280 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



the hands of legislators with an emphasis and earnestness 

 that cannot be ignored. Time has fully demonstrated 

 the wisdom of such a policy. It is positive proof that 

 the members of the Union regard their own preserva- 

 tion and protection as paramount to party success. 

 This surrender of partisan prejudice gives evidence of 

 an independent manhood which never can be shackled by 

 the chains of slavery. For an organization to accom- 

 plish a reform, it must be united upon all measures of 

 public policy. And when there is a union of sentiment 

 in regard to measures, there must be harmony respecting 

 the manner through which the principles can be put in 

 operation. If both parties have left the highway of reform, 

 there is no alternative left for those who are seeking the 

 good of equal rights and justice, but to turn away from 

 following after false guides. If parties place themselves in 

 the way of carrying out the necessary reform, they court 

 their own destruction. Those who have honestly and loy- 

 ally adhered to their own party, through its trying 

 vicissitudes in the great battle for human rights, will 

 not be expected to continue their allegiance when its 

 policy and its efforts are directed against their own 

 interests. If its leaders who dictate its policy and manip- 

 ulate its conventions persist in fostering evils which impose 

 unjust and unnecessary burdens upon the largest and most 

 respectable class of citizens, they must do so at their own 

 peril, and at the risk of defeat and overthrow. If they 

 are in sympathy with the demands of labor, the Union, or 

 any other organization, * ' going into politics ' ' will not hurt 

 them, unless it be to deprive some of them of the monop- 

 oly of office, on which they seem to hold a life tenure. 

 You can always tell, when standing on the tail of a 

 dog, how much it hurts by the amount of noise he makes. 

 If parties are honest in their professions of sympathy with 

 labor, how is it going to ruin their organization to elect a 



