Eastern Times

Whig Work before Election.

We always liked the way in which farming editors are accustomed to deliver their precepts under the head of "Work for July," "Work for September," &c. There is a distinctness and a timeliness in that method of presenting topics that is worthy of imitation among their political brethren. There is no use in harping upon the same subjects week out and week in, regardless of the wants of the time. At some periods Whig readers need nothing but elaborate discussion of political measures—at others, they are wholly desirous of the current news affecting their party relations—at others still, they need urgent exhortations to personal activity. Thus there is Whig work of various kinds—but we are concerned only with that which is demanded by the present exigency.—Tribune.

Our neighbor does sometimes dash off a string of truthful pearls like the above, for which the country and the whig party in particular should do him honor.

He likes the farmers' precepts and plans of "work." No wonder he does, for they always bring something to pass. The evidence that the whig party ever accomplished anything, can only be found in exploded bank theories, high tariff theories and other humbugs; but that whigs were ever the advocates of any political principle worth a straw, or ever had a principle that did not burn their fingers before they got through with it, will task the physical and mental powers of this sagacious Tribune editor to an enormous stretch to demonstrate. We propose to designate this work, if he undertakes it, something as the farming editors do theirs, say under the head of "Work from July to Eternity." This will afford distinctness and "timeliness" enough for him.

But the great proposition contained in the extract above is, that the work of the "present exigency" is the work the whig party has got to do. At some times, whig readers want "elaborate discussion of political measures"—that means, we suppose, the same discussion that takes place in a cider barrel when the juice is working into hard cider—or the discussion the coon had before he submitted to the loss of his skin—or the bellowing in log cabins that used to make night hideous—or a discussion of the political philosophy of swallowing the candidate and spitting on the platform. At any rate, if these are not the 'elaborate discussions' our neighbor had in his eye, they have gone to make up the arguments of the whig party for the last dozen years.

At other periods whigs need "current news." They didn't, though, last fall, when the returns came in from New York. There was not a whig in this city who was willing to acknowledge he knew anything about the "current news," or had read a newspaper for a week. They were all dumb-struck by the reiterated and long continued claps of Pierce thunder, as State after State came rolling in. When do they need "current news," then? We answer, just before election—they never want to know anything afterwards.

At other times still, the whig party needs "urgent exhortations to personal activity."—That is a fact, and that time is just about the present. With only four or five Governors, and precisely four whig States in the recent Presidential election, personal activity is a subject every whig in the nation ought to look straight in the face. Every whig reader of the Tribune has a standing and perpetual exhortation in the extremity of the case, to move his boots a little faster than he ever moved them before. There is a comforting assurance too in the fact, that whichever way the whig party may move, it cannot move much farther downhill.

But after all, although there is whig work of various kinds to do, important and overwhelming in extent, the "exigency," which we suppose means the election of Gov. Crosby under distressing circumstances, is the kind of work the Tribune wants the party to pitch into with the power of despair. Democrats, we suppose, will be allowed the privilege of looking on to see them work. We shall do it; although after the returns come in, the whole gang of industrious workers will be found nowhere, or up out of the way, like the treed coon, as usual.