Year: 1877

The Rspablican Defeat In Ohio.


OF course President Hayes and his friends


will make light Of the Ohio election and at


tempt to explain it away. but other people


may not be quite of their mind. The pub


lie will recollect that Mr. Hayes made cir


cult through his own State in one of his late


journeys and had a series of great oyations


that Secretary Sherman delivered an eiabo-


rate speech at Mansfield in defence OF the
Presidents policy and subsequently wrote
an urgent letter saying how very important
it was that the republicans should carry the
State in this election. Had they done
so, and had the republican victory been
as great as that which has been
achieved by the democrats, everybody
knows that President Hayes, Secretary
Sherman and all the republican supporters
of the new policy would have claimed it as
a valuable Endorsement of the President by
his own State. The attempt to belittle the
! result, now that the Ohio election has gone
SO strongly the other way, is mere saive or
plaster applied to painful wound. These
gentlemen cannot be permitted to avail
themselves Of the artitice "heads l win,
tails you lose" As they would certainly
have claimed victory in Ohio as an in
dorsement Of the administration it would
be consistent and logical for them to admit
that the defeat looks great deal like
rebuke. They cannot have it both ways.
Unless their failure to carry the State is a
rebuke there would have been no justifca-
ton for claiming the success which they
hoped as an approval


1t will not do to attribute this result to
the workingmens ticket. 1t may be true,
as given out at the White House, that this
ticket drew most OF its supporters from the
republican ranks. But since there is rs
large q proportion Of workingmen in the
democratic as in the republican party how
did it happen that this new faction did not
were the democrats SO much better able 10
hold their men than the republicans? 1t
was because party ties have not been
loosened in the one organization rs
they have in the other; because the
democrats were not dissatisfied, and
many republicans were. The chief
ground of republican dissatisfaction is un-
questionably Mr.. Hayes Southern policy.
This is proved by the great falling off Of
the republican vote in what is called the
Western Reserve, which has always been the
stronghold Of aggressive republicanism in
Ohio Mr.. Hayes is reported to have said
yesterday that the result in Ohio cannot be
interpreted as q condemnation of his policy,
inasmuch as the democrats of that State
have expressed approval Of it. According
to this reasoning universal defeat Of the
republicans in all the States should not be
interpreted as q condemnation; but would he
be Indifferent to the annihilation Of the
party by which he was elected? Does he
care nothing for the fact that his friend
Stanley Matthews is to have democratic
successor? Is he willing that at the middle
of his term there shall be democratic
majority in the Senate as well as in the
House? Would he covet the position Of o
President without n party or q President
dependent on his political opponents for the
success Of his measures and the confirma-
ton of his appointments This is what
such an endorsement" as he has re-
ceived in Ohio tends to. Democrats
indorse Mr.. Hayes policy because
it is their own. If it is policy
to be patented they claim priority Of
invention. 1t is the policy for which the
tending during the twelve years since the
close Of the war, and which the republican
party has been just as steadily and stren-
uously opposing. But in indorsing their
own policy the democrats are tar enough
from intending any compliment to Mr..
Hayes or his administration.


Although the policy Of President Hayes is
entirely right and wise it is nevertheless n
bitter pill for his own party. 1t embodies
different political doctrine from that on
which republicans have been nourished.
While it is consistent enough with their
national platform adopted last year
it is not consistent with the
spirit in which Mr. Hayes canvass
was conducted by his supporters. From
the beginning to the end OF the Presiden-
tial cam paign the great republican bugbear
was "a solid South" During the CANVASS
Mr.. Hayes expressed no dissent from this
mode Of conducting it. 1t was by stirring
appeals to sectional passions that the re-
publican party carried all the Northern
States but four, and it seemed like turning
pretty sharp corner for the President, as
soon as he was in office, to renounce and re-
pudiute the ideas on which no had been
elected. Local self-government in the South
was constantly advocated by the democrats
throughout the Presidential canvass and
was as constantly scoffed and derided by
the republican press and stump orators.
The effect of the canvass as conducted
by Mr.. Hayes supporters was to educate
the republican party in n very different
order of sentiments from that which he has
made the basis Of his policy. 1t is not sur
prising that many republicans are in no