Forsakes the scene and sinks away to rest,
Leaving the world to darkness and to rain.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
The Democrats of Massachusetts are perplexed in regard to the choice of a candidate for gubernatorial honors. In their dilemma they seem indisposed to heed the counsel of the venerable Dutchman who, on a certain critical occasion, asserted that it was not wise to "swap horses while crossing a stream."
It so happens that in this present year the Democratic party throughout the country is crossing a stream, a deep and muddy one which divides its former prestige from its future hopes and prospects. The wise and foolish members of the party are at loggerheads. Both have taken into their confidence an anomalous contingent which is neither in sympathy, nor even in alliance with them as regards principles. The Mugwumps, so called, whose only recommendation in politics is, that they have a well-filled purse and know how to use it to bolster up what they are pleased to designate as their "independence," after having bitterly opposed the Democratic party, in season and out of season, now join hands with their deluded brethren for a grand all hands round. By their help a President of the United States has been elected, by their dictation his policy has been mapped out, and by their threatening attitude the entire administration is controlled. A similar condition of affairs was never before known in the history of American politics.
Now, the Independent Republican will always be a Republican in principles. The same honest motives which impelled him to oppose the chosen candidates of a majority of the Republican party, at the last national canvass, will again and always prompt him to oppose a Simon-pure Democrat of the Democrats. So long as he can have his own way, he will deny an equal right to his political neighbor. One thing is very evident, and that is, in Massachusetts the Independents are bound to rule so long as the Democratic party will continue to let them; and that the administration encourages this state of affairs is alike evident to all careful observers. It would be easy to make some very interesting disclosures on this theme, and it is not improbable that they will be made very shortly.
But we began by asserting that the party in the old Bay State is in a quandary. It has reached a point when one of two alternatives must be chosen,—either to force an issue with its allies, as well as with its Republican opponents, by nominating a downright, old-fashioned Democrat for the governorship; or, acquiescing with the wishes of its allies, to attempt a quasi victory over its opponents. In the former case defeat would be honorable, though defeat is by no means a foregone conclusion; in the latter case a victory is probable which would be worse than a defeat for the Democrats. We may not presume to give any advice in this matter; and yet it would seem that some well-intentioned and honest advice is needed. If there is to-day a true-blue, a frank and out-spoken Democratic newspaper in the city of Boston, we do not know its name. Our esteemed contemporaries of so-called Democratic persuasion, in this cultured city, are either bridled by the administration or are timid in expressing their convictions. Why has it never occurred to any one of them to urge the selection of a candidate that has not allied himself with the new gods in Israel,—a stanch, dyed-in-the-wool, old-fashioned Jackson Democrat, such for example as the Honorable Charles Levi Woodbury? He has always been an ornament to his party, wise and prudent in his counsels, broad in his scholarship and still broader in his views, untrammelled in his profession of honest principles, and true to the faith. He was never known to wander after strange gods: he has never paraded before the eyes of the public, clad in a Joseph's coat of many colors; he has never sought the emolument or the honor of public office, and yet, if we are not greatly mistaken, his scrupulous fidelity to party principles, his unswerving integrity, and the confidence which men of all parties repose in him, have merited for him as high an honor as lies within the gift of the people. There are but few such men in Massachusetts, and their worth is only comprehended when they are compared with that of the aristocratic dudes whom President Cleveland has thus far smiled upon in this state.