Year: 1878

New York Herald. sIndependent)


The republican party is stronger at


this moment than it was two or three


wears ago. The fact that it has lost a few


congressman this fall does not invali-


date this statement. The democratic


gerrymander in Ohio, for instance,


was intended to secure at least two or
three more democratic districts than


they got the other day, and the plain
truth is that but for this deliberate
and careful partisan redistricting of
the state the democrats would have
carried fewer districts this year than
they did two years ago. But while
the republicans have drawn back to
them a part of the independent vote
they lost in 1876, the democratic par
ty has undoubtedly and persistently
alienated the sympathy and conf
dence of this class by anxiously run
ming after the tramps. Do the demo-
cratic leaders really believe that
next president? They are greatly
mistaken. The country wants, above
all other things, peace, order, rest and
stability. 1t will carry into power in
1880 that party which promises these
things. But the democrats appear to
care for nothing of this kind. In the
North they figure as the disorganizers
Of the currency; in the South they
add to this new interference with
the political rights of citizens. Can


they not see that this attitude of theirs


is fatal to their success two years


hence?-that it repels all the great


mass Of thoughtful and influential in.


dependent voters who would like t.


see q change In administration; who


think the republican party has beer


In power too long, but who will moi


help to a change which would, as they


are fast coming to believe, be certain
ly for the worse? Take, for instance


these South Carolina political disturb


ances. The democrats ought to un


derstand that while the federal inter
ence served as an excuse in fOrme
times for the violent methods used il
lf-defence, the South has no sucl
excuse now in the public opinion o
the North. Southern democrats cal
T hope for no sympathy nowadays from
Northern men for any party wheI
e they interfere with the free politica
e action of the blacks, and it is far BET
9 ter for them to suffer defeat in thei


states and to let the republicans elec


bad men than by violence to maintai
q that ridiculous and dangerous thin
a they call ''sOlid South" NOthin
q will be 80 damaging to the democrat
ic party hereafter as a ''sOlid South.


1t requires very little wisdom to sc
r this, for it will be regarded every
where in the North as evidence tbs


the Southern democrats have coerce
g the negro vote. 1t is in the Mort
+ and not in the South that the demo
d cratic party must elect its presider
- in 1880, If it is to choose him at al
So far as the issues of the future hay
) developed themselves they are two
% the currency and the South; but o
II both these questions the democrat
\ will be in hopeless minority in tn
: North two years hence, unless the
turn very sharp corner. Do the
'e really hope to carry the country i
.. 1880 for irredeemable paper money
n and a ssolid South" secured by viz
lence and intimidation? Have the


so poor an opinion of the America
: people as to believe that a polio
ir made up in equal parts of swindlin
a. and revolutionary violence, can gal


them presidential election? Do the
Ii not see that such a party-to whic


they are fast getting committed
re- would lose them not only the ind,
"a pendent vote, without which the
never can succeed, but also larg,
Il and the best part of their own follow
= ing?