The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-28

ana Ol pOpuiai bOukSs
In our day the whole world stands by the
hero on the quarter or at his hesdquar-
ters, pores over the map with him, reals his
reports over his shoulder, watches him chang
ing his shirt and eating his breakfast, holds
his bottles mp against the light to see what
liquor he drinks, debates the probable effects
OF alcohol on the coats OF his stomach and his
nervous fibre, and in two or three years has
heard the story OF his battles so often that
nine men out of ten begin to feel as IL they
could have won them themselves. Tests of
this kind, Of course, nothing but the first
order Of genius can endure. The minor
heroes of even the greatest contests suocumb
under them. We know of few things in the
annals Of war more pathetic than the fate of
Corse, of Allatoona. He is now, we believe, a
revenue assessor or collector somewhere in
the West, an obscure and almost forgotten man,
and yet had he done in any Of the great Euro
pean campaigns what he did In Sherman's, he
would have been raised to lasting eminence.
He held through long day, with handful
of men, position, on the retention of which
Sherman's fortunes depended against the as
saults of whole army, and this not as
solitary and unlooked-for display of resolution,
but as the legitimate result of faithful and
dauntless character, for Sherman, when he
saw from the heights Of Kenesaw the smoke
Of battle round Allatoons, said he felt
no anxiety, for he knew that Corse was there.
We are, and always have been, however,
Of the number of those who have not been
troubled about the absence of enthusiasm
about Grant personally, and for two reasons.
One is that we look on the qualities which
do most arouse enthusiasm, in the politicians
sense of the word, as defects in Presidential
candidate; and the other is that the rapid
growth OF the community in intelligence, ex-
perience, and selfpossession, has made en-
thusiasm unnecessary for the winning of
political victories. 1t is one of the unpleasant
but suggestive truths of history, that the
very worst enemies of the human race have
been those who commanded the popular en-
thusiasm, and that it has, on the whole, done
rather more for bad than for good causes.
The exploits of popular idols'' have not
always resulted in much good for humanity.
The history of progress is, in fact, the
history of the growing supremacy of reason
over the affairs OF men, of the relegation Of
feeling to the background, of the ap-
pearance OF judgment as sovereign in
fields once wholly given up to pas
sion. Perhaps the most striking aud
significant feature OF the American Revolution
was the conduct of it by silent, methodical,
repellipg- mannered man, who carried on war
as disagreeable business, and eagerly aban-
doned affairs Of state for the raising of to-
bacco. 1t is difficult to avoid seeing in the
selection Of another man of similar character
for the place once held byWashington, at this
second great crisis in the national affairs, an
indication that his type of character is, after
all, that which occupies the highest and most
permanent place in the popular mind and
that after sixty years of gushing, noisy,
magnetic" politicians. with tears In their
eyes for every woe, long yarn for every
passenger, and an empty haraugue for every
stump, the kind of public man whom, after
all, most Americans would like to see their
sons initiate, is man like Washington or
Grant, who has done much and said little,
and to whom the effects of his acts on his
prospects are amongst the last ana least OF
considerations. -.... .. ......... III.
One other thing tells powerfully in Grants
favor, and that is the rapid growth not of this
community only, but of all civilized COM
nunities, in those qualities which come with
age in the individual man, that is, in distrust
of mere sentiment in the management of
affairs, and in the habit of weighing conse-
quences and balancing pros and cons. The
saying OF Fletcher of Saltoun, which maya
zine writers have so long delighted to quote,
"Let me make a peoples songs, and | care
not who makes their laws has become, in
fact, utterly worthless considered as an epi-
grammatic statement of the proposition that
the world is governed rather by sentiment
than by reason. Nations cannot now be
governed by songs. He who seeks to rule
men in our day must convince them, not
simply move them. Poetry itself, in becom-
ing more metaphysical, shows the depth of
the change which has come over the modern
world. The same remark may be m sde of the
popular novel, which perhaps more than any
other species Of literature influences popular
thought. Even popular amusements grow
more and more intellectual. Those which
appealed wholly to the feelings have almost
died out. Convivial songs, as we remarked
the other day, which played 80 prominent
part in society in the last century, are no
longer heard, or, If heard, the singing of them
ls looked on as species of buf-
foonery. In fact, human character in
the civilized world takes everywhere
graver cast, and the effect of the change is natu-
rally seen more distinctly in politics than in
any other field OF human activity. The chant
ing, weeping voter, carrying "the great states-
man. on his shoulders, or following him
blindly to the polls and hanging on his lips
round the stump, is spectacle which grows
daily less and less familiar even to the minds
eye. In few years more he will take his
place in his historical niche, in the same row
with the lord and serf, creature of this world
DO longer. Even in the campaign now pend
ing one sees in the speeches of the orators
abundant signs that they are conscious of his
vanishing. The vast majority of the ad-
dresses are argumentauve to degree never
known before; personalities and clap.trap
have never in any other campaign played so
small part; calm, unimpassioned appeals to
the reason have never played so great a one;
and this novel character OF the oratory is made
all the more striking by the fact that the con-
test follows close ON a bloody war, and that
the leaders on both sides are largely men who
were conspicuous on opposing sides on the
battle field.
Votes Of the UnrecOpstructed States.