Year: 1875




Over the Financial lssue-The Contest


in Pennsyivania-WilI the Ohio Con.
federate-Democraric Platform be Re-
vived In Pennsylvania e-The Anti.
Slavery Sentiment of the North and the


Rights of Labor.


New YORK, October Is. 1875.
1t is now clear that the financial issue


will be dropped by Eastern Democrats, as
it is believed that its tendency is to
strengthen the Republican party in Penn
slvanis, New York and the New England


States without any corresponding gain in
the West. Whatever strength the doctrine
of increased circulation may have had at
the West and South has been neutralzed
by two causes-at the South by the pres.
enoe of the Confederate league in every


Southern State, thereby alarming the North
as to the Interior purposes of the Gin
fationists,' as the Confederate leaders
are called; at the West by the return
of the Germans to the Republican
party under the lead of Carl Sehurz. But
the issue of finance remains, nevertheless,
as an indirect influence in both parties. Its
indirect influence on the Republican party
is to give it the support of the money power
and the business interests, which are always
connected with capital through the banks.


Its indirect influence on the Confederate
Democracy will be to produce discord in
that party, besides weakening the motive
power" of some of its ablest men, West and
South. The net result upon national politics
of the financial issue is, therefore, in favor
of the Republicans. The issue will, in this
modified form, continue to affect the local


politics OF New York and PeDnsyl-


vania, but your readers must expect to
see new political developments in both
of these States. The fight in Pennsylvania
may nevertheless be renewed on the finan-
cial issue put forth by the Confederate.
Democracy in Ohio. If it lie. we shall see
evidences Of this within the next two weeks


l incline to the opinion that the financial
platform of the Confederate Democracy of
Ohio will, if tested, prove to be stronger in
Pennsylvania than in any other Northern
State. There is much distress and conse-
euent political discomfort among the labor.
ing masses in Pennsylvania, especially IN
the coal and manufacturing districts of the
State. This discomfort will undoubtedly
reflect itself in organized hostility to the
"money power" and it will. if steps are not
taken to counteract this tendency, become
the active ally of the Confederate Demo
cratic party. This tendency of the discon
tented laboring masses of the North to act
with the Coutederate-Democr can be
effectively counteracted.


The contest in Maine and in Ohio shows
clearly that the strength of the Republican
party. embracing as it does banker, farmer
and laborer, is to be found in its anti
slavery traditions and convictions. Dema
gogues may talk as they please about the
"bloody shirt" Tlmid Republicans may
be frightened from their posts of duty by
the fippant slang of Confederate Demo-
Gratis about "niggers" and the "bloody
shirt" bat the truth remains that the great
mass of the national Republican party is
composed of men and women, rich and poor
alike, who place the cause of God above
every other cause, and these men and wo-
men believe that the cause of humanity is
ever the cause of God, and that the eman-
cipated negro of the South stands for this
cause in this nation. Furthermore, it will
be found that among the laboring masses of
the North, there exists this same deep anti.
slavery sentiment, and fellow feeling and
fellow-sympathy for their fellow -laborer of
the South. The fact that the representa-
tive of the labor class at the South is black
does not materially weaken this labor
alliance between the sections. 1t will take
the Confederate Democratic leaders many
years Of hard word to make the intelligent
mechanics of the North -bsliev D. that the
members Of the white aristocfacy are doing
the sweating on the cotton, sugar and rice
plantations of the South, and on the steam
ers and railroads of the Southern States,
while the idle negro is playing ere
publican loafer" at large, overseering his
former master and living upon the hard
earned. ill-paid wages of the oppressed and
downtrodden industrious whites. This pic
ture of negro Incidence and white industry
has been presented to the MOI thern mind
with great adroitness and with the most
persistent tenacity, in season and out OF
season, during the last six years. 1t has
made many converts in the drawingrooms
and club rooms of the North. Whitelaw
Reid, of the Tribune, for instance, believes
the story. So does George William Curtis,
of Harper's Weekly, in part. But the hard
palmed laboring population of the North
generally discard the theory. The North
ern laboring man, governed by an unerr.
ing linstinct born of his own personal
experience, is possessed of strong
suspicion. amounting to an absolute
conviction, that the sweat work done at the
South 10 done mostly by the negro, and by
the poor whites who were non-slaveh olders
before the war. The Northern working
man is willing to admit that there are many
examples where the son of the wealthy and
aristocratic families of the South have taken
off their coats and gone into the fields and
enriched the soil with honest isbor sweat.
But the theory that the negro is an idler
and losfer, living upon the labor of the
Southern whites. is exploded among the
masses OF working people North. Conse-
quently the old conflict between coerced Tor
labor and free labor, which
the Confederate Democratic of the North
propose to substitute for the finan-
cial issue, will prove q strong one for
the Republicans. 1t will rally the en-
A.