The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-08-31

The Presidential Discassisn-Not Much A"-
prevcment Therein. from the Lessons Oh
Forty Years.
The scandalous vulgarities and general recA-
lessness with pictures to match) OF tne parry
press and most Of the partisan stumpers on
both sides in the discussion of the Presidential
conflict of 1868 show very broadly that our
active party politicians and their organs OF the
present day have made precious little advance
mept from the teachings of forty years. The
s.modern improvements" Of steamships, rail-
ways, telegraphs and photographs have scaled
the Chinese wall and revolutionized the policy
| of that ancient empire in reference 70 the
''brown haired outside barbarians," and have
brought even the naked savages of Australia
within the pale of decency and decorum; but
the party journals and party politicians of the
United States are as savage and shameless in
their personal scurrilities and violent abuse Of
each other as they were when Andrew Jack
son was proclaimed, in the general hue and
cry from the wing party, q border rufaan, an
ignoramns, humbug, charlatan, gambler,
a tavern brawler, q military despot, duellist,
adulterer and murderer.
This outrageous mode Of political warfare
against Jackson, as we have recently shown,
contributed powerfully to swell the triumph
of his first election in 1928, and, to
some extent, Of his second election in
1882, although in that campaign the case
of the people versus the United States
Bank monopoly was the ruling question. So
strong in the confidence and admiration of
the people came the victorious Jackson out of
that conflict that he was able to proclaim his
successor in Martin Van Buren,, and was
powerful enough to carry him through, not
withstanding the disastrous blunders of his pet
bank system, with its manifest tendencies from
excessive imitation and speculation to fearful,
crushing and universal collapse.
This pet bank legacy from Jackson to Van
Buren,, however, rushing rapidly to wildcat
and red dog bank paper, to suspension of
tiers, issued from city and village corporations,
from cross-road taverns and distjlleries and
by Tom, Dick and Harry, brought about the
sweeping political reaction of 1910. There
are thousands of men still living who will re-
member the wonderful novelties Of that memo
rable campaign. There had been nothing
like it before, there has been nothing like it
since. Personal abuse Of Harrison and Tyler
by democratic organs and stumpers, and of
Van Buren, and Colonel Dick johnson by whig
stumpers and organs was literally INDUCED
in. The wings immensely magnifed and glo-
rided the military exploits of Harrison in two
or three Indian fights his simple mode and
habits Of life were exalted to the skies, and,
in short, from few disparaging democratic
hints and sneers, the wings raised such car
nival, yea, such jubilee, in behalf of
Old Tippecanoe and Tyler too,
as no nation on the face of the globe had ever |
seen. and such as even we of this country |
will perhaps never witness again. The issues
Of the campaign on the whig side were set to
music and sung by choruses of thousands at
every city, town, hamlet and cross-road In the
country. There were whig mass meetings and
gathered from thinly populated dis
tricts astonishing to behold; there were whig
compared with which the original
Atlantic cable glorifcation in New York in
honor of Cyrus Field was a poor concern.
We have before US one of these Harrison and
Tyler professions Of 1910. Its line extends
over hills and valleys for many miles; it is
fifty thousand strong it is literally garnished
with flags, banners, &C.; log cabins and canoes
f1y 10 bnu foot
by white horses or oxen, and filed, some with
young ladies in white, some with backwoods
hunters in deerskin, and some with painted
Indians, all singing the Harrison campaign
songs. And then come trees borne aloft, their
branches filed with raccoons and 'possums,
squirrels, owls and hawks; and then we have
live eagle, and next a bear, and then a man.
moth barrel of hard cider, with hundred tin
cups hanging round it, and so on, still con-
tinuing chain of novelties, curiosities and vocal
music for miles along the resounding line.
And so 1t was all over the country-the fun
niest and liveliest and most extensive and
most prolonged political carnival and jubilee
ever known. But, nevertheless, it was the
grand financial collapse of Van Buren's admin
istration In 1887 and its consequences that
swept him and his party out Of power in 1910.
The campaign Of 1914 between Clay and
Polk was comparatively heavy and monoto-
nous. Personal abuse on both sides was
freely employed by the party press and
stumpers, as usual, but 1t amounted to nothing.
The most popular and most sagacious and sue
cessful of all our American statesmen in his
great measures was defeated by an obscure
politician on the Texas annexation question
and by pitifal factious fragment in New York
of his own party. In ls4s, according to tho
party journals, we had in Taylor an old fool
and in Cass an old humbug to fight for, and
there il no telling what the result might have
been had not Martin Van Buren, turned the scale