The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-01

sooner is the name Of Grant heard than there is
asudden change in their manners. Il is amusing
in such circumstances to hear them deprecate
the discussion of the Presidency They saw il
is too soon. They urge, then, that the Presi-
dency should be untouched for some time yet,
and argue that there are a great many other
topics that naturally precede IL aud ought to
be settled first. They run hurriedly over the
list of national troubles-reconstru and
the ten torn-up States, the national debt the
Indian war, and so on. This shallow dodge to
escape from what they fear to face will avail
but little; for the people have already seen and
determined that all these national evils are to
be settled by settling the great question of the
Presidency. The settlement of the Presidency
is the necessary preliminary to all other settle
ments in matters of national policy. It is at
the root of all; it underles and involves all;
it is the great first fact for the next period in
the life of the country; and if it is settled right
all other points will settle themselves in har-
monious accordance with it; while any attempt
to patch up an arrangement of great national
topics in advance of this settlement and with
out reference to it, must inevitably end in
failure.
One of the more advanced of the Republican
organs puts its opposition to Grant on a rather
broader basis. 1t is afraid that may be, he is
not good enough Republican. 1t does not
know enough of his principles to feel sure of
his fidelity or to be satisfied that he is such
true representative of the power and great
ness of the nation-so in sympathy with the
mass of the people as to make him their proper
Executive. 1t is one of the astonishing things
of the age that there are pigmy people-men
who have never done anything better in the
world than write trashy politics and try expe-
riments on their own precious digestion with
bran bread-who have yet the ineffable i'm
pudence to stand up and question the fidelity
and the genius of a man with General Grants
history. 1t is the strongest of contradictions
that in the United States, whose whole people
are entitled to honor for what they have done
more than for what they have said, whose
greatness is in their achievements, not in their
speeches-in the ideas they have wrought into
tremendous facts rather than framed in fine
sentences-it is a strange contradiction that in
such country, in the midst of such a people,
that man should be decried and questioned
who has given the most direct evidence that
he is a real type of the people, in having done
more than any other man, and said less. 10
this Wendell Phillips argument-this phrase
mOnger's nOtion-that the man who has led
the American people to the most wonderful
achievements of the age has no ideas and no
principles, because he has not written and will
not write political letters to two or three men
in Massachusetts,, we will make no serious
answer.
Yet we are happy to be able to state that
General Grant has platform, and one that
will bear comparison with the platform of any
professed politician in the country His first
plank relates to what the American people
should do. He believes they should cultivate
the soil. He holds that it ought to be the am
bition of every American citizen to be a good
farmer, and acknowledges and declares that
that is his own greatest ambition" His re-
duction of Vicksburg, his capture of Chatta-
nooga, and final destruction of all the Rebel
armies, were only incidents in his career, and
each success welcome as bringing nearer the
happy day when he should go home and smell
the fresh earth and take pride in the
ripened grain of his farm. From this natu-
raj occupation man may turn for one para
mount reason-his duty to his country. To
mind that duty is the first great thing man
has to do in life. This is another plank
in the platform, and this will disgust the
radicals, who believe that a mans first duty is
not to his country, but to his party. Grant
also holds that when man has performed this
duty he ought to retire to private life. This
| point in the candidates principles is expected
! to secure him the opposition of all the office
holders including Seward, Welles, and Stan
/ ton, who will never retire to private life If
they can help it. Grant believes that he has
done his duty, and feels, at all events, that he
has earnestly tried to do it; nevertheless, if
the country still calls, he is ready. If the
people wish to give him the Presidency he
national bidding, though when he has done
his duty in that line for four or eight years he
will expect to be allowed to go home, giving up
politics and every possible public office.
This is the best platform ever laid down
since the first invention of that dangerous
piece of political machinery. We are aware,
however, that it does not tell what the party
men want to know, and will not silence their
clamor; for it gives no indication how they
may get at the candidate with their bargains.
When a partisan journal declares that it does
not know public mans principles, it means
that it does not know his price; it means that
the clique it represents has not vet had a
chance to see the candidate and find out how
he stands with respect to their little games
whether he will concede this post Office or that
ministry in consideration of the support OF the
faction; and exactly this is what is meant by
those Republican journals who say they do
not know the principles of the man whose
principles are inef,aceably written in the his
tory of the war. They say to mention his
name for the Presidency is premature. 1t
will always be premature till they have made
their bargains, and thus they will be telling
their readers it is premature when the people
with unanimous decision have declared by
ballot that Grant is the man.
Trap for General Grant.
From the World
Although General Grant has no experience