Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1908-02-07
Friday, February 7. 1908.
A CHANCE FORTHs SAFE AND SANE.

The Republican party has held pow
or practically unbroken for 81 years.
It will hold it so more if the same
means can be employed in the future
that have been in the past. This I'M
broken reign-for even the one Cleve'
land administration when both houses
of Congress were supposedly Democrat
ic was but another name for Republic
can rule-has been regarded by many
outside the pale of the party as the
apOtheosis of statecraft and govern
mental wisdom. Many who have stuff
cred the extreme penalties of the slay-
cry which the hatred and the inhu-
manity of a party which began its life
by war, and weltered in blood when it
first seized the helm. and poured it out
like rivers, which laid in waste homes
of millions OF wouldbe peaceful people,
and butchered and bnried millions of
the best youth of the nation in graves
dug by malice, hatred, intolerance,
and malad ministration, believe Or pro
fess to believe that the Republican
party has been, and is, the Greatest of
Parties, and that the nation has been
better governed by it than it could
have been by any other. Many have
& often down on their knees before it
and fairly licked the dust from its feet.
Many are ready now to do the same
thin whose fathers died at the muzzle
of the guns that party put IN the hands
of foreign hirelings and sent like To-
Gu SITS over the fair South, or were
star we'd or shot in Northern prisons.
Not content with the butchery of her
people in war, this same party placed
the shackles of Reconstruction on the
south when butcheriDg day was over,
and lnstigated the former slaves to
murder and unspeakable crimes. Not
content with this, it has systematical-
ly made laws which were intended to,
and did, Cypress the South, and are
today depressing it. A certain set in
the South have forgotten this, or are
bending the plant knee that thrift may
follow fawning.
During all this period and today the
South is denied place in the nation
equal to that of other States. No one
of the South is lift" to be president.
The Republican party still carries on
the statute books laws applicable to
supposed offenses IN the South, and
aim ed especially at her people. Until
the Spanish war began. when as the
monkey which used the cats paw to
draw hot ehestnuts from the fire, the
Republican party wished to use the
Southern youth to fight a war it had
for ced on Spain, there were upon the
statute books laws which branded as
criminals the fathers of many of these
Southern youths. They were removed
theu under pressure, because the Re.
publican party knew that the youth of
the South would see them, and their
war, many leagues beyond the farther
est limits of the internal regions be
fore they would fight under flag
which had f10ated over SO many crimes
In their land. and yet was the emblem
of nation where their own father 8
were treated as outcasts and criminals,
deprived of the right to hold office or
enjoy equal privileges with foreigners
and q egroes. This change came from |
no good feeling of the Repu blican par |
tow ard the South, but was forced by |
the necessity of the times. Good feel |
ing toward the South is an unknown
quantity in that party. 1t has no nse
for the white people of the South. and |
from its very birth has sought only to
destroy them-and what of them it did
not destroy it has consistently and
persis tently burdened, despised and
Inundated.
The end OF that party is not yet. By
chicanery, by bribery, by fraud, by
every device known 10 and learned BY
a long life of actual or political crimi-
nality. its leaders have been able since
their bloody beginning, either by hook
ton of 1876. when it packed tribunal
TO decide the cause and give 1t pres
i dent 1t had not elected, or later in the
NJ cKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896.
whom Mark Hanna opened the vaults of
Wall s treet. and bought with the cor
ruption fund poured out in their ex-
trem ity, the election-that party has
managed to hold on to national power.
Begun in war, it remains to be seen
VIII ether the life of this party will not
end in a war, not a war where march.
ing armies with death dealing weapons
in their hands, will lay each other low
do We think. but a war of Labor and
Capital, or Capital and Labor, capital
always being first. A war when it shall !
be deter mined whether capital shall |,
always control and always dictate, or
whether labor shall forever be slave. !
or have some rights of an American !
citizen. The great party has been hu. |
initiated latterly, it has suffered a Sc
we're wound. it has well nigh been put
down and cut by blow from a sup
posed friendly hand. 1t is getting its
second wind. The AldIich bill Will
afford money, and money is it's life. but
there is oalamitOus scene about it.
Suicides, sudden deaths, gaping pris-
ons, bankruptcy, poverty, hollow eyes,
hunger, actual starvation in places,
wreck and ruin, idle workmen and
marching COxey armies. The hated
South is not suffering so much Just
now. The trouble is In the party
household up North. 1t is a family |
scrap, and from the windows and back
doors, out of the cellar and the attic =
members of q once happy family ars