The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-09-09
STRENGTH OF GRANT AND HIS PARTY.

The New York Tribune, in an exhortation
urring the Radicals TO work with more spirit
and energy, says: 1--WE know, as every one
knows, that General Grant is stronger than
his party, and viii poll thousands of votes
thai will not be given to our local candidates
in the September and October elections. But
| let him poll ever so many he will neverthe-
less be defeated by monstrous frauds, unless
there be sessonably effected thorough organ
ization of his supporters. Such organization
in half the towns will simply restrict the
meditated frauds TO the other half; it viii no.
wise defeat them"
This is the Iribune's way OF putting things.
1t has not the heart to tell the Radicals that
their presidential ticket is doomed to defeat
unless almost miraculously favored by fraud
and fortune, without embellishing the dreary
truth with the paltry mendacity about ''mon-
strous frauds" by the other party, not get
perpetrated and wholly imaginary, as the
cause Of the poftended disaster.
We know, as every one knows, tiiat Gen.
Grant is stronger than his party" This is a
Tribune euphemism to mitigate the painful
information that the Radical party is dread
fully weak, fabby in muscle, with dry rot in
backbone, dyspeptic in stomach, oppressed
with nightmare. vertiginous and hazy about
the head, and without any bottom of its own
that it dares 10 stand on. But, in another
aspect, the statement Is one OF those willing
falseAoods which scphists of the viler sort
endeavor, upon occasion, to palm of in the
Carb of an enforced admission
It is true that the expectation of finding
in Grant candidate stronger, greatly
stronger, than his party, was precisely what
induced his nomination. To obtain sucL a
candidate was, in fact, the only hope of the
party. The Radical leaders believed that
they had got him in Grant But the belief
turns out to have been lovely and treache-
rous phantom, such as mirage paints to the
eyes of the weary and thirsty traveller over
the desert sand.
To the dismay and chagrin of the Radical
leaders it soon became manifest that Grant
was not popular candidate. His name proved
the --LATEST of availabilities that ever party
chioaneIy flung into the presidential arena. 1t
evoked not one spark of spontaneous and gem
uine enthusiasm. 1t deepened, indeed, the
gloom of the situation. People looked at
some with melancholy acquiescence, some
with utter adherence, none with exultation;
and they turned away with boding thoughts
of the future. Another and an obscurer name
would perhaps have better served to conjure
with. For although protesting to be "no
politician" Grant had permitted himself to be
dragged, for partisan purposes, through the dir
test mire which ever made politics hideous and
revolving even in Washington. He had made
common cause with the pertinacious, insolent
profligate, and disgusting Stanton. He had
made common cause with the indecent and
shameless ambition of Wade to usurp the
Presidency without waiting for the constitu-
tional removal of the President. He had
made common cause with Butler Stevens,
Ashley and the others who impeached the
President without grounds and then sought
to convict him by sheer force of calumny and
directed against his judges.
Grants word was furnished. His good faith
was under cloud. His nomination did not
remove the shadow or the stain. They rest
on him still. Time cannot dispel the one or
wash out the other. With these things fast
sned on his fame, Grant could not be popu-
lar candidate candidate, that is to say.
loved and supported by the
people, For the instincts of the people, |
however their judgment may be misled, are
pure.
But the fact is that there never was presi. |
lential canvass in which the people took less |
interest in the mere personal merits of the |
.andidates on either side. These are nearly |
ost sight CT in the absorbing issues of the
campaign. Everywhere there'is an increasing
lesire for change, springing from deepening
Of the ruinous character of Radical
policy. Even Radicals who are not totally blind
md desperate, admit the necessity of a
'hange, but they propose no plan for arresting
he disastrous effects Of reconstruction and for
putting an end to financial mismanagement.
xtrayagance and corruption. The Demo-
rats, on the contrary, propose to cut to the
ore of these evils at once, and this gives
hem the open sesame to the popular heart.