Year: 1873

gard 90 the Republican Par


~.


The following calm and temperate
review of Senator Thurmans Waver-
ly speech, (of which his speeches
here and elsewhere are but repeti-
tions,) we copy from the Columbus
Journal. The article is from the pen
of the editor, Gen. Comfy, who it is
well known has heretofore been a
warm personal admirer of Senator
Thurman, though politically opposed
to him. But his gross misrepresen-
tations and false charges against the
Republican party have aroused the
Indignation of every fair-minded man,
who is not warped by prejudice, and
Gen. Comfy feels constrained to ex-
pose the unfair course of the Senator,
who is again before the people of
Ohio, seeking to represent them for
another term of six years in the Ma
tional councils. Read, and then de-
eide whether such a demagogue is
worthy longer to hold that exalted
position:


'The proportion of Democratic to
Republican voters in Ohio is about
as 49 to 51-forty-n nine hundredths
being Democrats. Asan advocate of
proportional representation the State
Journal has not been disposed to
hold it a calamity that the State of
Ohio should be represented in the
U. S. Senate by one dignifed and
able statesman from each of the great
parties. There were certainly plenty
of Republican statesmen of that or
der, whom we should have been glad
to see in the Senate; but justice
seemed to demand that forty-nine
hundredths of the voters should not
be disfranchised in order that fifty
one hundredths should hold all the
power.


An able, fair, honest statesman in
the opposition, would be rather a
blessing than calamity.


An unfair, prejudiced, narrow
minded partisan, using his position
as means of infaming the people
with demagogical misrepresentation,
is not desirable, there or elsewhere.
1t will be a day to be marked with
white stone, when the election of
such men to office in America shall
become an impossibility forever.


These observations, in their gener-
al character, will not be disapproved
by any large part of the voters of
either party, in the State. In their
special application we shall doubtless
find more objectors.


We mean to say, then, that the
Waverly speech of Allen g. Thurman
shows that he is not such an able, fair,
or honest member of the opposition
as to be blessing to the State of
Ohio, in his capacity of opposition
Senator. We have been both panied
and astonished to find him more par
tisan than statesman; to find that
he is not above catering for the taste
of the lowest vulgar; that he is not
too high-minded or honorable to mis-
represent his fellow Senators, in the
hope of securing partisan advantage.


We had hoped to hear from Sena-
tor Thurman statesmanlike view of
the state of the Nation, with wise
suggestions for the relief of grievan-
ces. We had hoped to see him sink
the partisan in the grander charac-
ter of statesman, and discuss consid-
erations of public policy as a man
having comprehensive and far reach
ing views of the national needs and
exigencies. Instead of that, we find
him laboring painfully to damage the
Republican party by mere partisan
misrepresentation; we find him com
pletely ignoring the share of his own
party in the business for which he
seeks to hold the Republican party
solely responsible; We find, in short,
mere partisan harangue, of the low
est type, in which there is neither
fairness, decency nor sense.


If Mr. Thurman had given US a
fair and candid review OF the de-
moralization which just now af1icts
not only the civil service but the
whole body of society, and had sug-
gested remedy for this epidemic Of
dishonesty and bad faith, he would
have done the State some service
Instead of that, he bends his whole
mind to the work of making the Re
publican party responsible for the
work of the rogues who have deceived
it and forfeited its confidence, and
who can never again hope to obtain
public employment through the Re
publican party, any more than the
J defaulting cashier may hope to obtain
employment through the stockholders
of the bank he has defrauded. Mr..
Thurman not only is unfair enough
to seek to make a party matter out of
individual dishonesty, through which
the party is the greatest sufferer, but
he goes further, and conceals OF
denies the completely of his own
party, which exists in precisely the
same manner with that of the Repub-
lican party, and to greater degree
as to one of the jobs overhauled by
him. To hear Mr. Thurman, without
any other source of information, one
would suppose that the Republican
party is wholly responsible for all the
corruption and dishonesty extant.-I
We do not exaggerate the unfairness