The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-10-26
NOT A KNOwNOTHING PARTY.

cai W lElsu interests. i MS Is q lie. Inc
Irish-American vote was cast for the
Democratic party before the Republican
party was formed, and the most coI.spicu-
Gus friends OF Ireland In 1S45 were men
like Horace Greeley and William II. Sew
ard, who we're among the founders of the
Republican party. Seward was the trusted
friend and political confidant Of Arch
bishop Hughes, of the Roman Catholic
church, and the New York Tribune, the
leading organ of the party from 1854 to
1872, was conspicuously hostile to the
knownothing party of 1856 and the
American party Of 1860. The Republican
party was a protectionist party, and
strongly favored the policy of in
creased European immigration; it was
an anti-slavery party. In 1856 the Repuo-
lican party declared in its resolutions that
as "the spirit of our institutions, as well
as the constitution of our country, guaran-
tees liberty of conscience and equality of
rights among citizens, We oppose all
prescriptive legislation affecting their
security" In 1850 the Republican party
at its national convention passed this
resolution:
That the Republican party is opposed to any
change In our naturalization laws, or any state
legislation by which the rights of citizenship
hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign
lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in
favor OF giving full and efficient protection to
the rights of all classes of citizens, whether
native or naturalized. both at home and abroad.
Similar resolutions were passed by the
Republican national conventions of 1864,
1865 and 1872. The election returns for the
two presidential contests in which the
knownothng party figured show that
that organization had very little strength
in the Republican states and very great
strength at the South. The vote for Fill
more. the American or Knownothing can
didate in 1856 was very small in New Eng
land. Maine gave him but 1926 votes;
New Hampshire, 422: Vermont, 545; Mas
sachusetts gave Fremont los, 100 votes, Fill
more but 1900. Buchanan about 4O, 900;
Connecticut gave Fillmore 2,615; Rhode
Island. 1,675; the great mass of FiIlmore's
support lay in the Southern States. where
he crowded the Democratic candidate
closely. In these fourteen Southern states
which polled such heavy Knownothing
vote the Republican candidate got but
$3.50 votes. Virginia was such hotbed of
Acknowledgment that it took all the in
fuence Of its brilliant governor, Henry A.
Wise, who denounced it with voice and
pen, to defeat it at the polls. As it was,
Fillmore polled in Virginia 60,3lO votes
against 5000 for Buchanan. In Balti-
more the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic
mobs were composed of Fillmore voters,
Southern men, who had hitherto always
acted with the pro-slavery Democracy. In
1850 John Bell was supported by the
American, or Knownothing party. and
his vote was very small outside of the
three Southern states of Maryland. Ken
lucky and Tennessee. When the Know
nothing party broke up, its leaders nearly
all became Democrats. Among them were
James and Erastus Brooks. of the New
York Express, who both became bitter
Democrats.
The Republicans have always given
their German or Irish American friends
their full party vote, while the Democracy
allowed Francis Herman. their candidate
for governor. an Irish Roman Catholic, to
he defeated by refusing to give him the
party vote. On the other hand, Gen.
Joseph b. Carr, an Irish Roman Catholic,
has been twice elected secretary of state
by the Republicans of the Empire state.
Gen. Sheridan, devout Irish Roman
Catholic, was an ardent Republican.
President Harrison appointed Patrick
Egan minister TO Chile President Grant
sent Gen. MacMahon, an Irish Roman
Catholic. to Paraguay. The bitterest
| enemy of the Irish~ home rule party
is l.. J. Phelps, whom Grover Cleve-
| land made our minister to England,
| and Clevelsnd's secretary of state. Bayard.
was so hostile to the Parneli party that he,
! together with Phelps, were denounced in
| the columns of the Boston Pilot, the organ
| of the New England Irishmen. The Mas
| sachusetts Democracy has more than once
nominated Irish Roman Catholics on its
| state ticket, and then defeated them at the
| polls, as the New York Democrats did
| Herman in 1872. The most conspicuous
| American contributors 90 the Golfers of
| the home rule party are Republicans; the
| earliest and warmest friend Of that cause
on the platform Is Chauncey Depew, a
| conspicuous Republican orator. 1t is true
| that the Republican party ha. generally
| found the Irish Americans voting with the
| Democracy, but il is not true that the Re-
| publican party was ever tainted with
| Knownothingism. or that it has ever been
| inimical TO Irish interests.
| 1t was = democrat and a particular
| friend of Grover Cleveland, Robert b.
/ Roosevelt, treasurer of the national Demo-
! cratic committee. who published book in
/ which he expressed his contempt for the
| Irish home rule cause by saying that ''if
| the Irish would only net rob. murder.
steal, burn. fight and get drunk they
/ would be one of the finest races in the
/ world" No Republican Of equal standing
! ever published such a brutal assault upon
ireland. and il IS Mr.. Wayne MacVeagh,
! who, in his recent speech for Cleveland At
/ New York city. declared that President
/ Harrison insulted Chile by appointing in
/ Minister Egsn, IAN Irish tramp. a fugitive
| criminal, an ernbeExier. TO 3 high and hon
orab.e oiilce." This slSnderous ialsehood
! was uttered by Democra, 10 q Demo
! cratic audience and cheered 70 the echo.
! 4 foreign born citizen on the Republican
/ ticket seldom runs behind his colleagues
while on the Democratic ticket he gem
/ orally runs behind in New York and New
EaelAod. The Rochester IN. W yast-