Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1895-02-16
| ETTERS OF A.
LOCKER ON.
CHARLES Town, ". VA,
Feb - f2D-

persons, in this vicinity at least. care
to talk openly about although they
are facts known to all the world. In
deed it might perhaps be quite as cor
rect to change the initial of the word
care here to I'd, = and say at once that
few persons da,e talk openly about
the Interior motives and secret designs
which have all along actuated TIE
party just retired from power in West
Virginia. Many Of the leaders of this
party are exceedingly thin skinned
sensitive to fault on all such points
as affect in the slightest degree their
assumed rights and privileges. These
rights and privileges are in fact re-
garded by these gentlemen as peculiar
prcrogatives sanctioned by time and
imme1norial usage; and any presump-
tously doubling their prescriptive
priority of place or authority, they
frown down as hostile to themselves If
not traitors to the State-inasmuch as
they are the State.
So far has this spirit of exclusives
ness prevailed that with a majority Of
this select class of our fellow citizens
a difference of political views and
opinions operates as a social bar
against their social equals of the op
posite party. 1t is not in all cases an
Ioutcrop of overweening pride of birth
or of wealth, but simply an inexpress-
lble pride Of faction an iinperious
clannish hauteur which would if it
'ould anuihilate opposition with with
ering looks of scorn In many in
stances this unsocial sourness of tenn
per may be merely the habitual ex-
preston of a sullen discomfort with
things in general ever since "befo de
wa" as distinguishing feature OF
the party itself, it betokens the SOL
emn final death scene-the melancholy
apotheosis of the Solid South Denoc-
racy drawing its last gasps at the bot
tom of its last ditch:-ft ending for
all such sectional prejudice and pseudo
| patriotism.
Now that the day of the States de-
liverance from this junto-rule has
come, and we have at length by a
united effort freed ourselves from our
Old man of the-mountain burden, it
matters little why the leaders of the
crawfish party found it necessary for
them to pursue policy so detrimen-
tai to the States best interests. New
ertheless, viewed as a lesson OF mega
tive instruction for the future, the in
quiry may not be altogether fruitless
one. Starting on a new career, we
bear with us the last bequest of orr
illustrious predecessors-all they had
to leave us-the instructive experience
of their make-shift methods and meas
ures. OF all States in the Union West
Virginia can least afford to perpetuate
Old Fogyism and its stand still policy
She must move on or dieAof political
atrophy Wasting her energies ali
these non progressive years in the
1
slavish service Of a narrow visioned
and domineering party clique compos.
ed of men who by wilfully neglecting,
so far as in them lay squandered the
common heritage, her duty now is to
hold these men to strict account and
to profit what she may by their ig-
nominous failure. The lesson has
been costly one, but properly I'M
proved will be worth its weight III
| gold.
To understand the situation
thoroughly it is necessary, however
unwelcome it may be, to show up the
true inwardness of the Democratic
policy. What, then, were the secret
motives that dicta ted this policy. All
wise men may be supposed to have
sufficient reasons for their acts. These
gentlemen, doubtless, had theirs. In
tact they are reasons not far to seek.
My first letter to the Herald attributed
the apparent iucapacity of the Demo
cratic leaders to rightly administer
the State government to confirmed
Old-Fogyism which in its ordinary
workings always inevitably tends to a
| peculiar conservatism; to wit: the
conservation of all things old and odd
simply because they are old and odd.
Applied in politics this eecentricity
assumes the character Of stubborn,
blind, and bitter opposition to all re-
form, to all attempts at progress and
betterment of existing conditions.
/ Now in the present instance this spirit
of Old-Fogy conservatism was conser-
vative of what OF what, forsooth,
but of Southern aGiliation, of South
ern sectionalism, OF Southern indie
pendence-in word, of Southern po-
litical supremacy in the long hoped
for retributive futurel This was the
golden dream-she little private bea-
tific vision-of these dabblers in pub
lie affairs, these pettifoggers in the
noble science Of craftsmanship. A
Solid South was their highest concep-
ton of regenerated South; a truck
ling, hangon, aid-and comfort policy
their highest aspiration as to West
Virginia's future. For the realization
OF these objects the ship of state was
to be kept fast tied to its cid mooriugs;
for to cast off these was to drift awav
from the Solid South; and to drift
away from the Solid South meant
nothing less than death and destruc-
ton to the ancient and honorable ante
bellum regilne-a total and final
breaking up of the ancient and honor
able Letus-alone dynasty
Here a grave question presents it