The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-14

Il dItOrInI Opinions Of tho Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph
GRANT.


md chief defender. Wendell Phillips pen
itnot half so graphic. In the very defense
teprecating criticism of him, there is as keen,
Ienetrating, and truthful an exposition of the
real facts in his official career as one cares to
seer
ain the absence of any substantial grounds for
controversy it seems to be regarded as the nt and
proper thing to dog the Presidents footsteps wher-
ever he goes, to belttle his empOYments, to give
him the appearance Of being habttially surrounded
and engrOssed with tri1ing or equivocal company,
his public duties, and in general to be a man who
really has no comprehension of the great interests
committed to his charge. q
"They are trying to belitte and degrade the Pre-
sident by publishing stories and gossip from which
every gentleman, and a President more than any
other person, is entitled to exemption. And what
will come of it2 The public, the country will not
Judge the President by the number Of horses he
drives, by the number OF cigars he smokes, by the
places he frequents during the heats of summer, 10y
the number Of days or weeks he remains in or out of
Washington, or by the class OF people who get ac-
cess to his presence as a means OF getting their
names into the newspapers. These are matters
about which the great body OF the nation are indif
ferent They wish to know, and are willing to wait
a proper time to learn how the President is attend
ing to their business having particular curiosity
TO know how he attends to his own. Now,
what has this idle cgar-smOking horse-Jockey of a
President accomplished during the brief five months
that he has had such control OF the Government as
Congress accorded to him y
There is no use endeavoring to give en-
phasis to certain expressions in this incl
sive indictment. 1t is all emphatic. The
effect of the printed inculpation is as impress
sive as a painted picture. 1t is, in fact,
E'Grant taking the reins!" 1t brings up
in one view the whole of his brief Presi-
dental career. We are reminded that he
has appointed more relatives and family
connections to Office, and in a briefer
time, and that he has selected more men
for prominent public stations on account
Df pecuniary gifts and favors or hospi-
alities extended to him, than did ever
my other President; that he has accepted
more presents and indirectly solicited more,
while in Office, than any other man in Ame-
rica; that he made, in the public estimation,
more admitted blunders in forming his Cabi-
net than all the Presidents did, with their
Cabinet advisers, from Washington down(how
far down?) to himself That he is an s'idle,
cigar-smoking horse-jockey the WorJd
forbears to say, however truthful others
may think the description. There is no
doubt that Grant has absented himself from
Washington, and proposes during the coming
weeks to absent himself, more than has any
of his predecessors in Office in the same
space of time. This may be accounted for
on the ground of his superior knowledge of
public business or by the diminished amount
and consequence of that business since the
days of jefferson, jackson, Van Buren,,
Polk, and Fillmore, by the greater frailty
of his physical constitution, or by the
increased insalubrity of the Washington
atmosphere. No President ever before
permitted heads of departments to be
away from their official duties, at the begin
ming of an administration, in such numbers
A majority of them are to-day absent from
Washington, and the Government is now in
the hands of chief clerks, the subordinates
of subordinates, each acting on his own
hook. Useful reforms may be accomplished
in the absence of these legal chiefs
but, if SO, it only demonstrates how
useless is their presence. In the earlier
and better days to the republic, the President
would as soon think of asking of a candidate
for Office a gift of a hundred dollars as to
habitually travel on public conveyances and
be entertained in taverns as a deadhead But
now, with the example set before them, we
take it, all the subordinates in Washington
will vex railway and steamboat officials for
free passes and coax tavern-keepers into free
feeds.
Like master, like man Every revenue or
other official who smokes expensive cigars or
drives valuable trotters will plead that they
were gifts by admiring taxpayers, who could
not resist making such a manifestation of an
probation of official energy and fidelity
Washington would have frowned on such a
state of things; but what of him? If Grant
be right in his ideas of the needs of the Presi-
dental Office, then all his predecessors who
deemed it their bounden duty to vigilantly
overlook and direct the administration of Fede-
raj affairs from the watch-tower of the White
House-shunning neither inconvenience nor
fatigue, setting an example to all below them
OF fidelity to the public service-were in
error. Under the existing administration.
not "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"
and good government, but eternal idling at
places of fashionable resort. An unsophis-
ticated person would say that, if Grant
found no executive business to do in
Washington, his time could be proftablv
spent in looking little into the statute
books, of which he has repeatedly mani
tested such deplorable ignorance. and
especially in the matter of the appointment
of Mr. A. Il. Stewart. But such a one has
no idea of the modern style of carving ON
the government of a great people, States
manllke ideas, in these times, come not from
patient study of the records left behind nv
those who have gone before us in the pathway
of civil administration, nor from profound
reflection on what legislation the country
needs to sustain and improve its prosperity.
There is now an easy road for those to traye
who aspire to be known in his ory as wise
and benetcent rulers of which Napoleon III
Bismark, Won Beust, and Gladstone never
dreamed till the advent of Grant.
We agree with the Times that, among the
people, the inquiry at last comes to this:-I
Grant neglecting their interest or his duty
When engaged in the investigation of tRi
point they will regard it as 'the fit and pro
per theory to dog the Presidents footstep
wherever he goes, in order to show whethe
he habitually surrounds himself with trihinl
or equivocal company, whether he SELFISH,
consults chiefly his own ease, and whether h
manifests comprehension of the great in
terests committed to his charge" The peo
pie will INQUIRE into ..the number of horse