Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-06-21
VOICES OF PRESS.
Fifty Years Of RepubIicanism.
New York Tribune.)

NEW York Tr!bune)
fhliadelphia is celebrating this week
The III tieth anniversary of the Fremont
Dayton national convention, the histor,c
gathering which put the first Republican
tlon has been OF local rather than a
general character; yet the country al
large may we'll be interested in the com
mem mtmorati3n OF the entry, INTO national po-
l!tlcs OF the party which. OF all our par
ties ms, on the whole, developed ths
greatest capacity for government and eX-
creased the most potent influence on our
political life. Compared with its fore
runners and rivals, the Republican party
mas, indeed, enjoyed an astonishing
measure OF SUCCESS. Its first experimental
failure. But it was Il failure which car
ried with it inspiration. not discourage
ment, and which cleared the way tor vic
tory four years later. OF the thirteen
Presidential contests in which the party
has been engaged it has lost only three,
and from 1870 to 1906 there have beel.
lost control spontaneously of the Presi-
dency ard of both houses of Congress
No other American party has ever been
so long or so firmly intrench-d in power
But success is not the Republicans par
tvs real claim to remembrance. 1t has
done more than any rival to set and keep
It's work as a l'atiOn and as Il democracy.
The FederaliSt PARTY, under Hamilton
and Marshall. did an admirable service in
ctmenting discordant Union ard in en-
phaSlZlng the Importance OF the federal
powers through whose exercise the
states could be and should be held to-
gether. But the Federalists failed 10 APP
precate the strength OF the Democratic
forces which the struggle for independ-
ence had developed. ard We're swept away
as party when Jefferson began to
equality. Jefforson's ideas left lasting
impress on our polite a. social and eco
homie development But. insisting too
strongly on the individuals initiative and
freedom from governmental restraints. he
greatly undcrvalued the functions which
In central government could advantage
ously exercise and failed to recognize the
instinct which has steadily driven us
toward closer and more effective union
The party he founded as an instrument
of democracy was captured by an ariS-
tOcratic property interest bent on perpet-
uatine slavery-an institution which alb
S"lutely blocked the path of democratic
progress. For more than fifty years it
of section; and it lives now chiefly as
an aggregation of warning interests at
one only in tho if profession of loyalty to
their differences.
If the Democratic party only gradually
changed its character. the old Wing party
nnPsa hsd from n" sabpP os ana t"
thought beyond success in the next cleo
ton. 1t was the Republican partyS
deep and sincere conviction-thc convic~
ton of thousands of Northern Wings and
Democrats that the nation could not ex-
ist half slave and half free that com
promises and ovasions must be dropped
and slavery must be crushed before it
crushed the Republic. The party of Ere
mont and Lincoln has taken as its task
to make the country first free and then
one: and in accomplishing that task it
has perfected the work of jefferson as
well as Of Hamilton. Slavery was n
blight and menace both to unity and to
democratic progress. But now. after fifty
wears of Republicansm we are n people
industrially free and politically reunited
lSectionaliSm has been exercised from DO
ltiCS and we can set to work to solve
the problems which have accumulated
during the long struggle to eXtirpatc
slavery and create homogeneous and
compact nation.