Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1883 — GEN. DURBIN WARD’S KEY- Note [ARTICLE]

GEN. DURBIN WARD’S KEYNote

The campaign in Ohis is now waxing warm. Republicans are nou bringing the g. o. r. p. to the front and demanding its indorsement for its virtues. Calico Charley, with his yardstick, is endeavoring to measure personal issues, and John Sherman the man who kicked Arthur out of the New York Custom House talks “wool” and is seeking to convey the idea that theßeputJican party which controlled the Fortyseventh Congress is not responsible>for its legislation. We are not inclined to predict results in Ohio. It has been regarded as a safe Republican State, but the indications are that the Republican bosses are alarmed, and that drowning men do catch at straws, it is only required to point to the fact that Calico Charley and other Republican bosses in the Buckeye State in a large measure predicate their hopes of Success on statements made by “Jayhawker.” But the Democratic party in Ohio stands forth declaring its principles. Its great and grand men do not hesitate to announce their devotion to its traditions and policy, and ask the people to consider them. General Durbin Ward, in a recent speech said: “But, gentlemen, our adversaries scoffingly tell us that the Democratic party has no principles; that it struggles only for the spoils of office. Is it evidence of lack of principle that we submit to be excluded from National power for twenty odd years rather than go over to our adversaries and take the fat places they have had to offer? It is our steadfast adherence to principle that has kept us alive and out of office. During the sixty years of ou r rule no country was ever better governed, and none ever progressed with such rapid •trides. We gave the Union nearly all its new territory and nearly all its new States; we robbed not a citizen of a right; we fostered no special interests; we built up no monopolies. The States and the people were secure in local selfgovernment We moved with the progress of the age. Onfe evil alone was beyond the control of any party. That rent asunder and drove us from power. A million Democrats from the North rallied to the support of the Union in the field, and the rest saved the Constitution from overthrow at home. We have grown strong in defense of Constitutional liberty and popular rights. Democracy is never old and decrepit: it is new and living as the wants of society. Democracy is never new; it is *as old as the love of liberty. One of the merits of our party is that it is at once conservative and progressive. It has no dead past to bury. Its march is onward with steady step to the front. Whatever sustains the true life of Democracy we appropriate as we advance. Whatever begins to rot on our hands we cremate to avoid contagion. He that lags in the march is left by the wayside to ramble into some other camp, and he that dies in battle we bury with the honors of war.” That is well said. Indeed, it could scarcely have t been better said. It is akey-note 2 a bugle blast. Great truths, living, vital truths, are declared, which cannot fail to triumph sooner er later. To read of the past of Democratic history, to survey the field to-day. and note the position of the party, forces the conviction that it is the party which must in the future control the destinies of this Empire Republic. But we can not forbear giving the readers sf the Sentinel one or two more short chapters of General Ward’s great speech. Others have said good things of the Democratic party, and

it is well to keep their utterances in everlasting remembrance, but the following is so replete with massive uruth that we cannot do our readers a greater service than to permit them to read the following: “But, fellow Democrats, while we keep constantly in mind the elemental constitutional ideas of our party, we must, now as ever, keep pace also with the wants of the age. So when nothing in the state of affairs makes it necessary to press prominently forward in advocacy of constitutional rights, we must be still alert as to administrative policy and . look with an eye single to the safety and welfare of the people. Republican policy is based on the idea that government is paternal and should lead the people, instead of being guided by the people. Democracy, on the contrary, bases its policy on the idea that the people can be, and ought to be, trusted to control their own actions. What dreamers call the genereral welfare not further to control individual rights than to require each man to so enjoy his own rights and his own property as not to invade or endanger the like rights of others. On this line of demarkation the policy of the two parties has always been, and still is, divided. Under the claim that it was demanded by the general welfare, the opposition to the Democracy - for it has had many names —has enforced its paternal theory of government. The State was everything; the individual nothing. Hence National Banks, protective tariffs, internal improvements by the Government, railroad grants, subsidies, and many other forms of controlling the masses and their rights and interests by Governmental action. To all this true Democracy is opposed. Their theory is the largest liberty of private action in everything consistent with order and harmony in society. These different conceptions of the functions of government are not at all new. — They are as old as civilization. And the republican theory has always produced dead conservatism, and the democratic theory conservative progress. In Sparta of old the Government was rigidly paternal, and society as vigorously policed as a military camp. Athens was a free democracy. Sparta added practically nothing to the world’s progress. Athens became the nursery of science and philosophy, poetry and art, and the teacher of future ages. Even on the battle field the cultured Athenian held his own against the machine soldiery of Sparta. Look at the grandfatherly decrepitude of paternal China. Look anywhere to the progressive nations of the world. They advanced in proportion as individual freedom is the spirit of the State.”

