Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1896-01-16
Then and Now.

The Republican party of Abraham
lincoln and Wendell Phillips was
something entirely different from the
party that now bears that name. Were
Mr.. Lincolle alive to-day he would be
in no closer touch with it than was
Mr.. Phillips at the time of his death.
He would not be able to recognize In
the vast organization that attracts to i,
every political buzzard that seeks with
voracious beak and filthy talons to tear
the body polite, the party to which SO
much of his life was devoted in its up
building. In the lifetime of Mr.. Lin
coin his party represented certain
tangible and we'll defined principles.
The two about which all others clus.
tered were unalterable opposition te
human slavery in any of its forms, and
the preservation of the Union of the
States as handed down to US by the
owed all others. They breathed the
breath of life into the Republican par
ty. Everything was subrogated te
their maintenance. The national bank
ing system was established as a wal
measure, in the stress and storm of
battle, with no thought of its becom'
ing permanent. Very few looked te
the Interior effects of the proposed leg
islation, and that few were a discred.
tied minority. 1t was regarded as a
temporary appliance necessary to tide
the nation over crisis in its existence,
to be cast aside as soon as the bond oil
Union was again firmly established.
Could Mr.. lincoln have pierced the
veil of coming years, and seen how the
proposed system was to become an Old
Man of the Sea about the necks of an
oppressed people, living upon their
life-blood, devouring alike the strong
man and the helpless child. long after
all pretense of need for it had ceased
to exist, no human power could have
induced him to give his sanction to the
law that called it into being. Yet
this is the ideal banking system
of men who besmirch the party tina,
Lincoln delighted to honor.
The interest-bearing bond was put
forth some thirty years ago as means
of saving the nation, but no one al
that time ever conceived that it would
be used to fasten upon US a national
debt in order to perpetuate thieving
banking system, and in order to fur.
nish safe investments for multi-mil-
lionaires that have grown out of de-
caying party as fungus grows out OF
decaying oak.
The tariff was another war measure.
Every one acquiesced in it as such,
bat no one believed it would be con-
tinued and amplified long after the end
of the war, solely for the purpose of
making private fortunes, already fabu-
lous, so vast as to be beyond the COM
preheusion of man. Corporate pow
er and the greed of the monopolist,
under the overshadowing dread of ma
tional dissolution, were allowed to take
root and grow as the little vine is al
lowed to grow at the root of the great
forest tree, until. like it, they threaten
to destroy the life of that upon which
they cling-the nation that fostered
and protected them.
The ak can be laid at the root of no
great public wrong without making
the Republican party bleed. In the
beginning the fundamental ideas of Re-
publicanism-the preservation of the
Union and the preservation Of human
liberty-were right; but in its latter
days it has become the fount of polite
al heresies, and sponsor to the cor
ruption they engender.
Let it not felicitate itself too greatly
upon its opportunities born of so
called Democratic shortcomings. The
people have no love for it, and though
they used it as rod to scourge Mug
wumpery from the Democratic temple,
they will in turn cast that rod aside
and again restore to confidence and
power the offspring of their love.
The majority of the people of our
country are as much opposed to Re-
pubIicanism as they were in the fall of
'92. They want to be sure when they
strike again that their blow will go to
the right place.