The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-01
-. rRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS or rag LFAOINe JOURNALS
UPON CuRRBET TCpIC5--CoHPmED BvBBT
DAY PoR THE svEEING TRLEGRAPH.
Bad Spelling, as a Means of Grace.


From ne ". Y. Tribune,
The Democratic party have made discov
cry in logic. They have invented new mode
of political argument. They have discovered
that bad spelling is means of conviction, If
not of grace. Moderately bad spelling is un-
derstood to have saLirlcal effect. Very bad
spelling has all the force of the severest in
vective. During the war it was discovered
that active sympathy with the Rebellion was
entirely patriotic and proper when styled and
spelled "zeal in the cause" But an equally
earnest devotion to the salvation of the Union
was found to become a subject of ''intinite jest'
when rendered "zeel-in-the-kaws." The desire
that all men should be free, the genuine love
of freedom not only for ourselves but for
others, which has animated the noblest minds
of all ages, became simply ridiculous by the
addition of inverted commas and the omission
of an &C." Freedom was something that
Washington, KosciuskO, Lafayette, and Carl
baldi fought for. How wide the contrast between
these noble spirits, and John Brown, Abraham
Lincoln, and the Union armies, who only
fought for ''fredum." The Declaration of In
dependence was cherished as the great charter
of equal rights for all men. But it became
very absurd when its leading theme was spelled
"ekal rites" The effect of inverted commas
to demolish the most sacred ideas was i'm
mense. If there are any two words in the Ian
guage which it would seem should be exempt
from pollution they are God and humanity.
But it was only necessary to throw these words
between quotation marks to render them
odious, and to deprive them Of all status in
respectable society.
One would think that after the sup
preston of the Rebellion, and when even the
Rebels themselves profess to be truly loyal
there would be no Opprobrium in having been
loyal during the war. Not so. The newborn
and reluctant aCquiescence of the defeated
Rebel is worthy of all acceptation, because
spilled "truly loyal" But the contempt
with which those who claim to be truly loyal
now, regard those who have never been other
wise, finds severe expression in branding the
latter with the photographic stigma "trooly
loil." They take a compacent delight in
hurting this sharp avelin at those who fought
and sustained the war for the Union, as if this
unquestionably bad spelling would bear with
1t the seeds of contagious disease, and leave
the soldiers and citizens on the Union side of
the late contest parching with fevers and pltted
with smallpox.
Probably General Grant, when he closed his
letter accepting the unanimous nomination of
the Republican party for the Presidency with
the patriotic aspiration, "Lst us have peace, t"
had no thought how easily those who during
the war were for peace, and since the peace
are for war, might turn his simple and noble
prayer into ridicule by spelling it, 'Lesh ush
hab peash." Yet so it is. In all its palpable
righteousness, the prayer of the conqueror of
the Rebellion stands revealed by little Judi
cious and effective misspelling. The hero of
the war is demolished and proved to be a
mere shoulder-strapped civilian, by simply
quoting his rank thus, General Grant, which
proves that he is not General Grant. And, by
styling Ulysses S. Grant Hiram U. Grant, be-
cause he was so styled in his infancy, the en-
tire history of the war is wiped out as efsctu-
ally as Christianity is obliterated by styling
Jesus "a carpenter" or st. Paul ''Saul of
Tarsus."
We congratulate the Democratic party on
the fertility OF its resources and the profun-
dity of its arguments as shown in these home
thrusts of photography. They are unanswer-
able. If anybody can show that such dsluge
of inverted commas and bad spelling does not
prove that Seymour and Blair ought to be
elected President, let him undertake the diff
cult task. We shrink from it appalled,. We
are not equal to it.