When the facts are faithfully presented, when the people are permitted to see the devilish drift of Republicanism, when they contemplate what the Democratic party has done for the country in the past and what it is capable of doing in the future, it is not surprising that the verdict is that “the Republican party must go,” and that the supreme duty is to. “turn the rascals out.” In closing his great speech General Ward said: “My countrymen, you must excuse me if I am something of an enthushc ' for the principles q+ my par and the future of my country. I religiously believe in* both. Our party will endure with the institutions of this country, arid for many centuries to come, I confidently hope, nay, profoundly believe, both will fill this broad Republic with their beneficence and glory. It is the habit of Americans to boast of their eountry, but the

patriot can do no less. Cold, indeed, must be the spirit that is not warmed with admiration of the grandeur of the American Republic. Her mighty domain, her unexam pled resources, her matchless institutions, her glorious history, more than all —her peo pie. Never before in the world’s history was such an empire of power brought into harmony under one Government, one language, one destiny. Roman Empire had her center at the Eternal City, and ruled in military grandeur over continents. China has her vast regions and swarming millions. Russia is enthroned amid her snows, and England,by her arms, diplomacy ana commerce, rivals the power of old Rome. But the United States are measured in one compact territory, from ocean to ocean and from the Arctic to the Tropic, as a Republic of Republics?’ Such a country can not be permanently under the control of the Republican party—a party, which increases taxation that it may thrive by pec] ulation; that creates monopolies that it may crush the poor; that seats its Presidents by perjury, elects them by fraud ana murders them on account of spoils. Such a party can not maintain the ascendency when its debaucheries are known, its chicanery exposed and its thieving bosses indicted. The outlook is cheering. There is to be an era of honesty inaugurated. The Repub lican party is to go, and Re publican rascals have got to earn an honest living or learu a trade at Government expense in its industrial colleges.— Some will die- some will run away; some will be compelled to stand trial, and some will commit felo de se, while others will have their heads shaved and at hard labor beteompelled to atone for a portion of their brimes, and after 1885 the Democratic party will take full possession.—lndianapolis Sentinel.

Gov. Hendricks’ brief lowa campaign has attracted considerable attention throughout the country. fcThe Philadelphia Record says: “In a speech delivered on Tuesday in Council Bluffs, lowa, ex-Govemor Hendricks, of Indiana, planted himself squarely on ihe platform of the Democrats of that State against protection and prohition. This speech betrays little of the reserve of which the critics of the Indiana statesman have hitherto complained. Onjthe question of prohibition there never was anythingequivocal in his position. When the question was in issue in Indiana, Mr. Hendricks boldly took the ground that the Legislature had no right to pass a prohibitory law or to submit a prohibitory amendment to the people, and that a majority of the people had no right to impose such a law upon the minority. In regard to revenue reform, Mr. Hendricks said the country had expected much of the Tariff Commission, and had been grievously disappointed. Had, the Commission acted justly and wisely, in his opinion it would have satisfied the country and would have given quiet, confidence and prosperity to business. When the Commission failed in its duty, “Congress,” he said, “in the measure which it afterward adopted, fell below the standard of the Commission.” v et this is the measure which the majority in the next Congress are told they must leave undisturbed for fear of injuring the party in the Presidential election. Ex-G overnor Hendricks does not think so. He urges ihat the work of tariff reform must go on ‘by the conservative means of gradual arid persistent red ucupji of the protective duties? •''