effort to regulate elections
would not only be repudiated by the
country, but oven If Il should pass into
law, could not possibly accomplish its
intended purpose. Mr.. Sherman's
speech, both in what it says and in
what 1t omits, does not seem to provo
that the Republican party Is resolved
to show that II is as it onco was, the
party Of to-day and Of the future
Harper's Weekly.