The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-02-22
1s5e-FEBRUARY 22-1sse.

While there is more or less of dis.
pute among Republicans as to the date
on which their party was born, it is
becoming very generally recognized
that the 22nd of February is the ami
versary Of very important event in
its history. and we shall not be sur
prised if at the last it shall become the
recognized anniversary of the party's
birth.
For some time previous to
February 22nd, 1856, a fierce
agitation had been going on all
over the north against slavery. Local
abolition parties were forming in vari-
Gus states. The supreme court deci-
sion abolishing the Missouri compro-
mise had called into existence the Free
Soil party as a protest against that
decision which in effect said that slay-
cry could be introduced into the terri
tories of the United States. The old
Wing party had been crushed by it's
successful rival. the Democratic party,
| and the disintigration going on within
times and made the rise Of new par
ties all the easier. 1t was a time Of
great political agitation; a time when a
grave question had to be faced and
| disposed of, yet no one knew just how.
The discordant elements of the old
Wing party just then crumbling to
pieces. and the new parties just in the
| oF fn
together in some localities under the
name of the Republican party. In
January, 1856, the chairman of these
local parties in five states, namely.
Ohio, Massachusetts Pennsylvania,
/ Vermont and Wisconsin, issued q call
| for a national convention of represent
tatives OF the party to meet in the
! city of Pittshurg on the 22nd of Febru-
| airy. 1856 At this meeting Republi-
can national committee was formed
which subsequently issued the call for
| the republican National nominating
| convention that met at Philadelphia,
the 18th of June, 1856. and nominated
John c. Fremont for President, and
William L. Dayton for Vice-President.
But it was at the Pittsburg meeting
in the preceding February of that
year, and with the organization of the
National Committee that the Republi-
can party really began its national
career, and hence it is not unreason-
able to look upon the 22nd of Febru-
airy as the anniversary of the party's
bith; and that is why, under the call
of the Union Republican Club of
Washington, there will be throughout
the United States a very general cele-
bration tonight of what is regarded as
the fortieth anniversary of the birth of
the Republican party as a national or
ganization.
There can be no question but what
! it was a. great moral principle that
called into existence the Republican
party. The absurdity of the great Re-
public tolerating slavery in one half
of its domain, while in the other it
was unlawful and held to be the sum
of all viIIainies had to be exploded;
and under the leadership of the Re
publican party, the people of the north,
Democrats as well as the Republicans,
united in putting an end to negro
slavery,
That work completed, as might
have been expected, the political
party charged with the administra-
ton Of the government during that
eventful period claimed and was
awarded more than its full need of
praise for the part it had taken in the
settlement of the problem that had
for many years perplexed the nation.
At the close Of the war therefore the
Republican party was supreme, and
continued to be so for a number of
years. 1t paved dearly. however, for
the completeness of its success. As
flies gather in the shambles, so did
vicious politicians and men whose
easy political convictions allow them
to change with every varying breeze,
so it brings them on the winning side,
f1ocked into the party. and soon it
became the party of every political
! vice and scheme of corruption. The
vast heritage of public domain 1t
! granted in large tracts to corporations,
instead of holding it as a sacred trust
for the people. It used the taxing
! power Of the government in aid of
private enterprises, and to build up
private fortunes. Under it's policy of
so-called protection it fostered favored
industries and built up class distinc-
tons; it robbed the many in favor Of
the few. To perpetuate itself in control
Of the government it started upon a
career of centralizing the powers there
of. which, but for the sturdy
Americanism of the people that
began to assert itself in OPP
position to its course, in the end
would have resulted either in wiping
out state lines altogether and found
| ing a single national republic. or so
ignoring them and increasing the ma
/ tionaI powers as in effect to accom-
plish the same end 1t struck down
one of the money metals of the coun-
try and carried the nation to the sin
| gle gold standard, an act which
wrought more misery and distress in
/ the nation than all that it ever cured
by the destruction of negro slavery in
! the south. 1t is today the party of
trusts and combines, the party Of ex=
pediency and robber tariffs. the party
J Of corporations. of paJternalism and
Capitalization in government; the par
tv of tha classes to whose interests il