Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1885 — The Republican Position. [ARTICLE]

The Republican Position.

Indianapolis Nows, Republican: One of our esteemed contempt ruries is puzzled in its little heart to know whether Mr. Sherman or the republican party is going to seed.—[lndianapolis Journal. Few people can sneer well from the fact that few know jvhon to do it, most mistaking sneer for irony as they mistake abuse for argument. The Journal ought to bo able to differ from the News’s judgment of senator Sir i man's speech and traverse it entirely without either sneers or abuse. Gentlemen find need of neither; but here we have both, and nonsense as well. The normal seat of puzzlement is in the head. The next time the Journal is “pnzz; A in its heart” it should recite the invocation: “Sit still! urn heart, sit still!” The serious revelation, however, if we assume that the Journul reflects any considerable belief of the republican party, is the illustration of the truth of our alternative statement that that party is going to te°d. If the republican party regards senator Sherman’s speech as the Journal does, then it is surely going to seed. But we are inclined to think it doesn’t. Our neighbor, the Indionapolis Times, of even date with the Journal’s utterance, gives testimony that republican judgment may be different. Of senator Sherman’s speech it says:

“We are obliged to report that as a keynote speech ; t falls short of the mark. There is nothing in it to alarm democrats or inspire republicans. Too much of it was devoted to beating straw that had been thrashed. * * * The two greatest issues of the day received the least attention from M . Sb rman and were dismissed in the lowest words. These are civil service reform and revenue reform. If the republican party is to gain any more victories these two questions mast form .the center of its position. Its line of battle may take in other points, but these must be its stronghold. These are the two live issues of to-day, and the two great ones of the future, and unless the republican party shall take more advanced ground on these questions than the democracy, and can convince the people that they have more to expect from it inAe way of genuine civil service and revenue reform than they have from the democratic party, it need not expect to win any more victories. The Times believes the republican party will do precisely what we have just indicated, but it will not be inspired to do so by Mr. Sherman’s speech. It was not a key note speech.” Here,|we hold, is not only correct judgment on this speech, but most sound party advice and wise political definition. It is well said, too, and we commend to republicans generally a careful reading of the Times’s utterance. Nothing is plainer to sober sense than th»t this is an era of reform, the two distinguishing issues of which are

reform in the civil service and reform in the tariff. If the republican party is able to turn its broadest expanse to the past and leave its record to take care of itself while it lays hold of these vital questions and demonstrates that it is the better party to solve them, it will be chosen, otherwise it will be left, and will drift to the position * * * which the late senator Morton so aptly said was that of a man riding backward on a railroad train: he never saw anything till it was passed. Senator Sherman shows that to be his attitude, and if it is that of the republican party as it is that of the Indianapi olis Journal, then all three are goj ing to seed. After all, John Sherman had no other chute than the ‘bloody-shirt’ to take. The party has not, and never had, any defined national principles. Its corner stone and foundation rock was planted in sectional hate, and it secured power through the prejudices, and passions to which it appealed, and held it for a quarter ,f century by misrepresentation, fraud and theft. Its every method and effort to secure a perpetual lease having failed, to ask a return to power that they may bring about civil service and financial reform is met with the proposition that they failed to secure those reforms when they had ample opportunity to do so. Sherman and Foraker are pursuing the only policy left them, and their only hope is in inducing their fellow-citizens to believe the fabrications woven into “bloodyshirts.” The only alternative left the Republican party is in “going to seed.”

Gainesville (Texas) HesperianTimes: The words of General Hawley’s Hartford Courant are brave, noble, patriotic: “We are one people. Shame and confusion and utter failure to the unworthy American, north or south, who, in this new day. and with Grant’s words to Buckner before his eyes, seeks te rekindle the embers of the old strife!” The “kid” comendeth the wailings of J ohn Sherman to his readers, and the above is commended to the ‘kid,’ who clingeth to John’s ‘bloody-shirt’ teachings. * -4+>-■»——..