Year: 1879

only Tor It's permanent 1uture, Dut pesI Win
reference to whatever chances it can have
be these chances what they may-in the
Presidential contest of next year. The
collapse of 'the Ohio idea" is like
lifting q heavy handicap from race
horse that carried too much dead
weight to win, even if his natural
speed and bottom were equal to those OF


his competitors. This opportune check IN
Ohio makes it reasonably certain that IN


the great Presidential race the democratic


party will not be handicapped either with
an imitation candidate or an imitation plat


form.


1t is common to say that storms clear
the atmosphere When the air is loaded


with noisome yapors and heavy fogs dim
the clear light of heaven the overshadow-
ing blackness of violent thundergust, al
though it may seem to increased the depress-
ing sense OF suffocation for the moment,
is the harbinger Of returning clearness
| transparency, easy respiration and bracing
atmospheric conditions In this respect
the physical world is type of the moral
and the political. In the records of re-
ligious experience the number of men who,
like Bunyan and the illustrious St. Angus
tine, have been transformed into emf
nent saints by an overwhelming sense
of their own excesses, is beyond
computation. To be sure, it is only
noble natures that can thus profit by
their errors, and this is as true OF
churches, of governments and of political
parties, as it is of individual men. The
heavy calamities brought upon the Catholic
Church by the Protestant Reformation were
the means Of its own publication, because
the Church had within itself the seeds Of
vigorous spiritual rejuvenation. France was
not destroyed by the wild orgies of its first
revolution, as Burke and others predicted
it would be, but derived new energy even
from the bloody Reign of Terror, and soon


became the conqueror Of Europe, because
| the nation was strong and acquired
new sense of its power by the
violence and excesses which attended
its emancipation from the vices and oppres-
| sion of the ancien regime 1t is only base or
effete natures that sink and wilt under the
| chastisement of their follies. Strong and
sound natures-natures in which there are
noble qualities worth saying-rise victo-
rious over their own mistakes and gather
new energy by the rebound.


| We do not doubt that the democratic
party possesses this power of recuperation,
and that it has yet great part to act in the
political life of the country. In spite of its
copperheadism during the war, in spite
| of the financial heresies which it
has fostered since the return Of
peace, the democratic party represents
some fundamental principles whose preser-
walton is essential to the ,perpetuity of our
! tree institutions. 1t comprises one-half of
the voting citizens of the United States,
| and there would be reason to despair of the
Republic if SO large a part of our people
had lost the sense of patriotism and public


virtue. We believe nothing Of the kind.


We believe that the average democrat is as


moral and we'll meaning as the average re-
publican. In recent years the party has
not had fair play, owing to perils of bad
leadership and speris from false brethren"
Saddled with Reputation in the West and
| bound to the corrupt carcass of Tammany
in the East, it has been its misfor-
tune to carry "a burden to sink
navy" Reputation is dead and Tammany
is committing suicide; and when the demo-
cratic party has no longer these two mill
stones hanging to its neck it will have
strength enough to keep its head above
water and swim ashore. With fresh leader
ship and wiser counsels it may have as
| great a career in the future as it formerly
had in the past


| A party which has so illustrious history,
party which has so much genuine SYM
pathy with the sons Of toll who form the
in spite of its alterations and fragrant
deviations from principle, is still the
main bulwark of popular rights against
usurping power, cannot be destroyed
| by its own blunders unless it per-
sists in them. It resembles an ancient
family, which, after having prudently man
aged its estates through successive genera
tions comes at last to have foolish and
prodigal heir. The spendthrift inheritor of
great name and great possessions may
bring himself into all sorts Of diff
culties and distress, and transmit
his own embarrassment to his immedi-
ate successors; but as he is only
the temporary possessor Of an entailed
estate the pride of the family name is not
extinguished, though dimmed, and the
fame of an honored lineage will assist the
next heir through his troubles. Such is
the ancient and time-honored demo.
cratic party, party long illustrious
in the history of the country; party
which never finched or faltered in MAIN
tanning the high bearing of the nation
against jealous foreign Powers; which orig
mated, proclaimed and defended the Mon