Year: 1872

TOO LA7E!


The Administration party for nearly four
wears has had matters pretty much ITS own
way. II started with great maiorities in Con-
press. and it was almost equally strong at the
North and the South. The people were not
difIicuIt TO please, and Hope told tlattering
tales without number and without restraint.
And this is the Administration which now
finds itself put upon the defensive and forced
TO resort to hundred expedients to save
itself from utter ruin. In South Carolina, for
instance, a State in which the so-called Re
pubicans have run riot, piling up day by day
the public de bt and carrying on system
atized plunderiDg which it is frightful to con-
slider, the real Republicans are just finding
out that no party can stand the Scott-Moses
style of managing matters. Judge Orr aud men
of his way of thinking are seeking to defend
Gen. Grant in South Carolina against himself,
and to save him from the consequences OF his
own blindness in giving the control oil the
State into perhaps the very dirtiest hands
that ever manipulated the public money.
Grants tax-gatherers and treasurers have ex-
torted and stolen the money OF the poor, ana
Grants soldiers, at the point of the bayonet,
have backed up the thieves. The powers at
Washington come rather tardily to their work
of regeneration Judge Orr, Mr. COrbin, and
the rest of the quasi Republicans of the State
have allowed the knaves to have their own
way. while the Head Center at Washington
has been deaf TO complaints which have been
loud enough in the ears OF everybody else.
Now the Grantians have discovered that the
State must be redeemed-from Grantism! that
Messrs. Scott & Co. must be sent to C0yen-
try; and that matters in the poor bankrupt
and plundered State must be somehow ar
ranged before the next election! And loudly
they call upon the Greeley and Brown men to
help them in the desperate work which they
have undertaken


Now, the funniest feature of the whole
case is Judge 0rr's prescription for the evils
which aillct the State. He wants all the white
men to declare for Grant" and ally them
selves with the regular Republican party. The
State and National elections do not come to-
gethcr but, queerly enough, if there is to be
any reform of State affairs, Judge Orr means
that the Grant party shall have all the benefit
of it. The self-styled RcfOrmcrs have been
asked to keep the State and National can
vases separate but, as they do not see how
>
that, they are but little inclined to do it,
The GRANTEES are offered the privilege of lead
ing the State Reform, which is so terribly
needed but they cannot understand how any
body can be RefOrmer unless he is ready to
vote for the denomination candidate. They
seem to have some muddled notion that the
Grant party has got them into the scrape, and
that the Grant party alone can get them out
of it,


Judge Orr may he exceedingly ia love with
reform, but it is rather suspicious to find him
of the opinion :hat reform means declaring
for Grant!n His remedies are altogether too
universal. Are you squeezed to death by tax
gatherers-declare for Grant! Are you tor
mented by domiciiary visits-declare for Grant! |!
Are you Disguised with the spectacle of a fair
State in the felon grasp of swindlers and ex-
tortiOners-decare for Grant That is, if you
would be rid of Grantsm, try another dose of
it, sweetcned with the sugar of Reform. Isn't
this political homeopathy with a vengeance 7
Treatment of some kind it cannot be denied
that poor South Carolina needs. The Enforce
ment Act is not by any means dead letter.
"There is pile of warrants for arrest" we are
told, in Union County alone foot and half
thick. Not dozen citizens of the county of
Saxon blood viii escape" This is only a
specimen statement, and it would be easy
enough to add to it. They talk of nothing
there but arrests and taxes They groan for
reform, and they are told to vote for Gen.
Grant! Judge Orr can offer them nothing but
a hair of the dog which bit them! An unfor-
tunate people indeedl