Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1891-02-05
rnE .AooURsED roRcE BILE.
Its Advocates willing TO Sacrifice TIL,
Country to Save Themselves.
Nav yarl unraid

Country to Save Themselves.
New York Herald.
The Force bill has been knocked out
for a time at least The omnipotent com
mon sense of the American people may
yet compel its permanent retirement.
Even the frantic partisanship of Re-
publican senators and bosses has been
forced to an unconditional surrender.
1t is blow from which President
Harrison will recoil, for he based high
hopes on its passage.
But we can easily spare Harrison and
be resigned to the doom of his personal
ambitions il the people can be saved.
We extend to German of Maryland,
TO the brave army of Democrats and to
the few Republicans who detiled the re
venges of the administration our
hearty congratulations. They have made
glorious fight, not for party, but for
union without sectional hatreds and
animosities.
The condition of affairs in the Senate
chamber during the last few weeks has
been CHASTITY sarcasm on statesmanlike
procedure.
The Republicans seem to have hope
lessly lost their heads. AS an organiza-
ton they have suffered from moral
prostration since 1876, when they stole
the Presidency and gave it to that poor
creature Hayes, whose highest ambition
Is that posterity may forget him.
The shock of that infamy upset the
patriotic status of the party and pro-
duced sort of political dementia. As
the tanned lion after tapping blood is no
longer tame, but thirsts for more blood
with unquenchable appetite, so the Re
publicans, having supped on that fraud,
lost all sense of honor and became pos
sessed by the lascivious lust of power.
Their greed of office has supplanted
every noble impulse of earlier days. In
81 they were ready to sacrifice them
selves to save the country; in 81 they
are willing TO sacrifice the country to
save themselves.
The orgulous majority in the Senate
declared that the minority INSTRUCTED
the legitimate business of the session.
1t was palpable and malignant false
hood. The naked truth is that the mi
nority have been engaged in obstructing
the Republican attempt to inaugurate a
new period of disorder and civil war.
The Democratic minority are the con-
sentative element of the Senate. They
demand that the customs, traditions and
usages which have governed them for
the last hundred years shall not be tam
pered with; that debate shall be con
Quoted after the manner which has
made the Senate dignifcd, delibera-
tive and useful body.
The Republican majority, on the
other hand, are both radical and revo-
lutionary. They would uproot and de-
stroy freedom of speech; they demand
that the presiding officer shall not rec
ognize senator who first gets the floor
If he happens to be Democrat, but
shall arbitrarily ignore him and give the
preference to any Republican.
Moreover, the Force bill of Hoar and
the closure resolution of Aldrich do not
come under the head of legitimate bust
ness. The first is q purely political
measure, whose sole purpose is to give
the party another four years of power;
the second is tyrannous and cowardly
continuance, a base preliminary, which
alone can make the passage of the
Bayonet bill possible.
The situation, stated in cold blood, is
just this The Force bill has no chance
of getting to vote unless freedom of
debate was suppressed. The Democrats
were therefore to be gagged, the rules
of century were to be thrown aside,
and the Republicans hoped to override
the opposition by sheer force of superior
numbers.
Who, then, were the obstructionists ?
Who were conspirators and revolutions
lists Were they Democrats, who have
all along been ready to do the legitimate
business for which the Senate was CON
yened, or were they Republicans, who
declared that no legitimate business
should be done until measures for the
perpetuation of their party had been at
tended to?
And you will have to look behind and
beyond the Senate to find the man who
more than any other is responsible for
this chaos and peril. He keeps himself
cautiously hidden from public criticism;
but from his temporary Heaven
II IS only temporary Residence in the
White House he directs and approves of
gag rule and bayonets. President Hair
rlson is so anxious for denomination
that he is willing TO pay the price of a
possible civil war in order to obtain ii.
~ Is ne VINO sent Tor senators when they
hesitated to confirm this outrage; and
when his arguments failed to overcome
their scruples and their common sense,
it was he who pleaded with them, as a
personal favor, to vote for both the gag
law and the Force bill.
1t is an open secret that he thinks
these measures afford him his only
chance to be President in 92. Short
sighted, narrow politician that he is, he
lacks the courage to make his convic-
tions known, but resorts to trickcry and
artifice, to chicane and demagogy. His
game, however, is as shallow as His con.
science. He may cheat the people for
awhile, but the disguise will by and by
drop and Benjamin Harrison will be
seen as a small man in a large place,
and damns the country that he NAV
satisfy his personal ambition.