Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1895-04-05

96llanY. T0l18D CUuLICAOA0AA of0A'S'
H. G. TINsLEY,
A. s. MORTON.
FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 5. 1895.
SOMETHING FOR GRAVE REFLEC-
TION.
Virginia is afflicted Just now by a num-
Der of 1nalcontents who, while claiming with
much vigor to be Democrats, and demand
ing to receive consideration as such, are
ready to sand bag that party on every OPP
portunity. Indeed they do not wait for an
opportunity, but make it; it the party has
done nothing to which they can take ex-
ception, they assa!l it for something that
they claim it intends to do some time in
the future. Their warnings of some great
defeat in store for the party if it does not
follow their teachings instead Of those of
it's tried and trusted leaders, are backed up
by threats about some considerable class of
the party, in which they themselves are
naturally included, breaking into open re-
bellion and thereby bringing disaster
What these men really mean is that a
fusion of certain Democrats can be made
on their lines with the Populists and Re
publcans-such fusion as was made in
North Carolina Now we don't think the
sand-baggers really want to seesuch state
Of affairs in Virginia as they have had in
North Carolina; SO far from it, they would
he among those most indignant should it
come. And yet such a state as exists in
that State is exactly what will result in
this, if they succeed in creating enough
dissatisfaction with the Democratic party
to weaken it in the confidence of our PEG
ple. They know exactly what fusion OF
Populists and Republicans in Virginia
means, and who and what would compose
it, and they ought to know just what the
outcome would be. But if they do not we
will give them brief history of what it
has wrought il North Carolina. 1t is an
extract from an editorial in the Raleigh.
N. c.. News and Observer, under the
heading "What the Legislature did, .
written just after the adjournment of tina.
body few day ago:
1t increased appropriations S125,OOO.
1t created 5000 new offices, which have been
filled with Fusionsts.
1t spent S13, .O2 for ''help'' to wait on
members.
1t added two useless criminal courts.
1t elected two men of small ability to sue
coed two able ones in the United States
Senate.
1t let the public printing to a political
favorite at a cost of S5S1.SS more than the
lowest bidder.
1t adjourned in honor of Fred Douglass
and the Senate voted down a resolution to
adjourn in honor Of Washington and Lee.
1t refused to contribute cent to finish the
Confederate monument until the Big Five
ordere ed it done to make reparation for the
Douglass adjournment.
1t turned manned soldiers out of Office to
make place for robust negroes.
1t set back the public school interest twenty
years by partisan, hostile legislation.
1t increased taxation from 21A to 24A cents
on the $1O0.
A change from the State to county adoption
of school books. which will probably involve
the buying, by the people, of new books for
the children, and different books in every
county and town.
The passage of bill destroying the credit
of the farmers and wOrkingmen, and making
it practically impossible for them to secure
loans on mortgages.
On this work the News and Observer
thus comments
t'When those farmers of North Carolina
who went off with the Populist movement,
hoping to get relief. wake to find that they
have been robbed of what credit they possess
ed, and learn that the only method many of
them had to secure necessary advances to en-
able them to plant and cultivate their farms
has been taken from them without word of
warning OF moments discussion, they will, ,
no doubt, fully realize what the success of
the fusion movement meant in North Carroll
ma. And hereafter they will probably be
willing to listen to both sides and not refuse,
at the bidding of Marion Butler and Ohio
Wilson, who were merely working to get into
Office to listen to discussion of political
questions"
The burdens of which the Democrats Ct
Virginia are complaining in these tight
times. were not put upon the State by Dem
ocrats; they were put on it by a Republi-
can State constitutional convention which
sat in Richmond twenty-seven years
ago, which, like the North Carolina legis
lature, was largely black and tan, and in.
which Democrats were so scarce as to be
curiosities. They were few, but what they
lacked in numbers they made up in loyalty.
and in this were totally unlike the sand
baggers of generation later.