Year: 1878

disposition to eoncede something TO
stop the drain. But moderate 'conces-
sions were of no avail, and the Green
back movement has grown until it pre-
sents a formidable 'front.' It has. 40
where given evidence of power to
win TO its support a majority of the
people, but it has shown itself capable
of reducing both the old parties to
minority and threatening. them with
defeat so long as they attempt to main
tain their integrity. The Democracy
has yielded the last remnant of prin-
ciple in the hope of drawing the new
party of initiation and Reputation into
its own fold, but it will not come. Now
1t can point TO the result of the election
in Maine and boast that it outnumbers
those who still cling TO the Democratic
standard, and the invitation for a coali-
tion may with propriety issue from its
own side. If either is to abandon its
organization, its name, and its preten-
sions, it must be that whose Organiza-
tion is demoralized, whose name has
lost its meaning, and whose pretensionsr,
have become ridiculous, and not that
which glories in its new-found strength
and has never falsified its record or
proved reereant to what it calls its
principles. 1t is no longer possible for
the Democratic party to absorb the
Greenback movement but it is rather
destined to be absorbed by it.


Meantime, the Republican party, not
withstanding the desertions by which
it has suffered, and the weakness dis
played ut times by some of its leading
men, stands alone on the ground of
sound financial policy, of restoration
of specie as the basis of all currency,
and fuliillment of every obligation of
the Government. 1t is not strangethat
while the Greenback party has out
grown the Democracy, Notwithstanding
its abject concessions, and the latter
has maintained its organization and
clung TO its name and traditions as
still potent enough to hold it together,
the Republicans have been reduced to II
minority, though still a strong plurality,
in triangular contest. 1t would have
been wonder if the result had been
different. But we are now in the
midst of an uncompleted transition.
1t does not by any means appear that
the majority is anywhere favorable to

hackers. There are many sturdy be-
levers in sound finance in the ranks of
old the Democracy. They may cling to
the antiquatGd party so long as it holds
together, uttering unavailing protests
against the surrender of its old-time
faith, and hoping against hope that
wiser heads will yet prevail in its
councils. So long as the organization
is kept up, and uses the old name and
the traditions of remote past to con-
jure with, there will be Democrats to
vote the Democratic ticket, though the
Prince of Darkness be at its head. But
manifest destiny declares that there
can be only two parties to this financial
contest, and it is clear that the young,
active, bold, and unhesitating National
party, that is hampered by no traditions
and knows what it wants, is not the one
destined to disappear. The third
party is no longer the new one, but
the old one, and Democrats who rejoice
at what they call the Republican de-
feat in Maine are hilarious over the
omens of their own destruction. They
chuckle at the doom of the party of
Jefferson, Jackson, and Buchanan.
Ere the transition now going on is COM
plete, all ''sOft-money" men must 90
to the ''soft-money" party, and all
"hard-money" men must go to the
''hard-money" party, and the Democ-
racy is neither of these. 1t is between
the upper and neither millstones, and
cannot escape being ground to atoms.


The Republican party has. no occa-
sion to be disheartened. 1t holds the
vantage ground, and has principle,
truth, honesty, and the experience of
the world on its side. 1t is under no
further temptation to palter or to hest
tate. The hostile ground is occupied,
and there is nothing for it to do but to
strengthen its position and invite all
believers in Il sound currency and the
preservation of the nations plighted
faith to come to its standard. When
the Democratic party goes TO pieces or
is absorbed into the bosom of the
Greenback organization, the convictions
and common sense of the people will
take the place of party allegiance and
fidelity to an ancient name and time
honored traditions. Those only will
go into the Greenback party who be-
lieve in its doctrines, and those who
still have faith in reason, in logic, and
in the lessons of experience must needs
cast their lot with those with whom
they agree on the living questions to be
affected by their political action. When
the transition is complete, and we
have only two parties confronting each
other for the contest that eXcites the
attention of the American people, we
shall be able to measure the strength
of those parties, and not before.-M I.
Times.