Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-07-06
The New York "Times" Comes Out fo
Cleye land,

The New York "Times" Comes Out for
Cleveland.
The New York ''Times," confessedly one
of the ablest republican papers in the coun-
try, in a leading editorial Tuesday an
nounced its purpose to give Cleveland and
Thurman hearty support. After tribute
to the personal worth of the republican
nominees for President and Vice-President.
the Chimes" says (: 'But the people of
this country will pass judgment upon the
republican party, not upon the republican
candidates. Were that party any longer
worthy of confidence; had it not departed
widely and hopelessly from the guidance
triumphs; were it actuated by an honest
purpose to make the people of the United
States more prosperous and happy than its
political opponents can make them; were
its professions more sincere, its policies
wiser, and it's leaders purer, the New York
'Times'' might not find it d distasteful
task to support the candidates, common
place as they are, who were put in nomina-
ton Monday. But we have no faith in the
party or in its leadership or tendencies,
and we have only adherence for the mon
strous policy of confscating the gains of
labors and the profits of trade by extortion-
ate protective taxes, which has become its
only vitalizing principle.
The maintenance of needless taxes for
projections sake is not and never was
principle of true republicanism. 1t is the
principle that has created and sustained
greedy horde of manufacturers who have
bought the republican party and shaped it
to their uses. They took possession of its
charter and control of its action in the
year 1872, when the party had already be-
gun to rot inwardly, and from that time,
beginning with the presidential contest of
that year, the intelligent and thinking
voters of the country have been less and
less in sympathy with republicanism, and
the people, as whole, have been moved
| by continuing and everstrengthening
impulse to put the party out of power.
| The impulse first showed itself in the lib
eral republican revolt of 1872, a strong
and sincere movement which ended dlsas-
trously in the Greeley folly. In 1876 the
people of the country, as majority of
them no doubt believed and still believe,
did cast majority of their votes against
the republican candidate. An extra-con-
stitutional body decided the contest of that
| election in favor of the republicans by
| partisan vote of its own members, and the
| narrow majority of a single electoral vote.
| In 1880 the treachery of certain democrats,
| disconnected with the nomination, and the
use of great sums of money in Indiana and
in this city and State in purchasing votes
for the republican ticket, gave the party
another four years lease of power. In
In 1884, in spite of the extraordinary
growth of that most noxious weed OF Amer
lean politics, the Blaine dynamite vote
the late but deserved penalty of its corr
ruption and its evil courses was visited
upon the republican party; and SO far from
having any reason to regret its action in
that year, the electorate gives signs of
increasing satisfaction at the change.
meanwhile the republican party, pun
ished but impenitent, clings to the idols
the voters have spurned, and again knocks
at the door of the Executive Mansion. bear
ing in its hand the declaration that whis-
key should be free and clothing taxed, that
the present protective taxes are sacred and
shall not be reduced-shall be increased.
rather, if ways cannot be found in jobbery
and extravaganza to spend fast enough the
accommodating revenue, The ''Times' will
not shame its consistent record of more
than twenty years by counselling the open
ing of that door to these unworthy appli-
cants. Before 1868 this journal began its
] advocacy OF the repeal of unnecessary GUS