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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1899)
i fej 8 Che Conservative. IS OUIt FO1CM OF GOVKKNltlKNT I'JSK- MANKNT ? PITTSHUKG , Pa. , April 27 , 1899. EDITOR CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska City , Neb. DEAR SIR : I have received the two packngcs of THE CONSERVATIVE of issue of April 18 , having previously received several numbers of other dates which I read with interest. The general make up of your paper , the style in which you present the readable matter along with the clean-cut statements of facts and logical conclusions presented to the readers very clearly establish that the aim and object of the publisher ( as is in dicated by the name of the publication ) is to conserve good political morals in and under our political system. I most fully concur with your state ments of the history and records of political parties , especially as regards the origin and sequel of the republican party. Your tribute to Grover Cleve land I also in good part agree with ; al though he failed to arise to the demands of the hour and failed to redeem his own and pnrty pledges to repeal and wipe out the corrupt salary-grab acts of the in famous , corrupt congress which passed the "back-pay steal and salary-grab act of 1878 , " because of which every demo cratic paper and convention up to Cleve land's election , howled for the impeach ment of President Grant for signing it. Grover Cleveland , during his first cam paign , in a letter to the writer said if ho was elected that ho would recommend the repeal of the salary-grab act of 1878. This pledge he failed to keep and the result is , we see today , the corrupt ex travagance prevailing in all of our muni- cipal , state and national governments , along with the bankrupt condition of the same ; and political bosses like Richard Croker and M. S. Quay , Tom Platt et al. treating our public franchises and offices as legitimate spoils , in which pot-houso politicians revel with impunity. I hold no other result is possible under our state and national government paternal ism. This damnable delusion under our system of government places the indus trial classes at the mercy of political knaves and thieves ; and the most de plorable fact of all is , "My people love to have it so. " Our Public OlliciiilH. I appreciate your ardent desire to avert the inevitable fate that awaits our American experiment at manhood suf frage in the near future ; but with our public schools and public press inculca ting the damnable , pusillanimous senti ment that their governments should sup port the people and not the people sup port their governments , no other result than an ignominious failure is possible. This corrupt degenerate education has resulted in producing two prominent traits of character among the American people , either of which is at variance with good government or true demo cracy. The first is , that it does not mat ter what the government pays for a ser vice , it costs the people nothing. This lias resulted in filling all of our public offices , from the lowest county office to the president of the United States , with notorious incompetents men who have been noted failures in every business they ever undertook requiring business sagacity , energy and tact. It has come to this : If a man fails in any legitimate ousiuess in competition with other men , 10 immediately betakes himself to the public offices. I noticed in my short lifetime this disposition on the part of the American people to elevate the most notorious failures in private life to the lighest places of trust and responsibility in public life. Again , the disposition to make heroes out of the political dema gogues that fasten upon our various civil governments. The hero worship of the American people is another insu perable bar to self-government. They transcend any other people on earth in ihis pusillanimous spirit opposed to true democracy. We boast of our American democracy , but to an intelligent man who contemplates this disposition to lioro worship on the part of the masses of the people it is no wonder that politi cal mountebanks can discount their in telligence at even less than 10 to 1. This I think must convince you that the prospect for forming a new party in patriotism and integrity in public office is not a very promising enterprise with the American people. Political plat forms , nor yet legislative 'enactments , never produce patriots or honest public officials , and nothing more clearly dem onstrates the fact that no one can bring a clean thing out of an unclean than the American people's first century's exper iment at self-government , unless itisthe history of the republican party. Take that party composed as it professed to be of the majority of the moral element predominating in our nation the high- toned religious people originated as it was xipoii a platform of religious princi ples as sacred as the tenets of our holy Christianity. And yet the history of the civilized world does not furnish a parallel of unbridled corruption from its very first entrance upon the political stage of its existence to the present day. Political knavery and corruptions crown its eveiy page. Republican Party's IJirth. Having helped usher this party into power , the writer being in the conven tion held in old Lafayette Hall , Pitts- burg , in 1856 , that crystalized its first party platform , being a young man and a novice in political methods , I was very greatly surprised at the evidences of the lack of real integrity I saw manifested in that convention on the part of some of the men who had done the most to create the abolition sentiment. Horace Greeley , who perhaps more than any other one mnn in the United States , had helped to fire the heart of the Northern people , used all his influence to try to prevent the convention from organizing a party on the platform of freedom to the slaves at that time. I was the more deeply impressed from the fact that the reasons he assigned for not organizing a party were almost the opposite from the teachings of his newspaper that slav ery was the sum of all villainies. Mr. Greoley's course impressed me in that convention that Horace ' Greeloy's polit ical ambition and not a high-toned pat riotic desire to place the government of the American republic upon the lofty plane of the declaration of independence "that all men have the inalienable right of life , liberty and happiness , " actuated the man ; and not only Mr. Greeley but also with many other politicians this was the leading motive. Uncolii and His Cabinet * . I became more firmly convinced of this fact when I saw Abraham Lincoln form his first cabinet , some of them , noted political knaves , who had done as much to corrupt the democratic party as the most corrupt political knaves that party ever produced. An experience of a few mouths in the war department at Washington City , where I was daily brought into contact with President Lincoln and leading members of his cabinets , confirmed me in this opinion : that no matter how great were the moral issues that were involved in the conflict over slavery and the rebellion of the Southern states in the minds of the people , they had but little to do with the administration of our general govern ment and its public offices. Even Ab raham Lincoln very soon discovered that he had surrounded himself with politi cians whoso slogan was "to the victors belong the spoils , " and that the civil war afforded them , an unprecedented opportunity to enrich themselves and friends. Just as the Spanish and Phil ippine war affords the same unscrup ulous class who today are disgracing the American people with such scandals as the medicated beef outrage is doing. The Pennsylvania contribution to the Lincoln cabinet was the "Winnebago Chief. " He dubbed all patriotic men ( who dared to raise their voices against such prostitution of our government to the avarice and greed of pothouse poli ticians ) as "literary fellers. " Lincoln soon found out that if he would save his administration from a dismal failure and the national government from , de struction ho must make a change in his political advisers and he exiled the "Winuebago Chief" and called to his aid the man who more than all others prevented the success of treason. But such was the lack of true patriotism and so predominant was the spirit of strat egy , treason and spoils with the political mountebacks controlling the two great parties ; and so pusillanimous are the American people , that the iron-nerved ,