The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1869-08-18
THE POLITICAL HORIZON.
THE COMING STORM
LIGHTNING.

| General Grant DIssected by a Radio
Sangrado- Scathinq Review of the
Present Administration by a Lively
Republican.
Washington Correspondence Cincinnati
Commercial.
A morning gust sweeps dowl upon
us daily from Long Branch. 1t is dis
gust. Forney continues to edit Grants
cigar stumps and the house of Mrs.
baths. These things are ambrosial to
sycophants they are nauseous to sound
stomachs. I burn my cigar stumps no
shorter than Grant. Your wife. keeps
herself as clean with additions as the
Mistress President. Why so much
fanaronade :? If details must be told,
the news comes of the latter lady that
she is hanging to Grants arm at Long
Branch with every step he takes, like
IL broken sprig of dogwood. How1else
would she be known rs lady of the
President? Certainly. The President,
what of him Grant, turning his adj
minlstration into holiday, sends for
his stud. The velvet sands of Long
Branch have not felt their magnetic,
spanking tread. Grant without a
I:orse loses his electricity. The horses
vithout Grant lose their airing. The
black favorite must be sent t. him,
perhaps, as Dana accuses the 1alIa-
p oa, at the Government expense.
We will wait a l tie. But, giving
or best guess from the present stand
point, the President has failed us. lie
is 4 disappointment. He has not done a
luminous act since coming into power
on the 4th of March-not one that the
people have raised up and applauded
him for. He is rs Opaque to-day rs in
the interregrIm forming his Cabinet,
and the thing clearest in this capacity
is that the light is not in him, no more
than in tie tumble-down Cabinet af-
fair. The people have placed faith in
his mystlr robustness long enough, and
it is all that they have yet or perhaps
will have till the end, to assure them
of the future.
There is a kind of ~pretentious
consequence about the Administration
that is ridiculous, a running to and fro
of blue-breeched, shoulder-strap lack
cys, n buzzo bass drums in the ground,
us if there were being spread the net
of some complicate, far-sigbted, trem-
endous policy, a simmer and show of
ponderousness that exists only in; the
expectations of the people. The doubt,
once in n while, grows thick whether
Grant is more at home in a gig behind
his Havana than in the White House,
fronting the people. Looking him
steadily in the face, it occurs to you
the Republican party, powerful as 1t
was, might have taken from his box
| the first intelligent hackman on the
street, and done as well. Grants face
has no cl~earness or illumination iii it,
more than had his military policy for
breaking down the rebellion. The
atlantic Monthly lately contained an
article upon his "intellectual charact-
err" 1t is in doubt whether it exists.
Not q man, woman, or half grown
child in the country but has constant
ly put the riddle these two years 4:
Chow is it that Grant, with this face
like a stogy boot, is Il great man"
The real query is as to the fact. The
whole matter will probably turn out
simply enough, that. like other men,
he is what he appears to be. The Bru-
fuses who seem fools and turn up
wise men are few. Grant swung to
the head of military affairs when the
momentum of the nation was ready to
break down treason. The party that
gave supremacy to ideas had become
the nation itself, and he is as a bubble
borne on its surface. In either case
the people have been of real import
ance, and the man of fictitious i'm
p~ortancc. We wanted hero and. a
President, and pronounced the word
Grant
GRANTS PIGMY CABINET.
Grant came, believing in himself,
and imposed upon us. His oracular
silence at the beginning made us eX-
pect a>Cabinet of Grants. When the
roll of these awaited Colossuses was
finally called in the Senate, the half of
them were too feeble to answer to their
names. Then some of them came and
drifted away again. The Cabinet went
to pieces, and formed again like a de-
cimated battalion. The ministers hang
to it unsteadily still and "Who are
to be Grants Secretaries ?" is an open
question yet. Just as ifyou asked what
grains of floating sand would go into
a p~etrifaction.
You have heard how Robson was
appointed Borie's successor-a jolly fell
low introduced automatically to Grant,
in a good mood, on s%hipboard, and
deity carving his way into the Cab
met with his knife as he dined at the
same table. The people needed in
production, too, to the new man. But
that was a little matter.
The monkey races sometimes select
their leaders by the length of their
tails. Louis XVII, made Monster
D'Avsry a duke for helping him into
his carriage.
leRANT's GLOVE OF QUIET AND RETIRE
MENT."
Then Grant imposes upon us with
nretension. He has published