The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-11-17

s. SCHoFF,, ...s C. VINEGAR
2@i Proprietors.
y. ScHoFF EDITOR
WASHINGTON, Nov. IL.
General McClellan's letter, resigning his commits
| sion as Major General in the United STATE afmyr--
rived here Thursday and will doubtless DC accept
ed.
We clip the above from the Washingto n
/ kilograms of the daily papers. There is a
whole sermon and an essay comprised in
that brief announcement. Thus bursts the
bubble-thus passes away the false hero
We have been, as a nation, not nnjustly,
criticized and laughed at for our inordinate
love Of ''lions, for our willingness to be
h umbugged, apd imposed upon by very or
binary capacities. We have ever been will
ing to take up almost any imported notabil-
ty and lionize him, her or it, to the most
ludicrous extent But in the above an.
nouncement we have the finale, the de-
noat1aceme1at of the most extensive, as well
as most insane and stupid instance of the
lionizing mania, to be found in American
history.
Three years and half ago we set up a
man of straw, labelled him Maj. Gen. McClel
Ian Commander chief of the armies of
the United States, the young Napoleon, &C.,
and endowed him with all the virtues, and all
the qualities that should belong to pre-em-
inent military leader and chieftain. 1t mat.
tered not to us that there was not particle
of evidence that our imaginary hero posses
sed single one of those virtues or qualities.
Nay after the trial and experience of yeal
and half had demonstrated and proved
that he did not possess in the slightest de
gree, the virtues or the qualifications we
had ascribed to him, we still chung to oul
delusion and would make whistle out of a
pigs tail. All will remember how in geniou,
we all were i'll making excuses for the inva
riable failure of our favorite hero, in every
move he made, or rather in every move he
was forced to make, for he never made one
of his own will
But fortunately for the cause of Freedom
and self govermrnt, throughout the world
as we'll as for the common sense of the Amer
lean people, successive failures, and success
sive proofs of incapacity, finally opened the
eyes of the people as well as the peoples
servants, and 1fajor General Mcclellan was
relieved of his command. Up to this time
there had been no political complexion Civ
en- to the matter. We neither knew or cared
to know whether Major General Mcclellan
was democrat or republican. He was
the great hero, military genius of the age
sFthe Young Napoleon and we cared fol-
nothing more. But the wicked and ambi
tious leaders of the opposition, styling them.
selves Democrats, thought they saw a
chance for future speculation, in the dismis.
sal of Gen. Mcclellan. They had seer
enough of his career to convince them tina
he could be made a plastic tool in theil
hands, and that was all they wanted l.
Thenceforth every democratic editor, orato
and stump speaker went to work to make q
a. great hero-a prosecuted Patriot-and all
that could excite the admiration and sym
pathy of the uninfo rmed for such charac
ter, was said and done He was re-endov
with all the military genius of Alexander
Hannibal and Bonaparte combined, and will
all the Craftsmanship of PATTERSON, Jackson,
Webster and Clay combined. And added
to all these glorious qualifications, he was
the victim of ''Lincoln's Tyranny" With a
military record that would have cashred anc
and sent into merited obscurity mere col
Onel in any other nation under the sun, an
without the least evidence of administrative
ability or craftsmanship, he was held up anG
urged upon the people, as the only man, ca
pable of welding the Presidency and admin
istering the government in these periloui
times, by a set Of men, whose bare endorse
ment ought tohave condemned any man be
fore the people. 1t is impossible to say
whether Mcclellan was himself deceived by
the clarnor of these demagogues, into the
belief that he was great military leader o.
great Statesman. 1t is probable that he wal
not so deceived. The result of the election
has proved that the people were not. Ant
now that the general has voluntarily be
come plain Mr.. Mcclellan, he can return tc
his railroading and yet become useful anc
honored citizen