Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1884 — The Party That Learns Nothing. [ARTICLE]

The Party That Learns Nothing.

The ineradicable sectionalism of the Democratic party never fails to manifest itself the moment it has a chance. It cannot learn that in this country there is a new political heaven and a new earth—that all the States ate free as well as equal—rt{)at the day when subserviency was necessary to its existence is passed, and that the day has come when the issues that divide political forces cannot be determined by geographical lines. / / ' Speaker Carlisle, the Democrat in supreme position at the present time and recognized more than any otherone man as the leader and shaper of its policy, has shown in the appointment of his committees how absolutely the control Of legislation is to be dominated by the influence that wrecked his party in the rebellion, and which in 1675,

and again in 1879, destroyed all porau bility,nf continued Democratic success. He has in a geographical way dis. tribntod the forty-four chairmanships of standing committees as follows; OLD TRW STATES. i OLD SLAVE STATES. Ways and Mean*... .111. El c kn<Ga. Foreign ADairePa. Banking and Currency Military. Cal. . .■ Ma Naval,.N. 1. Cokage.Mo. Public Lands ......Ind.Ccm uetceTer. Manufactures. ... .N.Y.‘Rivera a dHa bors.Ky. Militia..N. Y. A ncul.nreMiss. War (nalrr.sOtdo. Post.,Mlw. Pnhlta Buildintrs.. .Ind. Railways and Canals Exp. nditnre.-. Navy Fl*. Mas*. Indian Altair*Tex. Expenditures, Justice Te r.icr.es .... ...8. C. Hl- M;ncs an.l Mining Public! u Lungs..N. ¥ .......Tenn. Invalid P.n-ioun.. Ind. Mis l-sipi illiver.. Ala. Public Hea1:h......N.Y. U aims. Tenn. Ventil t'on ..N. Y. lievi i< not Laws... Ala. En.olled Billslll. I'-aciSc Raiiroida.. Mo. T xoenflitnre-<. V>ar ! De-atmenfKy. :Ex» e iditnrrs. Navy Department. Mo. Exp. n iltnre , Interior D ‘jmrmtent... .Tenn. Exj enditures, State —■-y . —2“ Department Ga. . Expend tures. Treasury Department. ...N. C. Patmis.....Mo. [Ertncatibtr.;. .8. U. i—1'ren5i0n5............A1a. i Labor.... Mo. IVfr. i Private Land'Miss. It will be seen that the old slave States have twenty-seyfen Chairmanships, and the old free States but seven toen; The great State of New York, with thirty-four Representatives, has six Chairmanships, and five of them are those of the navy, which Mr. Cox does not consider important enough to accept, and of the highly ornamental committees on the militia, public buildings, public health and ventilation, which last is supposed to have especial charge of the blowing-machine in the basement of the Capitol. Missouri, with fourteen Representatives, also has six .Chairmanships, and it is a suggestive fact that the State in which ideas on finance are notoriously vague and wild should have charge of the banking and currency in the person of Mr. Buckner, and of the coinage in the person of Mr. Bland, the chief apostle of unlimited coinage of silver. It is in accord with the Democratic idea of fitness that South Carolina, where more than 55 per cent, of the population 10 years of age and upward are unable to write, should have the Chairmanship of the Committee on Education ; that Texas should represent the commerce of the country; that Mississippi, where the value of lettercarrying is as little appreciated as in any portion of the Union, should have the Postoffice Chairmanship; that Florida, with less than 1,000 miles of railroad* should have the Chairmanship of Railroads and Canals; that Tennessee, whose coal and ores are allowed for the most part td slumber peacefully in the bowels of her mountains, should take the lead on the Committee of Mines and Mining; and that Alabama, where native Federal pensioners must be exceedingly scarce, should have the Chairmanship of the Committee on Pensions.

The geographical location of nearly two-thirds of the Chairmanships of the standing committees does not come by accident. Nearly half the Democrate in the House hail from the old free States—ninety-two out of the total 191. There is no such overwhelming intellectual superiority of the Southern over the Northern Democrats as to warrant any such discrimination as has been made in favor of the Representatives from the soil of the late Confederacy. The majority of ten Chairmanships given to them over their Northern brethren is simply a recognition on the part of the Speaker, who is the Democratic mouthpiece for the time being, of the fact that the gentlemen from the South are to be accorded their ancient position of leadership in the House. There are no indications that this consummation is at all distasteful to the great body of the unterrified Democracy of the North. They have forgotten nothing, and learned nothing, and so proved themselves once more the embodiment of genuine Bourbonism. Twice before since the war they have had a chance to commend themselves to the country by wise and considerate behavior in Congress, and both times they have hastened to throw themselves into the arms of the Southern malcontents. It seems that Democratic history must repeat itself like other history, and that the venerable traditions of the partyare fate of those who have not sense enough to make good use of their opportunities or the intuitions that might lead them into the position of successful and permanent rivalry with the party that undertakes to banish sectionalism from its creed and to keep its hold upon the people by making Republicanism National in its purpose and methods, at all times and under all circumstances. —Detroit Post and Tribune.