The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-06 00:00:00

OF WHAT PARTY. IS THE "NA TION?"

(From the Anglo-American 2 imes.)
The New York Nation tells the story of a Mr.
JACKSON, a lawyer formerly in good practice in a
Western State, who entered the army in 1861,
fought through the war, constantly in front, and

returned with broken health to find his business

gone and his brain so affected that for two years he
was kept in a lunatic asylum. Emerging in 1866,

some admiring friends obtained for Lim a post in

the Auditor's Bureau, wherein his extraordinary
ability in examination of claims secured his rapid
promotion. In April, 1869, on Mr. BOUTWELL'S
advent, he was peremptorily dismissed because he
" had been appointed under JOHNSON and endorsed
by Democrats, and was intimate with Judge WOOD-
WARD (of Pennsylvania) and Mr C. DENISON." But
Mr. STETSON announced to the third auditor that

Mr. JACKSON'S services were of such a character and
so indispensable in the bureau that his departure
would paralyse its business; he was therefore re-
tained, while two young men were placed with him to
leant the work, and the sight is now onview at Wash-
ington, says the Nation, of this war-worn, broken-
down soldier fitting these two men to oust him from
his post. The Sation comments in its two following

notes of the Week with great severity on the fore-

going, the truth of which it has taken much pains

to ascertain ; blaming Mr. BOUTWELL, who it pro-
nounces to be " a remarkably good specimen" of
what it evidently considers a remarkably bad class.
It objected to his appointment because he was " a
thorough-bred politician of the old school. . . .
After thirty years of caucus, wires, and stump, a

man could not be a real administrative reformer,

The stuff of a reformer has gone out of him. ' Fi.
delity' and' claims' have entered into the very mar•
row of his bones." The correspondent of the Nen

York Tribune attacks the Nation in his letter, from

London, of June 5, asserting among other charges
that it is not a Republican journal. Mr. SMALLEY
alleges that the general ignorance on American affairs

in England enables the enemies of the Republican

party and the cause it has upheld for eight years, to

make people believe that the Nation is a Republican

journal. We are rather inclined to think that Mr.
SMALLEY is now right, in his assertion that the Na-
tion is not Republican, for there is internal evi-

deuce that it is not, at least on all points, in har-
mony with that party. It is indisputable that it
formerly was a Radical organ, for it was founded to
uphold the cause of the negro, one of the great issues
whereon the Republican party was formed. But
what happened in England when the Whigs gained
the objects they strove for is happening on Radical
success in the Republic; its issues being attained, the
parties assimilate and have to re-form on others.

The Tories merge into the Conservatives in Eng

lard, the Whigs into the Liberals, and for want of
definite questions fight the battle of slow versus

rapid progress. In America there are great and
direct issuJs to be contended for, affecting every
man individually, and consequently of prodigious

importance to the nation collectively, and it is

around the standard erected for then, that parties

must hereafter rally. Mr. SMALLEY calls the Nation

" a paper written by a little clique of discontented
doctrinaires for each other's reading," and he
sneers at ascribing to it a weight which he
declares to be purely imaginary. He insinuates
that the English press is deceived, aad the more
readily because it suits. it to assume that the
Nation does speak the sentiments of many Ame-
ricaup. It is, however, the fact, that English editors
judge the paper by the matter they find therein,
and not by the opinions of this or that person.
Theyallude to it as of the highest class intellectually,
even while condemning it, as did the Saturday lie-

view, for never being able to discuss an English

sulject without displaying a blind and hysterical
hatred of England. But while accepting it ou its

