Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1878 — THAT “BARGAIN.” [ARTICLE]

THAT “BARGAIN.”

The Administration Side.of the Story. Gen. H. Y. Boynton, the Washington correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, has published the administration side of the story about the alleged bargaining between certain Southern Democrats and the friends of President Hayes. Gen. Boynton says : The attention of Republicans in Washington was first pointedly directed to the state of feeling among Southern Democrats, by the marked uneasiness of the Northern wing of their party, caused by the publication of what will be remembered as the Roberts interview with Gov. Hayes at Columbus. For the purpose of this discussion it is not necessary to inquire whether that interview was correctly or incorrectly reported, but, as printed, it at once became tho handwriting on tiie wall to Mr. Tilden’s personal adherents. Emissaries from Liberty street came, post haste, to Washington, to sound Southern men and see if there was any response among them to a sentiment that would prefer Hayes, with an assured liberal policy, to Tilden, with the certainty of general trouble. Their anxiety and the general uneasiness among their friends in Congress disclosed the situation to Republicans, and by the middle of December some of the most prominent among the latter had fully grasped its moaning and its possibilities. Republicans who gave themselves earnestly to the study of the situation found a general agreement among Southern Democrats upon several subjects. 1. They were more concerned with regaining local self-government than they were with the success of Tilden. The national administration had grown to seem of far less importance to them than the control of their own State affairs. 2. They had never been reconciled to the way the New York element had forced Tilden upon the Democracy of the South and West at St. Louis. 3. They were disgusted with his letter on Southern claims, not so much because they were looking to their payment, but because they regarded it as an assumption on Tilden’s part that he could safely truckle to Northren sentiment at the expense of the South, since the latter could not refuse him support under any snubbing whatever. 4. They felt that any interference with a constitutional count of the electoral votes meant revolution, and as Southern men, and in the main Southern soldiers, understanding from sore experience what was involved, they were united almost to a man in the agreement that in no event should the Democrats of the House be allowed to plunge the country into war. They saw that they held the balance of power in their party, and they patriotically resolved to use it for peace. 5. A number of them were considering whether, in case the utterances of Gov. Hayes’ letter of acceptance in regard to the South meant what the language implied, the South would not be better off at the end of four years of such Republican rule than to have the general disorder and disruption of social quiet continue, as it certainly would continue, through a Democratic administration, with the certainty that, at,the end of four years, the same struggle through which the South had just passed would be repeated. In short, a number of prominent Southern men were earnestly considering whether, in case Hayes should honestly and earnestly set himself about carrying into effect the ideas of his letter of acceptance, it would not be far better for the quiet and material interests of the South, or whether the shortest road to a just and permanent reconstruction did not lie through a Republican administration under Gov. Hayes. These were the elements of Southern thought which a number of Republicans found to be questions of earnest though quiet discussion. That they should instantly avail themselves of this knowledge to widen the opening breach between Tilden’s personal adherents and these cooler Southern men was entirely natural. That they should have been active in this work was one of the necessities of the situation. The country was on the brink of anarchy then. It is easy to look back from present quiet, and denounce all attempts to avert civil war as bargains, but some of those who are busiest in such denunciations now—and some editors, too—should reflect upon what they thought statesmanship and honoaable and just dealing then. And now for the bargaining that took place. These Republicans who were in a position to know the Liberal policy toward the South which Gov. Hayes had decided upon, and which he had announced clearly in his letter of acceptance, simply took occasion to assure those Southern Democrats that what Hayes had thus promised would certainly he fulfilled ; that carpet-bag rale, making clear distinctions between Southern Republicans and carpet-bag element properwould not be encouraged ; that local govern, ment or proper home-rule would be ; tfiat all who desired to come into accord with a national administration for the purpose of completing a lasting reconstruction and assuring peace to the South, would be cordially received ; and that all the results of the war and all new rights to the new citizens would be insisted upon and protected. There was no promise to individuals, and nothing that approached the character of bargaining. It was tho announcement of a predetermined policy on the one hand, and a reception of it as the best present attainable good for the South on the other.

Sale of Curios the Bead-Letter Office. The Postoffice Department has prepared a catalogue of over 10,000 articles accumulated at the Dead Letter Office, to be sold at auction soon. The catalogue includes 1,275 lots of jewelry, 2,161 books, engravings, cliromos, etc., and over 6,000 miscellaneous articles, embracing almost every description of wearing apparel, from babies’ socks to women’s dresses, and a heterogenous collection of objects, in the enumeration of which are specified such extremely miscellaneous articles as candlesticks, clocks, revolvers, wax toys, false hair, Easter eggs, feathers, surgical instruments, stuffed lizards, bed-quilts and preserved potato-bugs. Chief Joseph’s Band. The Nez Perces, 87 braves, 184 squaws, 78 boys and 69 girls, all the tnbe, except the 80 warriors and 190 women ana children that White Bird took across the line, are camped on the race-course at Leavenworth, Kan., having the run of the country near by. Rations are issued to them. They have dug a hole forty feet in diameter beside the Missouri river, where, having previously warmed the water by casting heated stones into it, they bathe daily, no matter how cold the weather. Chief Joseph wants to be sent back to his old reservation and to take his tribe with him.

Immigration Falling Off. The annual report of the Commissioners of Immigration shows that there arrived at New York during 1877, 54,536 alien passengers, 16,729 less than during the year preceding. Of the number, 46,267 were steerage and 8,269 cabin passengers. Germany furnished 17,753 of the emigrants, Ireland 8,221, England 6,652, Sweden 3,710, Italy 2,832, Russia, 2,391* Immigration has decreased fr/wa 288,418 in 1866 to 54,536 iast year. v *