The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-12

NVesi Vu. eNeh IN Ihat case, such hasoO
as General Grant has committed would h,
hardly excusable. But TO have blupdered an
enormously after the amplest opportunities
for circumspect action, shows that he IA a man
on whom opportunities are thrown awav, that
be is incapable of profting by advice or expe.
fience; and 1t so prostrates public oonfdence
at the outset of his administration as to in-
cline the public to look with doubt and mis-.
giving upon everything he may hereafter do
II is much as If the general who was so dis
gracefully beaten at the first battle of Ball
Run had just been invested with the full
command of our armies for four years
The chances that General Grant will i'm.
prove are slender indeed. Aside from the in
durable mental deficiencies which unfit him
for success as statesman, the shame of such
beginning and his reluctance to confess his
blunders, will incite him to adopt some course
which will not seem a total abandonment of
plans which he formed with so much delbera-
ion, with such arrogant self-sufiicienoy and
such contemptuous rejection of advice. When
pretender is detected in a ridiculous blum
der, he Is under O strong temptation to shield
and defend it. General Grant, having as
sumed to be superior to ordinary usages and
independent of such assistance as has been
sought by all his predecessors, will naturally
desire to show that his assumption was not
mere exhibition OF empty self conceit, and
will probably act ss nearly as possible
in pursuance of his original ideas. His
self-conceited presumption and absurd affeo-
tation of superiority have not only led him
into mistakes which a difident man with
access to advisers could not have committed,
but they have enlisted his pride in support
of an indefeDsible course, which might have
been easily abandoned ii it had not been
taken with such lofty and repellsnt air of
superiority. Modesty easily confesses its
faults; but ostentatious presumption, which
censures and deviates from the common usage,
commits itself to persistencs in error. So that
General Grant has to encounter not only the
intrinsic difficulties of the situation, and
those which result from his incapacity and
inexperence, but the embarrassmsnts which
attend gratuitous assum ption OF superiority
that enlirts his vanity in defense of his mis-
takes. He will doubtless continue his paltry
affectation of acting solely on his own judg
ment.
This kind of affsctstion, instead of being a
mark of capacity, proves the utter want Of it.
The most superior minds are always the most
indebted to others their superiority consisting
among other things in their ability to use the
faculties of others as an architect uses the
rude iabors of quarrymen and the trained skill
of mechanics. As soon as man has exhibited
a marked superiority to his contemporaries,
he becomes river into which all the streams
ofintelligenoe OF a. capacity flow as affuents, to
swell us NOluhcs 10 hnuC Wy
a great state esmen is due to the fact that his
eminence makes other capable men proud to
give him their assistance, to supply him with
facts and suggestions, and thus to gain for
their ideas currency aud Importance which
they could never give them by their
own efforts. To be the correspondent
of a great man, to be the valued ad-
wiser OF a great man, is distinction which gives
clever men consideration in their own circles,
and supplies their only chance of ineorporat-
ing their ideas into the general public thought.
Thus, one superior man becomes the conduit
of numerous streams OF valuable thought, as
the Mississippi rolls into the Gulf the col
lected rivers of half a continent. There is no
plagiarism in this kind of assistance; what
would be theft or robbery in private indivl-
dual is the levy of a just tax by a powerful
monarch who protects and gives value to the
property from which he takes what is need
iul for his occasions. The recognition which
a great statesman gives to the abilities of
those from whom he berrows, is more vslu-
able than any recognition they could have
obtained by direct communication with the
public. The advantage of such an arrange
ment is, that country is governed by the
| collected wisdom of all its best minds.
| The assistance which men OF the highest
| order of ability derive from tributary minds as
consequence of their superiority, is often
within the reach of inferior men when acci-
dent or popular caprice lifts them into the
highest official positions. When really great
men are put in great stations, they bring with
them not only their own talents, but all the
tributary talents which the recognition of
their greatness has enabled them to subsidize;
| and this is one reason why public affairs are
so much better managed by statesmen OF
assured eminence and wide connections.
High Office enables inferior men to command
much of the same kind of assistance, al
though they are naturally less skilful in
turning it to good account. An able states
man, coming into office with a wide COM
msnd over tributary minds, was never known
| to cut himself loose from such connections,
| and act in self-reliant isolation. An inferior
man, coming into great office without this
| previous equipment and these tributaries,
| should acquire by his office what he had not
| ACQUIRED by his personal asoendancy, or thus
gain the advantage OF feeding his own mind
| with the wisdom OF clear headed or well-in-
formed contemporaries who can make them
selves important only by gaining some chan
mel OF outflow, as small rivers can reach the
ocean only by emptying their waters into
rivers of a greater bulk. General Grant, by
ostentstiously disdaiDiDg such assistance,
shows that he is so hOpelessly raw that he
does not even know that no single mind is
capable of governing a great country. The
abest statesman is he who has the most CON
summate skill in using the faculties of others,
and thus making his administration the joint
result of all the best thinking and ripest ex-
perience Of his age. dull, narrow man
without experience or political connections
who affects to disdain all advice and to act
without assistance, and whose absurd pre-
sumption has stranded the ship he undertook
TO navigate before ii ia fairly out to sea, will