The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-05-13
WEDNESDAY, MAY Is, 1891.
TWELVE PAGES.
he Republican Party and BIushing.


.lared that the republican party could
look into the future without fear and
into the past without blushing." This
was neat and epigramnatic and has
served as a text for numerous editorials in
the republican press upon the past glories
of the g. o. p.
But the fact is that il the republican
party can recall the past without blush
ing it is because it has lost the capacity
for blushing. The party was organized
under a noble inspiration and came into
power only to confront a great emergency,
which it met successfully because it was
sustained in all essential matters by all
the people, without regard to party.
There was much in its history, even dur
ing its best years of which it is not pos
sible for its most devoted partisan to be
proud. But it was not until the war
closed that the republican party became
a mere instrument Of personal ambition
and corporate greed, and its record since
that time contains plenty of material for
blushing purposes.
From 1865, when LINCOLN died, to 1869,
when GRANT became president, the re-
publican party committed almost every
abuse of powe that has ever been laid at
the door of kingly tyrant or brutal auto
crat. It flooded the South with an army
Of sneak thieves, pickpockets and cut
throats, known in history as carpet
baggers," who plundered the unfortunate
people OF that section in a most shameless
manner, usurped their governments,
trampled on all their rights as freemen,
set over them the most ignorant and de-
graded elements of their population. and
carried on such a carnival of fraud, job
berry, peculation and general cussedness,
as no civilized country has witnessed in
modern times. The carpet-bag blight
rested upon the South for almost decade.
Can the republican party recall this chap
ter of its history without blushine?
During these same years the republican
party, as an organization, illustrated the
extremes to which partisaLship can go,
and put the republic in needless jeopardy
by impeaching ANDREW JOHNSON, presi-
dent of the United States, of high crimes
and misdemeanors. ANDREW JOHNSON
himself to the wicked schemes of personal
ambition and party aggrandizement Of
the republican leaders and because he
stood for the constitution and the rights
of the people and the states against the
revolutionary and lawless plottings of
band of political desperadoes. He was not
deposed from Office because of the patriot
ism, the courage and TIE manhood of
seven republican senators, who were Wis
tied with every form of obloquy by their
party, and some of them prosecuted into
their graves by republican fanatics. Can
the republican party look back upon the
impeachment Of ANDREW JoHNsoNwithout
blushing?
The republican party, regardless of al
the teachings of history and experience,
regardle of the dictates of reason and
patriotism, regardless of the welfare of the
people, and with view only to the per-
petuation OF itself in power, conferred the
suffrage upon nearly million black men
when they were not ready to receive it.
When the republican party did this it
committed a crime against the republic
men. No patriotic or just man be-
lieves that the negroes should have
been permanently DISTINGUISHED, but no
one can view the results Of negro suffrage
without realizing that, in the time and
manner of its establishment, it was a
crime for which the republican party
ought to blush if it doesn't.
l. fhn
the law known as the public credit act,
which changed a contract with the bond
holders by which the people were de-
frauded of hundreds of millions Of
dollars. In 1873 it raised the stand
ard of values to the profit of
every money lender in this country
and Europe, and to the impover-
ishment of the people, by demonetizing
silver. From 1869 to 1877 under
GRANT it carried on the govern
ment with an extravaganza and
wastefulness and corruption
which in any other country on
earth would have precipitated bloody
revolution. These were the days of BEL
KNAPP and BABCoCK and Secor robson and
w ALLihMc anu Tic TlIlR
and the moiety frauds and the credit
mobilier and the salary grab. The scan
dalsand excuses of Grantism were patient
ly endured by the people for nearly eight
years, but in 1876 there was a great popu-
lar uprising, and the republican party was
voted out Of power. Then it was that the
leaders of this organization-the CHAND-
LERs. JOHN SHERMAN, MORTON, LOGAN, etc
plotted and carried out the greatest politi-
cal crime in our history-the stealing OF
the presidency. Four years later
the grand old party, hav-
ing passed under the control of the
organized capital of the country. secured
another lease of power by a shameless and
unprecedented debauchery of the elector-
ate. At this stage of its career DORSEY
and DUDLEY. whose names have become
Synonymous with all that is venal and
degrading In politics. came to the front,
the former being at the time the head oil
the Star route ring republican gang Of
public plunderers which, under the pro-
lection of the powers at Washington, car.
Tied things with high hand for years
Can the republican party review the years