Year: 1872

There is always more or less OF humDug III
political platforms. The average politician
who writes them appears to imagine that the
masses are just as Tascally and much more
stupid than himself, and are to be carefully
angled for by appeals to their interests and
their prejudices-the coarser the better, The
people who prepare these wcnGerful dOcu-
ments do not lausaa in each others
faces like the skeptical augurs of Rome
The business is too practical and sei-
sense of humor in it. The great trick of a
ways, according to the leanings of the reader
When it reads in both of two ways, it may
be called a failure. There are few read
ers or voters so dull or so Indifferent that they
like to see that their platform builders are
laughing at them. Their self-respect demands
some affectation of earnestness and consist
ency in those who give them their candidates
and their principles.


The platform which was adopted at Phila-
delphia, from this point of view, is certainly
not successful In their nervous anxiety to
catch every species of voters the gentlemen
who framed it evidently forgot the me-honored
proyerb that zone mans meat is another
"man's poison and that an Objectionable
principle may drive away as many as it attracts.
1t was, of course, very important to insert into
the platform Tariff plank, for the needs of
the party will be sore in Pennsylvania this
Autumn And yet there are dozen or so
Free Traders who did not have their own way at
Cincinnati, and who therefore would like to
see their road clear to voting for Gen. Grant.
For their sakes the Tariff article must be
given a second meaning, so that it may
mean Pig Iron in Pittsburgh and Free Trade
in New-York. So, too, they recognized the
fact that they must have repressive legislation
and centralized administration extended over
the Southern States for the sake of coercing
their electoral votes for Mr.. Grant 1t becomes,
therefore, necessary to indorse in the most
cordial manner the Ku-Klux and Force bills,
and to thank the President for favoring them
and Congress for enacting them. But there is
unquestiOnably an extensive revolt among in
dependent men North and South against the
military government which, after seven years
of nominal peace. threatens to make itself
permanent. To gain the good will of the men
of law the Sixteenth Article vindicates the
reserved rights of the States and dis
| approves of the measures which in the
Twelfth Article were warmly commended.
The Eleventh Article accomplisbes still more
remarkable feat. Recognizing the stumbling
blocks wherewith the path of the Labor Re-
formers abounds, wanting the voice of Mr..
| Wendell Phillips, the votes of the Trades
Unions, and most of all, the money of the
capitalists to carry on the campaign, they take
both sides of the question in one short para
| graph, and declare for the laborer and the
hirer in the same breath. The Woman Ques-
ton is treated with the same awkward dis
honesty.


There are other portions of the platform
where the popular side of the subject is pre-
sented, the Convention relying upon the pub
lie to forget the hostile attitude OF the Ad-
ministraton in regard to these matters. For
instance, there is fair sounding clause about
reform IN tho Civil Service, ID WHICH the Con