The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-10-05
Grant and His Defamers.

From the ~. Y. World
In fairness, after giving publicity to what
the Tribune, the Independent, the Anti-Stdvery
Standard, the ReUoiution, and other radical
journals have printed respecting the habits
of General Grant, we now reprint from the
Notion what that journal calls an extraordi-
nary letter, written by a "thoughtful teeto-
taller, "who defends the generals of our
armies against the radical defsmers who per-
sist in calling Grant a drunkard. The testi-
mony is not so positive as that offered by
Wendell Phillips; but as it is the first re-
buttng evidence we have seen in any radical
paper, it would be the Wortd's duty as
newspaper merely to give the same publicity
to the defense which it has given to the
radical defamations of Grants charac.
ter, for such the new witness assumes
them to be. But we have higher
motive. In common with all good
citizens, we desire that a man occupying the
responsible position at the head Of the army
should be cleared, il possible, from the impu-
tations which have been cast upon him by
Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and others
who are now pressing the man whom they pro-
nounce a drunkard for the Office of President.
According to the 'thoughtful teetotaller" the
whole story about Grants public intoxication
in the streets of Washington on a Sunday
morning rests upon the circumstance that, on
the Sunday morning alluded to, Grant had
breakfasted with Sheridan; that there was ga
good deal of wine drunk" and that thereafter
Grant was dubious about two doors, either
or both of which might open upon
the dwelling OF Dent. So that, after
all, q man wavering in the streets on
Sunday morning, doubtful between two
doors, appears in the Independent of January
81, 1868, as a man occasionally seen fuddled
in the Streets" he ia published in the Tribune,
April g. 1868, as a man $50 drunk that he
could not stand on his legs" and he is de-
nounced by Wendell Phillips in q public
speech in Boston, May 29, 1868, as a man
"who cannot stand up before glass of liquor
without falling down. Worse yet, within
week or so MIR. Phillips has again declared,
over his own signature, in the Anti- Slavery
STANDARD, that Grant "was drunk in the pub
lie streets since the 1st day of January" and
that it is "a fact as patent as the
story of the "Three black crows" for
it turns out that the whole has no other
foundation than that Grant was in state Of
dubiety between two doors on Sunday morn
ing If merely trying the "wrong house"
81 were basis for a charge Of drunkenness, his
effort to get into the White House would de-
note inebriety bordering on dslirium. 1t is
more than likely that the Tribune, Inde-
pendent Anti-Slauery Standard and other
radical journals, have outragsously malgned
their candidate The World can afford to be
generous to General Grant, and we demand of
Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, Mrs. Stan
ton, Mr.. Greeley, and other radicals who have
originated and circulated the stories about
Grants drunkenness, that they shall either
produce proof that their declarations are
founded upon facts, or shall retract them as
vile ISLANDERS.