Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1882 — DYING REPUBLICANISM. [ARTICLE]

DYING REPUBLICANISM.

New York Sun: In fact, what is at the bottom of the revolution now go Ing on is not merely an internal disorder in the Republican organization, not merely the mutual hostility of stalwarts and halfbreeds, but a general dissatisfaction with the Re- : übiican party itself. It is a grow* ng recognition of the truth that, after having been in power for more than twenty years without interrupt tion, it has become thoroughly corrupt, and that it is now to be turned out because it eught to be turned out. It has become the hotbed of all sorts Of plundering jobs, such as the River and Harbor bill, and of an end less succession of thieving rings, from the Credit Mobilier down to the starroute ring And those who now control it and shape Its policy, are with few exceptions, a debased and unworthy set. Moreover, this corruption in the Republican paity has not been confined to any particular faction nor to any special set of men. The followers of Grant and the followers of Blaine and Garfield have been about equally guilty. The Re - publicans in a body have kept up our enormous taxes far in excess of the government; and without distinction they have shared iu plundering the enormous sums of money thus put at the disposal of congress.

David A. Wells, in a lecture before the New York Free Tiade club said that the results of the late election came from a feeling that the people were taxed $150,000,000 a year more than was necessary. A result of this feeling, he said, will be areduotionof taxation and the question for free traders to consider is how to bring about, while circumstances are fovorable, an intelligent revenue reform. New England manufactures, espec ially the prints men now favor reves nue reform. As to the results of the reform that directly affects thelobor* Ing man, the census of 1880 shows that the average wages in the welt protected sila, cotton, and woelen in* d vis tries are about 85 cents a day fo r each laborer. The iron and steel workers average >1,25 a day, while the unprotected agricultural laborers of the west average from >1.46 to >2 a day. Carpenters and furniture makv ers get much larger pay than iron workers. American laborers in cot ton mills >245 for three hundred days work, and British laborers in the same industry >250, The reason of • h e strikes of the last year was that it required >1.44 to buy last July the food and clothing that could bo had* for >I.OB in 18 79, As the present tor - iff system put a premium on dishofiestly, he believed the civil service reformers and the tariff reformers would Join hands. In an a rticie to the December num* ber of the North American Review, Gen. Grint reviews the case of Gen. Fitz John Porter, and says: “Twenty years of the best part of his life have been consumed in trying to have bis nrme and reputation restored before his countrymen, In his applcation, now before Congress, he is asking only that he may be res* {toned to the rolls of the army with the rank that he would have if the Couft Martial had never been held. This, in my Judgment, is a very small part of what it is possible to do in this case, and of what ought to be /done. General Porter should, in tbp

way of partial restitution, be declared by Congress to have lx?en cu vic ted on mistaken testimony, and therefore, to have never been out of the Army, This would make him a major General of Volunteers until a date might be fixed tor his muster out ns of that rank, after which he should be continued as a Colonel of Infantry and brevet Brigadier General of the United States Army from the date of the act, when he could be placed on the retired lint with that rank. Ts a solemn and sincere expression of my tnorough understanding of belief in the entire iunocense of General Porter will tend to daaw the public mind to the same conviction. I shall feel abundantly rewarded for my efforts. It will aiwaj’s be a pie-s----ure to me as well as a duty to bo the instrument, even in th? mnaile-t degree of selling light a man who has been grossly wlonged, especially if he has risked his life and reputation iu the defense of his count: y. I feel, as I said on a previsus oceaeion, a double Intereet in this particular case, because dir oily after thu war, as General of the army, when I might have been instrumental in having justice done to General Porter, and later, as President of the Unittd States, when I certainly could have done eo.I labored under the flrm conviction that he was guilty; that the sac s of the receipt of the 4,30 order were as found by the Court, and that he position of the troops and numbers were as given in the first of these diagrams. Having become better infoimed. I at once voluntarily gave as I have continued to give, my earnest efforts to impress the minds of my countrymen with the justice of this case, and to secure from our Govern men t, as far as it could grant it, the restitu ion due to General Fitz John Porter, Ex Senator Joseph E. McDonald, Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, put It thus terse ly to a New York Herald reporter; “The Result of the late elections all over the North places the Democratic party in the ascendancy for the next two years. If the ascendancy is to become executive in 1884, it must be en the record of the party in the interval. Wise councils must prevail. Reform must be real. The tar I iff must ve reduced t® the revenue standard. Taxes must be levied on ly for tbe suppout of the Government. All expenditures authorized by Congress must be for national purposes and no other purposes, and economy must be enforced in all departments of the government. The inference of tho Federal Administiation in State elections and State affairs. So overwhelmingly rebuked in New York, must cease. As soon as possible all laws authorizing Federal action beyond the limits of the Constitution must be repealed.”