Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1882 — A MATTER OF OPINION. [ARTICLE]

A MATTER OF OPINION.

Comments of the Press Upon the Sennits of the Election. What Democrats, Republicans and Independents Think. Democratic Opinion. [From the Cincinnati Enquirer.] The Democrats have achieved victories -which justify an exhilarating hope that the next President will be a representative man of their political faith, and that the reins of government will return to the party of the people. The result has been brought about through the disruption of the Republican organization and the general dissrust of the people with the bosses and the tireless papsuckers; and no party can afford to be heedless of the lesson conveyed, lhe party which has had almost a monopoly of the distribution of the spoils has suffered such a tremendous rebuke that it can only recover from the shock it has received through the blundering of its opponents. [From the Louisville Courier-Journal.j The Democrats have gained all over the North. The Republicans have made their only gains in the Southern States. This is well; neither party is solid in either section. The next Congress will be Democratic. The majority will be large enough; it will, perhaps, be too large. With this accession of power comes new responsibilities. If the Democrats meet these as they should; if they are true to their convictions, their traditions and their promises; if they will at once perfect measures for a gradual reduction of taxation a da revision of the tariff; if they will enact laws which shall take the civil service out of politics and make free citizens of the public servants, there is no doubt whatever the vote of confi lence to-day will be repeated in >BB4. If, on the contrary, they violate or ignore the pledges given m this canvass, this great party will give way to a greater and a better one, which will execute the people’s will [From the St. Louis Republican (] It is not possible for any one to view current history without something of the bias of selfish interest and pride of opinion. It is also certain that no one knows what the influence of so sweeping a change may be, because its full effects are contingent upon the uncerta n actions of men in the future into whose motives so many conflicting factors enter. A great battle which might be decisive of the fate of armies and the power of nations often proves, from the course of subsequent events, of little consequence and of no real value to the victors. What has become of the Republican majorities apparently sw pt away in Pennsylvania, New iork and other States ? The voters who contributed to those majorities in other years are still in the flesh, an I all but a margin of them are stid Repub icans. It will not do to conclude that S.ates lately Republican have al at once become Democratic. It would be easy for the Democratic party, by an unwise and injudicious course by a failure to appreciate the responsibilil ties now thrown upon it, to cause a rea tion and even a revulsion which would place it further from permanent victory than it has been sincq 1872. [From the New York World.] How little the disaffection of the “hilfbreeds” has really had to do with the overthrow of the Republi an party is shown by the overwhelming vote given to Mr. Belm nt in the First Con ressional district. Mr. Belmont’s competitor was put into the field by frieads of Mr. Blaine, and k pt there solely by the r contributions and their activity. W.iatwa< the result? That Mr. Belmont goes back to Congress at the head of a majorit more than four times as arge as that by which he was or ginallv sent to Washington, This single fact suffices to show that the Democratic party has -been called back to power in New York, not because the Republicans of New York think Pres.dent Ari hur more or less worthy of confidence than Mr. Blaine, but because the people of New York are weary of feedin on the east wind o the Re. üblican promises of reform. “A plague on both your houses” is the brief m< ral of ye- ter ay’s tremendous popular verdict. It rings tne knell of he Republican organization. It gives notice to every young aspiring man in the country that the future belon ,s to new issues and to the Democratic party. Republican Explanations. [From the Cleveland Herald.J The general disaster which overtook the Republican nominees cannot be laid to merely local causes. The liquor question may have had a certain influence here and there, but wh>re the d moralization was greatest that quest on was no in the slightest degree an issue. Tie real cause was the same everywhere, was at once general and local, and was of sufficient potency to overbear the strongest local issues and bury *he best tickets beneath a mountain of adverse votes. [From the Buffalo Express.] The rebuke visited upon Arthur’s stalwart administration the most crushing ever dealt out to'a political faction—is a rebuke not only to the men at the head of the machine, a reb ike not only to tieir methods, but a rel uke to and a repud ation of the wnile stalwart idea. That idea is, e seutially, that a party s an army, and that the only duty, the only right, of the men in the ranks 1< to ouey their masters -their bosses. Tne men in the ranks yesterday showed that they are the masters, that their will must be* carried out by the party leaders, and that self-constituted leaders who attemnt to rule ather than to serve will be tried by drum head court martial and shot upon the sp >t The lesson has b ten wr tc n up large, so th it they who run—the stalwarts, to-wit—may read. No man will have any excusefor mi understanding it hereafter. [From the Chicago Inter Ocean.] While d saster has been anticipated by thinking Republicans all over the country they nev r fully realized such a flood as is reported in Massachusetts, Connecticut. New York and Pennsylvania. It looks a good deal like a case of t-amson and the temple. The people undertook to punish the bosses, and fell with them under the ruins of. the temple. There will however, be a resurrection of the temple and a resuscitation of the victims The Repub ican party is of too grand a history and too promising of rfoble purpose in tbe future to go down. Croakers to the contrary, its mission is not yet fi led. The result of yesterday does not show that Republicanism has a less strong

