Year: 1873




honors of Office, and has an idea that the
country can take care of itself. The Secretary
of State is SO conservative and timid that he
suffers the Republic to be Inundated The
Secretary of the Treasury has had but the one
thought of extracting all the money possible
from the people to keep his Golfers full and
pay the national debt at q rapid rate. The
other Cabinet officers have been eager to keep
up enormous expenditures upon something
like the war basis and three times
as great as only fifteen years ago. The domi-
nant party in Congress has revelled in corrup-
ton and extravaganza, and both it and the
administration have overridden the constitu-
ton and done such arbitrary acts as no other
constitutional government would dare to do.
This is no overdrawn picture. It is spread
over the history of the last thirteen years. and
hardly any citizen can be so blinded by par
tisanship as not to see it The people are
waking up at last to the facts, particularly in
the West and South, and will, if we mistake
not, demand change.


The democrats have not commended them



policy adapted to the times and necessities
of the country, or by any marked ability
Though they gained something in the last
elections, and would have gained more but for
the odium brought upon the party by the New
York Ring, they cannot obtain the confidence
of majority Of the people without living po-
litical issues. The experiment. made by the
coalition with disaffscted republicans in the
last Presidential contest failed, because there
was no fundamental principle of public pol
tile organization and because the elements
were more incongruous than even in the re-
publican party. The greatest strength Of the
republicans has beeen since the so-called
reconstruction of the South in the negro vote,
and still the greater part Of the Southern ne
groes are, out of gratitude, republicans. But
change, as we have seen in the late elections
and as we notice by our news from Washing
ton, is going on in that section. The white
people are gaining power more and more, and
many intelligent negroes begin to see their
interests lie with those Of their white fellow
citizens of the South. The blacks as well as
the whites of the Southern States will be led
to cooperate with the West against the East
ern protectionists who have controlled the
government and republican party, for
they are all interested alike in agriculture
and in the strictest governmental economy.
What shape the incipient revolution, already
apparent, will take we cannot say; nor can
we see at present what will be the composition
of the party Of the future. The grangers
have rather eschewed party politics up to this
time, but they have controlled some elections.
As they grow in number and power they must
become an important element, and, probably,
controlling one, in the political affairs Of the
country. The best and most virtuous portion
Of the community is found in their ranks, and
they are conscious that the substantial inter-
ests of the country lie in agriculture. Re-
trenchment, cheap government, such protec-
ton only as may be given incidentally for the
purpose Of moderate revenue, control of the
railroads and cheaper transportation and
other measures of reform might, and perhaps
will, form the platform of new and great
party, and it is just such one as the grangers,
or as the West and South combined, could
affiliate with and support