The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-04-13
The President ana the Party.
From Harper,s Keeklu.


There are those who hoped that the
President, who had been elected by the
people, as they said, would discard the
politicians and rely upon the country.
What do such words mean? Who is
the country, and what are the people?
They are the Republican and Democrat
ic parties. There is not vast reserved
multitude of "people" independent Of
parties. The people are divided into
the great party organizations and to
expect that the President would en-
deavor to find some one who was in
sympathy with neither, was to expect
that he would be guilty of unutterable
folly.
There were those, for instance, who
hoped that Mr.. Charles Francis Adams
would be matte Secretary of State. The
columns of this paper are the witness
of our appreciation of Mr.. Adams's
| ability and service. But Mr.. Adams
has chosen to withdraw from the Re-
publican party. Upon the eve of an
election which involved the essential
question whether the late rebels should
control the Government Mr.. Adams
preferred to express no opinion. Now
at such time for man like Mr.. Adams
not to speak was to express himself a
| thousandfold more loudly than If he
had shouted. The people of the coun-
| try, who felt In every fibre that the war
was a real thing, and that no misfor-
tune was SO threatening as the presence
of Wade Hampton and his party In the
Government, elected General Grant.
Mr.. Adams showed no sign of interest
or sympathy. His son, inferentially,
under the circumstances, with his
fathers assent, had been coquetting
with Wade Hampton, and was the cam
dldate of Wade Hampton's party for
Governor of Massachusetts. If General
Grants first act had been the nomina-
| ton OF Mr.. Adams as Secretary of State,
he would have paralyzed the party that
that from which that party has Just
VIGOROUSLY emerged.
The government of this country is a
party government. When President
| is elected, he is a representative of
principles and q policy which are ap-
proved by a constitutional majority of
| the people, who are the source of power.
Those people, therefore, have right to
demand that those principles shall pre-
| vail, and; in the absence of a proper
civil service system the control of tho
Executive Administration is essential
to the effective organization OF the par
ty, they will naturally expect that the
Administration will be intrusted to
honest and capable men, who are also
of the party. If a man believes that the
ascendency OF his party is essential to
the highest public welfare, knowing the
necessity OF thorough party organiZa-
ton to that result, he will properly take
every honorable means to strengthen
and complete that organization.
Now politician is very elastic term.
Burke aud Wilkes, Hamilton and FIRE.
neau, were all politicians. They took
AN active interest in politics and in par
| ty organizations. The reprOach of
many of the best American citizens has
| been that they are not politicians. If
the word has come to have an offensive
Significance, 1t is because those who
should have kept it pure have evaded
their duty. They have allowed it to
become synonymous with rascal. But
it has still higher meaning, which
every honest man will remember, and
every patriotic man will endeavor to
restore. An American who plumes
himself upon not being politician, in
| the sense of not being Interested in pol
itics, Is as wise as the captain of ship
who should take pride in knowing
! nothing of navigation.
|" 1t Is plain enough that the indepen-
dence which General Grant proposes TO
himself was not of party, but an indie
| pendence of choice within the party.
Undoubtedly his cabinet as first named
was disappointment; but it was
strictly Republican cabinet, and who
ever might have been named the disap-
pOintment was inevitable. The disap-
pOiEtment will continue, and for the
same reason; namely, that the friends
of every applicant who fails will COM
plain. If any man, however, will re-
fleet how impossible it is, under our
present system, that the Chief EXecu-
tive should accurately know the char
acter of those whom he must nominate,
and upon the reckless manner in which
candidates are recommended, he will
be very charitable in his judgment of
the nominating power. The President
may hold his subordinates responsible,
but the subordinates also must act not
upon knowledge but upon representa-
ton. 1t is, indeed, the people them
selves who are primarily responsible
for the character and capacity of men
in office, for the Senators must also rely
upon representations. Let no Republi-
| can, therefore, who has recommended
any applicant from good-nature, or
from any reason but persuasion OF fit
ness, presume to cavil at the E xecutiVo