The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-08

In these articles it has not been my
purpose to "dabble" much in politics.
But an old journalist must have fire.
quent appeals to him to write moro or
less of passing political events and of
political history. / recently saw an in
teresting paragraph taken from the Hon
James G. Blaine's Twenty Years in
Congress-, a work / have not seen. He
pays a just and liberal tribute to the
great record in craftsmanship that our
dear Southland made in days prior to the
Northern assault upon it with its huge
armies under Vandalc commanders
Mr.. Blaine says that the Southern lead
ers occupied a commanding position" in
the Senate, and they constituted a re-
markable body of men," Let me quote
the example of Jefferson, or Madison and
of George Mason, in Virginia; of Ma
thaniel Macon, in North Carolina, and
of the Pinckneys and Rutledges, in South
Carolina, they gave deep study to the
science of government. They were adj
trained as debaters and they be-
came highly skilled in the management
of parliamentary bodies. AS a rule, they
were literally educated many of them
graduates of Northern colleges, a still
larger number taking their degrees at
Pennsylvania, in Kentucky; at Chapel
Hill, in North Carolina, and at Mr.. JEFF
1erson's peculiar, but admirable institu-
tlon in Virginia. Their secluded mode
of life on the plantation gave them
leisure for reading and reflection. They
took pride in their libraries, pursued the
law so far as it increased. their equip
ment for public career and devoted
themselves to political affairs with an
absorbing ambition. Too often
ruinously lavish in their personal ex-
penditures, they believed in an econ
omlcal Government, and throughout their
long period of domination they guarded
the Treasury with rigid and unceasing
vigilance against every attempt at ex
trayagance and against every form of
corruption"
How is it now? Does public economy
prevail? Are Democrats and Southrons
economic and careful in the expenditure
OF the peoples money? | trow not Look
at the votes in the Congress for the last
six or eight years, and behold the con-
trast. 1t takes now a billion and u
quarter dollars, or nearly so. to carry
on the United States Government for two
years, against some hundred and seventy
millions under Democratic James Buch-
anan just prior to the war. The popu
lation is two and one-half greater now
than then while the expenditures are
elcven-fold greater. Public economy is
absolutely a thing of the past, while OK
travagance and corruption are enthroncd
supreme masters of this country and it's
people. The tribute of Mr.. Blaine to the
South is every way just and true. 1t
reminds me Of the tribute paid in 1872.
in the United States Senate, by the
greatest man in that body, since the
days of Webster sent by New England.
In possibly the greatest speech he ever
made in the Senate. Charles Sumner
said in effect have not the speech a.
hand-that for sixty years the South gov
crned this country through its able men
in the Congress and Presidency And he
added. that truth and candor compelled
him to say, that they did it with clean
hands.
! note that Prof. A. H. Dabney. of the
University of Virginia, proposes to pro-
pare very much needed work on the
History of the Reconstruction of the
,,-alI and "a