Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1880 — AN INDEPENDENT’S POSITION. [ARTICLE]

AN INDEPENDENT’S POSITION.

His Arraignment of the Purposes of tlis Republican Party—Will Give His Vote and Influence to Hancock and English, Judge Stallo, of Cincinnati, one of the leading German-American citizens of this country, and who from 1866 to 1872 acted with the Republican party, sent last week the following letter to tbe Chairman of the Cincinnati Democratic ratification meeting. As be represents the floating or independent vote more than any body else in the country, bis letter is of thq highest importance and significance: 7" ’Cincinnati, July 10,1880. My Dear Sir— l can not atterfk yonr ratlfll cation meeting. But you may say for me that I regard the nomination of Hancock and English as of good omen for the welfare of the Republic, and sincerely hope and trust that tbui nomination will be ratified at the polls by ah overwhelming majority. You are aware that for many years—from 1866 to 1872—1 acted with the Republican party. But the very purposes for which that party was founded now demand, as it seems to me, that the men who have controlled it, and through it the Government, during tbe last fifteen years, shall be dislodged from power. The persistent usurpation by the National Government of powers beyond its Constitutional sphere, and Its conversion into an instrumentality of robbery and oppression, arp not, in my judgment, conducive to the maintenance of Its supremacy within its constitutional limits. Ido not think that respect for and'obedience to this Government can be enforced by using it to foster monopolies of to subsidize private enterprises at pfiblicß exp' nse. Moreover, I find it diflicult to believe that the equal clvl and political rights of our citizens and the pqrity of our elections are to be secured by pljacing the ballot box nnder the exclusive control of the party in power—even if this con-* tri*l be not immediately exercised by ruffians, hired for the declared purpose of suppressing adverse majorities—or by the methods countehanced and promoted by General Garfield after the last Presidential election in Louisiana. And lam wholly unable to understand that the appointment of Madison Wells and his compeers to office as a reward for the most infamous political crime recorded in tbe annals of our country, or tbe attempt to place Chester A. Arthur in the chair 6f the Senate, aftord very striking evidence of a sincere purpose to reform and purify the Government service. Whether or not the Democratic party will make a worthy use of the opportunities which the control of the Government affords, remains to be seen. For the present it is enough td say that I very much prefer its platform afid its nominees to the platform and nominees of the Republicans. The Republican platform* (which is, of course, to be interpreted in the light of the Republican nominations), so far as it is more tnan mere senseless filstlan and rodomontade, is simply an audacious sneer at public morality: and the Republican candidates.appear to have been chosen for the express purpose of compelling the voters of the Republican party distinctly to indorse and approve the iniquities which hiave driven so many of its members from its rinks. Or in wliat other sense is James A. Garfield offered to us as the representative of Republican detestation of bribery and corruption, and Chester A. Arthur as an index of Repjubllcan enthusiasm and civil service reform! 'The Democratic platform, on the other hand Is, in the main, an accurate statement of my political creed, and if your party will henceforth live up to it more faithfully than has been its v, ont In the sad days of its degeneracy arid confusion, I shall feel proud to be enrolled ’ among its members.

Buie Democratic nominees It is hardly sary to say that they command the re- , if %ot the admiration, even of their cal antagonists. Mr. English is distilled by the courage with which he has up with and against his party, for his donvictloifs. And what American is there, dative or adopted, Republican or Democrat, whose eyes do not glisten when he looks up to Hancock, the intrepid soldier, the patriotic tjhampion of the indissolubility of the Union, the man without fear and without reproach, the citizen who is illustrious not only by his public services, but by the unsullied purity of his life— whom I, for one, honor even more for his fearless vindication of the principles on which the American Union is founded than for his heroic defense of the Union itself ? ! The nomination of General Hancock, however, is not only fit as a gratelul recognition Of his merits, but is peculiarly auspicious in Kew of the exigencies of the time. It is the ORt trustworthy assurance that the resalts 01 the late war are at least as safe in the keeping of|a Democratic as in that of a Republican Administration. And what Is equally important, it is an augury of the restoration of peace and good will among all the citizens of this Union. The men of the South, who once bore arms against the Union have not only laid them down, but they have renewed thelx allegiance to our common country with demonstrations of affection whose very sadness is the best proof of their sincerity. They have tor years been struggling against the disorders necessarily consequent upon the complete subversion of their social and Industrial system and the misfortunes jen tailed upon them by the war—misfortunes which certainly have not been alleviated oy the practices of a majority of the tnen who came to the Southern States as the agents and representatives of the Republican party. And I can not conceive anything more despicable than the attempt of certain Republican politicians who aspire to the highest honors and trusts of the Republic, to fabricate partisan capital by a constant reference to the Inevitable incidents to the reorganization of our Southern communities as evidence of the continued disloyalty of the whole Southern people. With the election of Hancock all.this will come to a speedy end: the insane voclfer[ation about a “solid South” will be silenced; and I am not without hope that at the Presidential election iu 1884 we shall have two parties at the South as well as at the North whose lines of division are no longer the lines of color or of race. Truly yours,

J. B. STALLO.

Hon. John P. Follett.