Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-09-17
Party Fifty Years Old.

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1.-THE republican party this year, eel
\, ebrated it's fiftieth birthday anniver-
sary and it has pointed to its past
with pardonable satisfaction. In eel
sIebrating this semi-centennial event, it
Cis especially proper to review the par
ety history.
when nearly 200 years ago a small
cargo of slaves was landed in Virginia
nat the mouth of the James, there was
I sssown the seeds of bloody harvest in
the years to come. The fathers in
! founding the republic found them
selves confronted with the existence
OF this Ubiquitous institution, and it
syas recognized in the constitution it.
self though the word slave was not
therein mentioned. 1t was an ugly
word. so the slaves were referred to
as persons held to service and labor
On the question of representation they
were referred to as other persons
~ "It will serve no present purpose
to go into details Of the gradual separ-
alton of the slave states from the free,
and the weakening Of the bonds of the
union by the steady growth of the pro-
slavery sentiment in the south. Com
promises by which the dark spectre
might be concealed were made from
time to time, until the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise opened up the
whole question in Kansas and Nebras.
ka. The republican party sprang in
to being in 1854 as q, protest against
| the extension of this iniquity into the
territories. 1t was not proposed to In
terfere with slavery within the states
but the bred Scott decision aroused
the conscience of the nation. The con
ditions existing then produced the
party and since then the party has
produced conditions
First Candidate Defeated,
l"John G. Fremont, though born in
South Carolina, and married to Jessie
II Benton, the daughter of the great dem.
( ocratic senator, was our first, but I'M
successful candidate in 1856.
IS Defeat may delay, but will not de.
! stroy a righteous cause. In humble
hut IN Kentucky, as unpretentious as
d the stable in which the lowly Nazarene
was born, Abraham Lincoln first saw
the light in 1909.
"The hour came in 1860 and with it
the man.
1.-THE clock ticks and ticks and we
hear it not. 1t strikes and demands
our attention 1t struck in 1860 and
awakened the world. Slavery was not
content to. survive and fatten within
the narrow limits of the cotton and
border states. It must stretch it's limbs
and broaden its power in the great
prairies which were especially fitted
for the homes Of free men.
War and Its Horrors.
Rather than be content with less
than all 1t was willing to risk all. And
80 came the war and it horrors. The
party that was formed to restrict slav
cry remained to destroy the institu
ton, root and branch, within the states
as well as the territories.
mo party can live on its past alone
The mill cannot grind with water that
! has passed A record of achievement
is chiefly valuable as giving earnest Of
y. good works yet to come.
The republican party met the Is
sues OF reconstruction, greatly compli
aated by the assassination of the mighty
Lincoln, whose goodness OF heart ane
Common sense would have been of the
Greatest value in the solution Of the
problems which the war had left fol
| adjustment.
But the party met and disposed Of
these monentous questions as they
arose, stunning and Sinking nothing
Ehe national honor was involved in The
Payment Of the obligations arising from
1 that war, and the resumption of specie
payment became one of the duties O
the nation.
Here again the republican party
i. ~