Richmond Democrat

Tammany has never forgiven Tilden. If it had it would not have been human. He struck down its idol once—a monstrous idol, squat and leering—but still for all that its most precious idol Tweed. Tweed ran New York City as if its corporation was some grand gift enterprise. Every grist which came to his hopper paid toll to the ring. The national Democracy was laid under ban or contribution. The whole city administration swarmed with sleek, sly rats gnawing into the revenues. Millions were handled and divided. Tweed subsidized every useful and available man, and became a part and parcel of every profitable yet villainous combination. Tammany was his lever, its fulcrum being the New York Democracy. He lifted millions. The mildew of rogueries blighted every fair prospect the party associated with him had. Twice he betrayed it because in treason there was pay. Autocrat, despot, bon vivant, Catholic, diplomatist, open-handed thief. Tweed was omnipotent until Tilden came and crushed him and his ring—crushed him, his dynasty, followers, pimps, spies, workers in the dark, dogs wearing his collar, all, all, as a trip hammer would crash an egg shell.

This is Tilden's crime in the eyes of Tammany. The same old crowd which bolted at Syracuse were in St. Louis two years ago, shaved headed, beef-necked, loud-mouthed, double-fisted, desperate. They congregated at all the hotels there. John Kelly led them. They denounced Mr. Tilden then as a trickster, a tax-dodger, a railroad wrecker, and a bad man every way. They are doing the same now. They predicted that he would lose the state of New York by fifty thousand majority. They are doing the same thing today. They hated him to death and justly from their standpoint—that of slush, theft and the processes of the ring government. They mean to crush him if they can. The struggle is one for life or death, and God in that infinite wisdom which seems especially to take care of children, idiots and the Democracy, has chosen to ordain that the struggle shall be settled one way or the other before the presidential year of 1880.

This is the presentation of the case fairly as between Tilden and Tammany, but some may ask why force the fight at all. We know Tilden to be a pure, able, conscientious man, and the Tammany leaders and politicians to be arrogant, dictatorial, selfish, unscrupulous, over-bearing and dishonest; but it is time enough to settle these things after November 1880. It will not be time enough after 1880. The truth is, the Democratic party has got to prove to somebody at some time in its history that it has got spirit enough to fight a woodpecker. Never was there an honester effort made on earth to do right as between all parties within the Democratic party than was made by the Tilden delegates at Syracuse. Mr. Tilden had that convention by an almost two-thirds majority. Tammany was admitted. Although a rival Tilden delegation was there opposed to it, on whose side was right, equity and justice, Tammany was admitted. Then when they found they could not rule they attempted to ruin.
In accepting the issue the true Democracy of New York have done the first really brave thing they have accomplished since the war. Injustice can never be left a moment ungrappled by any party. That instant it is endured it is both pitied and embraced. A surrender to Kelly at Syracuse meant another era of prostitution, overthrow and disaster. Matters would have gone on from bad to worse. More good men would have turned in loathing and disgust from the domination of such an institution as Tammany governed by an inferior edition of John Morrissey, than there will be bad men to desert Tilden because Robinson was nominated over all the balance of the peace at any price politicians or pipe layers. As it is, whatever else happened, Tammany is gone forever.

A frightful accident occurred the evening of the 13th on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, three miles east of Easton. A farmer named Peedy was driving a mixed team of two horses and a span of mules, and it is thought the animals were running away, when, in crossing the railroad track, the engine of the incoming passenger train struck the mules, killing them instantly, making a complete wreck of the wagon, and cutting the top of the man's head off just above the eyebrows and ears. The horses escaped unhurt.

J. Potty was run over the night of the 14th by a train on the Hannibal and St. Joseph road, three miles east of St. Joseph, and killed, while driving a four-horse wagon over a crossing. He was a prominent citizen and leaves a family.