Year: 1874

| Yesterday was an uncOmmOnly good day for
conventions. They "broke out" so to speak,
all over the country. They had them in llli-
nois, in Missouri, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, In
Kansas, and in Michigan. Had the aerial Don
aldson been perambulating the upper air with
his sand-bags and gas-bags and graphing
irons and reporters ten chances to one in dis
charging ballast he would have sprinkled
political convention with sand, and five to one
he would have hooked up a delegate on his
grappling-irOns. The chances that there would
be more gas in the balloon than in the de-
bates and platforms we refrain from computing;
but we do not hesitate to say that the spec
tacle of the average delegate with the Pro-
fessors grappling-iron in the seat of his
trowsers, lifted up by the imitation which he
advocates, would be wholesome and refreshing
In all the States named the delegates. big
with the fate of empires, sat down together
and seriously nominated and sOlemnly re-
solved. Some of them, no doubt, believed in
what they uttered and meant to be sincere.
MANY more of them sat in convention and
voted for the candidates and the platforms
with a single thought and very earnest pur-
pose to take care of Number One. To this
consideration all others were entirely sub
ordinate and secondary. Getting on was the
main thing.


Possibly some very charitable reader will
say this is cynical view of the matter. 1t
NAV be. But before any one settles down to
that conviction we beg bim to take
the proceedings of the several Conven-
tions, sort them out by their party designa-
tions and compare them carefully. is it possi-
~ Of fhn


cratic party of the country is upon the i'm
portant questions of currency and finance from
the resolutions of the Democratic Conventions
of Ohio and Illnos7 No one needs to be
told that the question which most occupies
the minds of the American people is this one
of finance 1t is not too much to say that it is
the main issue before the country to-day. And yet
here are two Democratic Conventions, held
the same day in two States not far apart.
taking positions upon this question almost
Numerically opposed to each other What
then in this state of things can any one
decide as to the position of the party upon
it7 A Democrat in Illinois is nOS by any
means Democrat in Ohio, if these resolutions
mean anything at all. And yet there are
people who undertake to think that it is a
National party, that it has views upon finance,
and is devoted to something that it calls
principle.


On the other hand the party in power in
the National Government and in majority
of the States is confronted by the same ques-
ton; and what does it dot Why, yesterday
in Michigan it voted down in State COnven-
ton a resolution approving the Presidents
veto of the currency initiation bill, and virtu-
ally approved the position of Senator Ferry,
who is the whipper-snapper of initiation. In
some of the States it is pronounced and posi-
tive for an honest currency; in others 1t is
either for initiation outright or "whips the
devil round the stump" in twO-faced resolu-
| tiOns and ambiguous utterances. We undertake
to say that the man does not live who can take
the platforms of the two parties in the several
States. so far as they have held Conventions
and adopted platforms, and make out financial
creed fer either of them. The truth is that
the two great" parties are travelling on their
names, and their names only. One points with
pride to it's record during the war and talks
irredeemable nonsense. The other points with
disgust at the corruDtion Of the opposition.