merits they do not pretend to judge of its circulation

or of its influence in its own country, of which they
can know little or nothing. Still it cannot but be
amusing to compare what the leading English Tory
weekly paper says, with what the correspondent of the
leading American Republican paper says when dis-
cussing the Nation; the one writing of its fanatical dis-
like to England and the °llia. of " the squeals of
delight" with which these very Tory journals seiLe
upon its injurious comments, on its country in ge-
neral, and on the Republican party in particular;
and this is not a bad instance of the difficulty ex-
perienced in endeavouring impartially and
bias to discuss Anglo-American queaious. But our
object here is to inquire—of what political stripe is
the Nation ? for, though not Demociatie, we Lic:ine
to the belief that it is not now Republic tn, and that
Mr. SMALLEY is justified in repudiating it as an
organ of his party. What seems to have had most
effect in swinging the Nation round was the ap-
pointment of Mr. BOIMVELL to the Secretaryship of
the Treasury ; and it is worth while to seek the
cause, for whether written by a little clique of doc-
trinaires or not, the paper is unquestionably con-
ducted with the honest intention of benefiting the
country. Judging alone by the internal evidence
it furnishes, for we know nothing of it beyond its
weekly issue, we would say that it earnestly de-
sires to break down the system on which offices
in the United States are at present distributed,
and to inaugurate the Civil Service Reform,
whose most conspicuous advocate is Mr. JENCKES,
of Rhode Island. It strenuously upheld GRANT
for President during the election campaign, under
the belief that he would accomplish this Hercu-
lean task, and it appears to have deeply grieved
over what it considers his conspicuous failure. In
an article of its issue on June 10 it discusses this
subject in a tone of which our readers may judge
by the following extract :
" it is safe to say that when we were discussing Mr.
JENCKES'S bill last winter, nobody had the remotest idea
of the startling illustration of the value of the measure
which the incoming of GRANT's Administration would
afford. Few people -few of his supporters certlinly—
were prepared for 'the clean sweep' which he has made,
and fewer still had an adequate idea of what a clean sweep
means in these days, when the Government employes are
numbered by tens of thousands. We knew what rotation
in office meant under Pomc. and BUCHANAN, but wo did
not know, till we saw it, what it meant since the war
oovered the land with a swarm of functionaries. More-
over, even those of us who had anticipated extensive
changes amongst the officers of the Government had not
pictured to themselves the possibility of the vacancies
being filled by means of Congressional and other 'recom-
mendations,' in the old style- that is, of every office in the
gift of the Government being offered to the competition
of between two and three hundred thousand of the least
reputable portion of the community—that portion, in short,
which in the country, of all, in which an honest 11,an finds
least difficulty in making a livelihood, had failed in getting
any place for which character and skill or industry were
essential requisites."
In its number of June 17 it tells the story with
which we commenced this article, and in its first
leader discusses the decline of the Republican party,
which it asserts to have been losing its hold on the
popular affection since 1865. Nothing but the " ob-
stinacy and stupidity of the South, and ANDREW
JOHNSON'S folly" enabled it successfully to carry out
Reconstruction, a measure in itself sure to damage
the reputation of any party. It has had to collect
and disburse enormous sums for eight years with-
out adequate machinery, and, in consequence, to
shoulder the responsibility of great abuses, while
receiving into its ranks a prodigious number of
knaves and adventurers, whose plundering and
peculation added to its burden. These, together
with the weariness which comes over the public of
any party long in power, would have led to its de-
feat in the last Presidential election had not the
folly of the opposition and the energetic action of
the Chicago Convention postponed the evil day.
Had the Republicans discarded GRANT, and the
Democrats accepted CHASE, the former party would
have gone to pieces, and even as it was, if the elec-
tive machinery had admitted of a direct popular
vote, GRANT would have barely escaped, defeat.
We may judge from this that the Nation has very
little hearty Republicanism in it, and we direct
attention to the change, bec tuse it is a per-
ceptible straw on the current of public opinion to
show the turning of the tide. The Nation is
nothing if not original and it is nothing if origi.
nal, unless its ideas are deeply considered an,
matured. The mass of journals are eddied about
round and round, more following than making
public opinion, taking the tone from the few really
original organs. As one of these few the opinions
of the Nation are important, whether or 110 t those