Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1887 — CLEVELAND THE MAN. [ARTICLE]

CLEVELAND THE MAN.

Speaker Carlisle Convinced that the President Will Be Renominated in 1888. Blaine the Ideal Representative of Republ canism as It Has Existed Since the War. [From an interview with Hon. John G. Carlisle at Lexington, Ky.) “I think the renomination of Mr. Cleveland is a foregone conclusion, and in my opinion it is the wisest and best thing the Democratic party can do. If nominated he will be elected, no matter who may be his opponent. He has given the country a sensible, businesslike, and patriotic administration, and the best evidence of his capacity for the place he occupies is found in the fact that even his most vigilant and vindictive political opponents have not been able to point to a single instance in which any public interest has suffered on account of his official conduct. The petulant tone of the party criticism to which he has been subjected throughout his administration is of itself a confession that his course in regard to large and important matters is unassailable. So long as he does the right thing at the right time and in the right way, no political capital can be made by attempts to ridicule or exaggerate his personal characteristics ; and if he is renominated the Republicans will discover, long before the campaign is over, that this shot is too small for the game they are hunting. “Mr. Blaine is the most perfect living representative of the real principles and methods of the partisan Republicanism whioh characterized the administration of the Government for twenty years after the close of the war; and if the party intends to make an honest and aggressive camaign in suppoct of its actual political faith it will compel him to take the nomination. Mr. Blaine believes implicitly in the sovereignty of the Republican party, and in himself as the impersonation of its power. He therefore claims the allegiance and active support of every professed Republican, and never forgives any one who opposes him. He is still stronger inside the party than any other man, and if nominated would receive the full partisan Republican vote, but he will never again receive such a vote as he received in 1884. The country has had time to think—time to compare the administration which Mr. Cleveland has actually given it with the administration which Mr. Blaine would probably have given it —and the result is that Cleveland is much stronger than he was in 1884, and Blaine much weaker. “You ask what will be the issues of 1888. That depends largely upon what may be done in Congress during the next session, and to some extent also upon the public characters and antecedents of the nominees of the two conventions. Unless taxation is reduced and the revenue is cut down to such an extent as to prevent a large accumulation of money in the treasury, the tariff question will inevitably be a very prominent one in the next canvass. I suppose from present indications that the Bepublicans will, as usual, thrust sectional and race questions into the campaign, but they will have but little if any influence on the result. The sensible people of the North are tired of listening to the lamentations of political, Jeremiahs, and the people of the South have never been troubled by them.” “What about the labor movement, Mr. Carlisle? What effect do you think will it have in the next Presidential election ?”

“What was originallV intended as a labor movement seems to have been converted into a mere political movement, and is now being directed by ambitions politicians instead of practical workingmen. Labor organizations formed for mutual improvement and protection, for the promotion of social intercourse, and the material and moral advancement of their members, are not only non-objectionable but meritorious, and should be encouraged. Laborers have a perfect right to organize for the purpose of controlling their own business; but when they organize to control the business of other people it is quite a different thing. When you speak of the labor movement in connection with elections I suppose you mean the existing political labor movement, which I regard as a very different thing from the organizations which preceded it. Permanent political parties can not be created by revolution. They must grow spontaneously out of certain conditions of public affairs, and there are no such cond tions now ex'sting in this country as to call for a new party. If, however, the labor party should continue its organization until the Presidential election, and should nominate candidates, I do not see how it can injure the Democracy, except possibly in the State of New York. The vote of the labor party will be confined almost exclusively to the large cities, and they are generally located iu Republican States. ” The Flags. Now, what surprises us about these rebel flags is this: Way back in the

good old days of “Auld Lang Syne,* about sixty years ago, a law was passed by Congress that all flags captured in battle by American, troops should be taken charge of by the War Department and displayed in some conspicuous place as every-day reminders of the bravery and prowess of American soldiers. But, alas, for the degeneracy of the times and the fickleness of human nature, General Grant had not patriotism enough left after the war was over and he became President to “display” these “trophies” of the war, but for eight years kept them boxed up and stored away in the attics and cellars of the War Department, absolutely shut out from the gaze of every patriot Under Hayes, the fraud, the same policy of disloyalty was pursued. Under Garfield and Arthur no development of patriotism was shown concerning these flags. Oh, how the very frame of a Fa rchild or a Tuttle must have trembled and shook with indignation at this lack of patriotism on the part of Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur, and how earnestly Fairchild would have indulged in one of his “palsy” prayers if these had not been Republican Presidents. Here it was that Fiarchild, with an almost superhuman effort, managed to keep his lips closed, as he so dramatically tells us he had done in times past. If Tuttle and Fairchild could be as earnest, enthusiastic patriots when a Democrat is President as when a Republican is President their patriotism would overshadow that of any other citizen. —Albany (Oregon) Democrat.