hold on tbe country than it has held for years, but rather tuat the purifying process is going on that it may rise to grander flights and nobler deeds. [From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. I It may be said that the Republicans needed this defeat They invited it, and had it not come the bosses would have been very sure to bring it on two years hence. Fortunately a strenthened Republican Senate, with a R public in ive behind it, will be in place to i revent Democratic c ipers m the Hou=e from being seriously detrimental to the general welfare, while the Democrats will show their incapacity for Legislative work beyond peradventure. They have secured jusi enough rope to hang themselves with, and tbe few wise advisers they have cannot prevent them from mak ng use of it, Tue effort to control them has been made in vain time and again. Thus there wil. be two strong influences at work to win Republican success in 1884, namely: the exposition of their own weakness s on the part of the Republicans and the demonstrated necessi y of correcting them, and the exhibition of Democratic inability to govern. In fa t, this Republican defeat is a pretty good th.ng it it is only viewed rightly. [From the Cincinnati Commercial]. President Arthur succeeded, and was immediately beset by the gang who had been disappointed in Garfield. He resisted many of their most vicious and unseemly demands, but they have been sufficiently dictatorial, and have so far flavored the Administration with their vindictive follies that the New York election of yesterday serves as an object les-on Asa party the Republicans are about where they were eight years ago. It has lost under Arthur the' ground gained after it got rid of Grant. If the Republican pariy is to have a future —if it is to retain the national Gov rnment beyond the next Presidential e ection—it must be relieved of its bosses. Stalwartism must be blown away ike a bad smell in a high wnd And we must drop the tanaticri crusade: sin behalf of pi etended temperance reformation. Thecountry distrusts the Democratic party, and there are an abundance of voters opposed to that parly to def eat it if they can be peimitted to exercise their common sense and common rights of Republican citizens; but they are not to be suooi limited to the vulgar domination of bosses and the despotic caprices of vainglorious pretenders to statesmanship. [From the Chicago Tribune.] The self-inflicted chastisement cannot fail to be beneficial to the Republican party. It will teach the men temporarily elected to power and place that they can be deposed as readily and promptly by the same popular will that lifted them from obscutily. The lessons of this defeat wilt be instructive. It wid but clear the way for a renewal by ’he people of the poll les of the Republican party and the restoration of the Government to the control of that paity in 1884. Independent Comment. [From the Chicago Times.] A year ago such a political revolution as was consummated in this country yesterday would have been considered impossible. Today it excites not even a ripple of SurpriseMuch has been done in the past three months by the chiefs of the defeated party to convince the American t eople that, in the interest of political morality and common public decencv, a change was necessary. The effect of that work will be almost universally accepted as in accordance with the eternal fitness of things. Amid tne general slaughter of the political bo ses, the like of which hasn’t been seen in a lifetime, it must be matter of regret that the most intolerant as well as the meanest of them all, Mahone, of Virginia, escapes with slight injury. Still his victory, if it is as represented can hardly be more than short-lived. The President, having lost such a list of States as New York, his home; Pennsylvania, the home of his trusted Lieutenant, Mr. Don C meron; New Hampshire, the home of his aggressive Secretary of the Navy; Connecticut, Ohio, possibly Michigan; Indiana, which had no savior this year, Mr. Star-Route Dorsey, whom the President toasted two years ago, being almost within the shadow of tne penitentiary; Wisconsin, possibly; Colorado, t e stalking-ground of his man Teller; California and divers and i-undry other strongholds of his party, will hardly care to exert himself again for tbe satisfaction of a petty boss in the Old Dominion. Though it exhibit unmistakable signs of life, the President will probably be inclined to let the tail go with the hide. Unsustained by Federal patronage, Mahone will surely go to the wall What a Greenbacker Thinks. [From the Chicago Express.] It is a Democratic land-slide, as was expected. The Republicans, disgusted with Hubbellism, bossism and stalwartism, have let the thing go by default The Democratic pariy has won, not upon its own merits, but upon its enemy’s demerits. In the South the Democrats have scarcely he'd their own. Tue people of Massachusetts have taken that lively citizen, Ben Butler, down from h s shelf and dusted him off for action. He seems to be almost as good as new. Two men survive the cra-h of machines and the wieck of st teamen this year—Butler and B aine. They have carried their States. lheir white plumes will be seen in the fray again. Folger is terribly beaten. The aam nistration is humi.iated. New York presents her compliment to tbe dandy President B„alwartism is as dead as Guiteau. The people are sick of all old spoils f ction . They are ready for a new deal. The old lines cannot stand the storm much longer. The first reports give no details of Green-back-Labor and Anti-Monopoly vot-s. They will be fished up out of the bottom of the boxes in a few days. Let us wait patiently for the official count