Year: 1879

good many democrats, North, South,
East and West, begin in these days to talk
about Senator Bayard as a Presidential
candidate 1t is since the defeat of the
grotesque Thurman-Ewing combination
troupe in Ohio that what may be called,
in the prevalent slang, the Bayard boom.
has become noticeable ; and now that Mr..
Cornell is elected this Bayard boom will be
even more conspicuous than ever. "When
the devil was sick the devil monk
would be-" and it is good evidence
of their fright that the democratic
brethren are beginning to discover that
they have such man as Senator Bayard
in their ranks. Last summer, when Ihur-
man. Voorhees, Speaker Randall and the
other blathersktes of the party were BOOM
ing in both houses of Congress and un-
consciously digging the grave of their
party, there was more or less talk OF re-
moving Mr.. Bayard in disgrace from the
craftsmanship of the Finance Committee,
and there seemed at one time hardly room
for him in his party even. just now they
begin to speak of him as proper Presi-
Dental andidate-perhaps the best Mr..
Bayard, who has just returned from Europe.
will be amazed at the change.


Well, it is worth while to consider this
'Bayard boom. The democratic party is SO
weak so PROSTATE, it has been brought
into such disgrace and contempt by the
ridiculous pettifogging statesmen who in
the last Congress assumed to manage it,
that when some of its members, recovering
their senses, or scared into decency, start
Bayard boom, it may be we'll to consider
what it means. Mr.. Bayard is an honor
able man; his whole course in the Senate
has shown him a wise, far-seeing pa
triotic and conservative statesmen. He has,
more than perhaps any other of our public
men, striven to live up to the ideal of our
early statesmen. He looks to the country's
good first Of all, and is not to be swerved
from that by any fancied considerations of
party interest. He is democrat, but all
his public life has proved him an Ameri-
can first of ali. In regard to the Presidency
he has always shown his belief that the
office ought to seek the man and not the
man hunt the Office.





begins to look to Mr.. Bayard as its candi-
date next year it does wisely; but demo-
Gratis will have to remember that
they must come to Mr.. Bayard with
clean hands and clear heads. They
must come to him as democrats and not as
greenbackers or as time-servers Of any
kind. If they think seriously of Offering
-.
have to make up their minds to let him
also write their platform, and they must
be ready to accept truly democratic plat
form, and not thing made up in equal
parts of purblind old whiggery, ignorant
communism and blatant demagoguery. If
they should attempt to place Mr.. Bayard
on such platform as that they would, we
are persuaded, get from him rebuff which
they would not soon forget.


If the democratic party is ready to come
out of the wilderness in which it has been
straying for the last twenty years and
take up its neglected principles once
more it cannot do better than nominate
Mr.. Bayard. But it need not carry him the
nomination with any notion that it is
doing him favor. He will do it great
favor if he accepts its nomination, for his
acceptance will be evidence to the country
that the party is once more striving to
become worthy of public confidence and
that it has made up its mind to live clean
and return to democratic principles.


Whether the democratic party can suc-
ceed even with Mr.. Bayard at it's head, and
on such platform as he would write or
adopt, is an open question. There is much
evidence to show that the country is tired
OF the republicans with their utmost eff
forts their majorities are small everywhere,
and there is no doubt that the party is
weakened in the public esteem by the abso-
Lutte control of its machinery by the ex-
treme or stalwart politicians At the same
time the country has been wise enough
all along to stick to the republicans,
whom it does not entirely trust rather
than give itself to the democrats, whom
it was still less able to trust. That Is in
brief the political situation, and the demo-
Gratis have not during the present year made
any change in it, except one which leaves
them even worse off than before. 10 NOM
mate Mr.. Bayard would undoubtedly be a
strong appeal to the confidence and good
will of the people; but in view of the late
extra session even this appeal may be in
vain.


The question with many voters will be
whether even Mr.. Bayard's guarantee is
sufficient to warrant their support of the
democratic party. The fact that he would
have the solid South supporting him would
probably be an injury rather than help,
for the solid democratic South is SO unnat-