The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-07-02


we would like here to give the landlords pretty
strong hint that they will really be the gamers
IN the end If they treat their customers to mod
eEately easy shave
What are We About !--The Times and Their
Relations to Statesmen and Politicians.
What are the several great nations about nov :
This is curious question, but one which every
rejecting man may ask himself and still flad
reason to ponder on his answer.
What is each doing to fulfil its mission? Il
| we turn the question to ourselves, and ask what
are the United States doing just now, we mus
answer that they are plotting. scheming and
contriviDg to elect o President. Every otbe,
question is either act aside or considered solely
in lbs bearing upon Presidential prospects. NJ
one of the great questions that affect the almos
immediate interests and the future security OF
our expanding Union can get hearing unless
1T can carry delegates to some convention aud
| vote for candidate for the Presidency. Our
foreign, and no small portion of our domestic re-
lations, are crowded into the long since overour-
thened pigeon holes of the narrow little crauped
| State Department of the year 1900. Our fiscal
| system is cumbersome, onerous, and conducted on
| the hand. tomouth plan, while the Treasury
Department is q patchwork on Hamiiton's
organization Of sixty years since. Our armg,
crowded into pgmy proportions in comparison
with the vast extent Of territory it has to guard
bas become nothing but an ingenious plaything
in the hands Of public contractors to be car
red backwards and forwards at millions of ex
pense, under the pretcnce Of defending the from
tier. The same niggardly policy has cut down
| the navy till it bears about the same relative
value to our mercantile marine that ghost does
to a live man. The Post Office Department has
become little else than machine to enable one
| man to marshal 10000 postmasters and clerks In
the Presidential fight Nothing else is attended
| TO just now but this important issue. Is is q
quartan fever that attacks us periodically.
| Other nations have their periodical attacks
also. Thus England has just got over reform
attack which sloughed its old government, aud the
new one seems to be endeavoring to keep out OF
the quarrel now going on between some of her
neighbors by preparing to go into 1t. In the
meanwhile her commerce is partially stopped,
her manufacturers filed with doubt, and every
body inquiring what will happen nexG In
France the fever goes by decades. The old Bour
bons were overthrow in 1880; the fever OF
building up the Orleans branch lasted till 1910;
then came the fever Of change, contaminated in
1850; then came the first decade of the empire.
and now she is entering upon the fever of ex.
tending her foreign influence by sympatAizinp
with the oppressed nationalitiea Russia is busy
recovering from the exhaustion Of the Crimean
war and preparing for the coming event to "the
| sick man" Turkey. She found when she had 60
convey her vast armies and their porderoas
trains from every section Of her empire to the
defence Of Sebastopol, that travelling men on
their muscle and conveying supplies in OK carts
could not compete with iron roads and ocean
| steamships
These are the occupations of the four great
living Powers. Of the others, two only are in 8
state Of action. Austria is endeavoring to resist
the spirit of the age, which commands her to
slough her old forms Of political existence and
TO assume the lively garb of the new. Obstinate
in her adherence to the spirit of the past she is
marshalling her hundreds of thousands Of soldiers
within the historic square of Italy, where the
| struggle ia to take place which is to decide
whether she shall consent to recognise the
nationaities, or whether the present age shall be
reused to greater and mighter efforts against
| her. Prussia, animated to a certain degree
with the new idea, stands thirstily by, hoping to
| derive new life from the segregated elements OF
the present Austrian power, and to achieve a
preponderating influence in the heart of the dis.
integrated German nation.
These movements show that the times call for
the rule Of statesmen and not for that Of poiiti-
clans. This is true not only with regard to
Europe. 1t is necessity that is fast coming
upon us, If it has not already arrived The
| American people win soon see that politicians
must not be allowed to block the steps Of states
/ men. We are shooting up with wonderful rapid
ity. Today we have thirty millions of people.
In another generation we shall have sixty mil.
lions, and half century more will contemplate
this Union with one hundred and twenty mil
lions of population. Around one side of us are
colonies preparing to drop from the parent stem.
! and nations worn out with intestine struggles
calling upon us for aid. The paths Of inter.
course between our brethren on the Atlantic and
Pacific shores pass over, through and around
those territories. All these things prove that
the Cuba question must be settled, that the Mex
lean enigma must be solved, that the Central
American imbroglio must be made plain. Mr..
Buchanan has seen all this, and bis ear has
caught the tramp Of our coming millions He
has endeavored to initiate policy tina. must be
initiated before we can worthfy fill our mission
as nation; but corrupt and venal Congress OF
politicians has sought to hamper him on every
side. 1t is time for every man in the country to
ask himself, what are we about? It will then