Year: 1879




OF THE ELECTION.


lFRoN A STAFF CORRESPONDENT OF THE rRIBUNE.l


BANGOR, Me-, Aug. 24.-The Greenback party in
Maine resembles man who has climbed withmuch
dash and enthusiasm almost to the top of a steep
hil and getting out of breath before reaching the
summit is struggling desperately to keep from
slipping back again. The party is making a great
tuss and perhaps imagnes that it Is gaining
ground but an observer cannot fail to see that in
spite of all its efforts it is not holding itself up to
the point it attained last year. Then the cry
against resumption had great effect. Many honest
and tOlerably intelligent people believed that
times were hard because the Republican party was
threatening the country with impossible return
to specie payments, and that the effort to resume
would result in general collapse of business and
universal distress. The Greenback prophets of
evil who alarmed their followers last year with
black pictures of the ruin to come from Sherman's
policy are little staggered the fact that resump
ton has actually taken place and nobody is
hurt. They have not retired to Obscurity,
however; but, hardening their checks little more,
are again upon the stump denying that there is any
real resumption aud telling enormous lies about the
condition of the farming and operative classes The
facts reue them at every step, but they hope their
hearers can he kept ignorant of these facts until
election. The false statements and false references
of these quack orators are beyond computation.
As an illustration, Scion Chase tells his audiences
that the farmers in AroOsOOk County do not cut
their hay because 1t will not pay to send it to mar
ket. Now every intelligent man knows that the
hay crop IN Maine Is a source of immense revenue
TO the State and is worth more money than the
cotton crop of North Carolina Perhaps there is
some section Of ArOOstOOb so remote from rail and
water transportation that hay cannot be proftably
marketed, but Chase wants bis hearers TO
infer that the whole farming interest of
the State is in distressed condition, whereas in
fact it was never much better off than now. In
no State do you larger and better built
farm-houses or more evidences of thrift and pros
perty among the dwellers on the soil. Another
orator charges the decline OF the ship-bulldmg in-
dustry to resumption, in the face of the fact that
the decline was at its lowest point in the flush
times of cheap money. Since resumption the trade
is looking up. / saw seven ships the stocks at
Bath the other day-mOrc, was told, than have
been building at any one time for many years The
distress Of the labOring classes is stock theme with
all the cheap money takers yet the shops mills
and factories all running, and no industrious
man need be out of employment. The great cotton
and wOolen mills at Lewiston are running to their
full capacity the shoe industry Of Auburn which
much depressed year ago. Is now quite active and
a hundred factories along the swift water-courses
in the western part of the State are busy and pros
porous. The Greenbac5crs cannot make head
against the tide of reyiving industry. 1t will soon
sweep their party ont Of existence.


When told that everybody is at work in Maine
that there are no tramps the roads or idlers in
the lumber region or the manufacturing towns
they talk about low wages. But the laboring man
knows that his days wages will buy -four,
and elo thglt he SOlOu
Chase tells his audiences that too much pork has
been crowded into the dollar. The wOrkingman
who has to buy his pork is not sorry forShis, and
the farmer who raises il knows that his hog can be
turned into rs much of The things he has to buy az
i'm the flush times. The Greeubackers fighting
against the plain logic of events e.makng no new
converts, and are not keeping all their old ones
They have an appearance of increased strength
from the fact that the Democrats are working with
them. In all the counties but one fusion tickets
are in the field. and the two parties join in the
meetings and demonstrations of the campaign
The effect of the fusion is, however, to disgust
many former Republicans who have taste
for the mixture of old Comprehension, and TO anger
the hard-money Democratic element. Like all in
congruous alliances it generates a great deal of re-
pcllant force. Besides the rather lukewarm Repub
lcan converts to soft money! whose little remaining





old hard-shell Democrats. who detest the whole
Greenback business, there is an element Of extreme
Greenbackcrs of the fiat money faith who are dis
satisfied with the coalition. They are fanatical
enough to imagine that theirs is the great party of
the future, and they think the faith should be kept
pure from any faint of the corruption of the old
parties. The organ of this element is The
Greenbqck- Labor Chronicle published at Auburn
by Fogg, Blood & Co. 1t supports Smith
for Governor, but does not recognize the lead
ership OF Soon Chase. and regards him as a rene
qade from the true faith. The other Greenback pa
pers are Jbe National Tribune, o. augusta; The
Nac Era, of Portland The Greenbo'tv, Of Bangor;
Tie Nortk star of Presqre Isle; The Bctlat AGs The
Camden Herald and The Cd'ai8 Times. All the
Democratic papers except one in Belfast, which has
repudated the coalition and come out for Davis,
are helping the Greenbackers along by advertising
their meetings. printing their communications, and
puhlisbing attacks on tine financial policy of the
Government. One old Democratic paper The Rock
land OpiRion has h0isted the Greenback ticket.
Tie others keep up Garcelon's name, but make no
pretausiou OF combating the Greenback ticket or
doctrines


In their canvass the Greenbackers are weak for
tb, want of able men of National reputation. Prob
ably the Rev Hon. DE La Matyr is doing better
work for them than anybody else from outside the
state. He is q fluent talker and his Congressional
bonors make Linn something of lion Colonel
Jesse Harper, of Illinois, General Horace Blnney
Sargent. Of Boston, the Hon. T.. Moody Boynton,
dlyeIscly advertised as OF New-Nork and of Boston,
and James Deyine, whose residence is omitted
in the Greenback paper before me. are the other
chief notables from abroad. | omit one, Blanton
Duncan because the Greenback leaders repudiate
him. They had great expectations OF his services IN
their cause, but when he attacked the Democrats in
his great speech and said the half had not been told
about intolerance and buldozlng IN the South, they
cot alarmed and tried to hustle him out of the