| Show REPUBLICAN PLATFORMS AVe notice in an exchange some speculations specu-lations on the texture of the next Republican Re-publican platform Our exchange is not a student of history or it would indulge in no speculations of this nature It requires re-quires no political seer to predict the formation of Republican platforms They are all built the same way The materials mate-rials are in stock These materials are of the past it is true and have the smell of antiquity but they are all the Republicans possess During the last twentyfive years nothing has been added to them and Republican platforms plat-forms will be constructed as they always have been The building process is simple and the platform narrow But two planks are used and those two planks are the fundamental principles of Republicanism viz sectionalism and fanaticism fa-naticism In these principles the Republican Repub-lican party was conceived and in these principles the party will die and the disease is now in its last stages The nation na-tion has entered upon a new era From the orange groves of Florida to the giant pines of Maine the people are united Sectionalism is as obsolete as it is retrogressive retro-gressive The people tread only on American soil and all is American soil alike Sectionalism is doomed and with it goes the marrow of Republicanism Fanaticism too finds no place in the popular scheme of American politics Its dark proportions fade away in the light of the national glance and with its disappearance goes the second sec-ond great factor of Republican strength Unity progress and civilization are the present watchwords of the American people peo-ple and sectionalism and fanaticism I have no part or parcel in these The I Republican party is behind the age The i methods of the past do not fit the needs I of the present or suffice for the demands of the future Republican platforms are decayed with years and offer only to the nostrils the stench of dead issues and of rotting principles But one use remains for the two planks of the Republican Repub-lican platforms and that use will be the speedy construction from them of the Republican coffin For the last twenty five years the Republican party has been the incubus of American politics projected pro-jected thereon from the battle field It has never lost the scent of the slaughter and has practically exercised all the weight of a military despotism In the time of peace its ranks have been marshalled to the rattle of stilled musketry mus-ketry and the sullen roar of silent cannon can-non The power left in its hands at the close of the great civil strife it perpetuated per-petuated as a sectional dictatorship For twentyfive years the echoes of civil war have never been allowed to pass from the ears of the American people The I d ow I I country has been in a state of perpetual siege and nothing but the committee of public safety composed of the military mili-tary and sectional demagogues of the Republican party could save it from destruction The first act of this military and sectional committee of public safety after the great conflict had ceased was to decree the establishment of a sectional despotism in the South The defeaied South with her decimated population her disbanded and paroled armies and her ruined finances was still an object of fear and of hatred The Nation was told that the war was not over that the iron of defeat must be driven still deeper into the soul of a defeated de-feated helpless and common people And the iron was driven deeper The desire of the South to turn her broken sword into the plowshare was laughed at Backed by the full military power of the Government sectional fanaticism fastened fast-ened its grasp on the South and the infamous carpetbag era is traced in characters of indelible blackness upon the pages of the Nations history Harrassed and dragoonedthe South found recuperation impossible and for long and weary years her only place in the Nation was as the source of supply for that political po-litical plunder necessary to the existence of the Republican party and the perpetration perpe-tration of a sectional government But the American people finally revolted Their intelligence realized that what was death to any one portion of the Union was suicidal to the Nation At the poles the loyal people of the North condemned in stern tones which demanded de-manded hearkening theretothe wrongs of their brethern of the southern section of the Nation The Republicans found that sectional tyranny had gone too far The incubus was removed from the breast of the South Once more she breathed freely and naturally Her energies were revivified she sprang to the work of reorganization and development and now her progresshas beenand is the marvel of the world But the sectional hate of the Republican party has never faltered in its attempt to regain the prey the Nation rended from its grasp It has pursued the South with the tenacity and fell purpose of the bloodhound The cry of the bloody shirt has been the keynote of Republican campaigns and sectional rancor has been the impetus of Republican politics But the centralization of the political power of the country in one section is no more The scales have fallen from the eyes of the people and sectional crimes have ceased to be the basis of popular government The political machine of which Republicanism sectionalism and fanaticism were interchangeable parts has been crushed by the weight of public pub-lic sentiment and has ground outits last batch of iniquities and isms |
