The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1893-04-18

REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDS !
GOOD SAMARITAN.

The following correspondence by
Thomas Harlan upon the political situa-
ton is true resume of the past and a
prophecy for the future. The points
enumerated are all within the domain of
fact, and the conclusions are their legiti-
mate outcome. Mr.. Harlan is we'll
known ex-politician OF Nebraska, who
is as well known to the Nebraska press.
In naming Robert Lincoln for the stand
ard bearer of the republican party three
years hence it is believed he comedies
with the present general sentiment of
republicans, who, though now 80 de-
moralized, Mr.. Harlan believes to be
again destined to victory.
Mr.. ED1ToR-Having been requested
by a reporter of your paper to contribute
something concerning the political par
ties of today and the cause of the defeat
of the repr blican party in the last ma
tional campaign; also something con-
cerning our hope of success in the future,
1 have to say that 1 do not feel able to
make post mortem examination of the
remains of the once 'grand old party"
and tell every cause of its demise. One
thing, however, is certain, whatever the
cause was, the republican party that
Lincoln and Grant belonged to is dead.
Blaine, Logan, Garfield, Grant and Lin
coin are dead.
The mass of the people are always
right. A large majority of the Ameri-
can people are republicans in principle.
The party has lost nothing in strength;
but they will never put the republican
party in power while it is controlled by
by the present political bosses, who
manipulate its conventions and domin-
ate it's actions in the interests of spoils
hunters. 1t is an army without gen.
eral. Give it good general and it will
win. The managers of the party may
publish calls for conventions, and pass
resolutions that the party still lives and
that the people will know more and be
wiser when they are told more about
the Mckinley law; but they are gener-
ais without an army and have no power.
As an existing fact the old party is dead.
There was no other way of getting the
old leeches loose. The machinery of the
republican party killed the party. 1t
had become a disgraceful scramble of
mediocrity for spoils. Thousands upon
thousands of republicans bolted Harri
son in all of the states because he was
the machine nominee, the nominee of
the spoils hunters, many voting for
Cleveland, few for Weaver, and many
not at all. Ingersoll was silenced, or
rather kept silent; Gresham went over
to the other side; in fact the heart of
the old party was torn out of it. The
party without heart then became close
communion. Weaver had no real fol-
lowing. There was really no third
party, and there is none today. They
had no principles to follow. The demo-
Gratis gave Weaver the states that he
carried to keep Harrison from carrying
them. The disaffected and disgusted
republicans went everywhere and any
where to get away from the political
hyenas, and they will stay away until
the hyenas are properly disposed of.
OF all the republican states Nebraska
has suffered the most from republican
misrule, and yet Nebraska, fairly man
aged with an unpacked convention with
the old professional politicians laid
aside, would be overwhelmingly repub-
lican. The same is true of Kansas in a
less degree, and pre-eminently true of
Colorado and Nevada.
None will doubt that Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Wisconsin and Connecticut
are republican states, if fairly managed.
The principles of the republican party
are as good now as they were in 1858,
when the martyred Lincoln sounded its
principles in his immortal words, that
this nation 'scannot exist half slave and
half free;'' that ''a house divided against
itself cannot stand;" and later when the
flag had been trampled upon, that tfthe
union must be maintained between all
the states if it should take drop of
blood for every drop of sweat that had
been wrung from the brow of slave"
The modern democratic party, like
the wreck of the republican party, is a