Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-11-15
THE CAMPAIGN.

ACCOhELlShED.
New York Mail and Express.
The campaign is over and the most
impressive of all manifestations of our
political system, the silent dropping of
the ballots of millions of American citi-
zens, all over the land, is, for the most
part, beyond the reach of newspaper
influence. Now that the people are qui-
etly rendering their verdict on ali the
varied controversies that have entered
into general and local politics, it is time
ly to improve the lull and to eongratu-
late all classes of our readers on the re-
cent political retrospect.
First: If, as is alleged, it was one of
Mr.. Cleveland's motives, in precipitat-
ing the Free Trade issue, that he wish
ed to avoid another personal campaign,
his course was sagaciUus, from that
standpoint. In this he was helped by
the absolutely unassailable characters
and records OF the Republican candidates
for President and Vice President From
a variety of causes the campaign has
been kept remarkably free from angry
and abusive personalities and the atten-
tion of the people has been fixed on
great questions of political economy, in
the decision Of which the interests of all
are involved.
Second: The Republicans were prompt
to accept the issue of Protection, and
showed the courage of honest and we'll
1aA n4f ft,.ah hn,
of the controversy precipitated by Mr..
Cleveland. Doubtless it has seemed to
mere politicians that the Democratic
campaigners were smarter" than the
Republicans, in that the former were
Revenue Reformers," or "Free Trad
ers," "Protectionists," according to the
prevailing sentiments of the respective
localities. But the uniformity of Re-
publican expressions on the paramount
issue of the day has had its legitimate
and wholesome effect on the intelligent
voters who have held the balance of
power. The Republican campaign for
Protection has been sincere, honest, coli
sistent. 1t has educated the voters in
regard to the larger and lesser national
economies; it has brought patriotic SEN
timent into political economy; and has
given to the latter an interest that it
had not before possessed, as regards
the masses of our voters.
Third: For several years past it has
been the desperate desire of the ruling
portion of the Democratic party, that is
the South, to get the memories and
teachings of the Civil War out of the
national consciousness as much as pos
sible. But people that could forget in
one generation or in a century such a
tremendous and terrible Divine tuition
rs this people got in the early part of
''the Sixties" would be too stupid or
careless to preserve the institutions that
were founded by heroic ancestors and
preserved on the battle field of Gettys-
BURG, where Lincoln concentrated in
two-minute speech the "mOtive" of the
greatest epic ever lived and fought out on
the face of the earth. No people ever
achieved or kept greatness that had not
a large degree of 1.-The historic sense"
Fourth: 1t was a natural blunder for
Mr. Cleveland to make, that Re believed
that the Free Trade issue would bury
the war memories. But he forgot that
Free Trade, next to Slavery, was the
great issue of the war against the Union.
His success would have been magniti-
cent, though pOsthumOus, Confederate
triumph. The brainy and patriotic
Northern men saw the length and
breadth end depth of this issue at once.
They realized that the Tariff had saved
the nation from bankruptcy, had paid
off the bulk of the war debt, had given
the North degree of material develop
inert that not only Oyercame all the
losses by war, but had added more to
the resources of the whole country than
would have been possible in fifty years
under Free Trade policies.
Fifth: The Republican campaign has
brought all classes of voters into rela-
tions of common interest; has educated
the new voters and rising generation as
to the Gistinctively American ideas and
policies; has shown the grandeur and
benificence of the Republican states
that saved the Union, put the
of Independence into the
and laid the foundations
for hundreds of years of Industrial and
financial independence, growth and
Sixth: With the administration of the
second Harrison will be ushered in an
era in which the South will most large
" profit by the tenacity of the North in
lighting for the principles, teachings
and policies of the Republican struggle
for the Union and for "the American
.ystem." Within very few years
there will be New South" in fact,
and not in show. And the New South"
will rejoice even more that the Old
South had to give up Free Trade, than
It had to give up Slavery.