The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-11-12
The Egis & Intelligencer.
BEL AIR, MD, NOVEMBER IL, 1859.
From the Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. %.
Mr.. GRANT TAKEN TO TASK.

PUBLICAN PAPER.
Gen. Grant seemed to be necessity to
the Re. Iolican party when he was unani-
mously nominated by the representatives
of that party in Convention assembled for
the Presidency. He could have got along
very well as General Commanding the ar
mics, but the party could not get along well
without him in the Presidential campaign,
Upon becoming President, the General
seems to have had a full and clear appre
citation of the independence of his position.
So he made up the Cabinet, not of dis
tinguished Republican politicians, but of
his personal friends. They were all rather
Republicans than otherwise, but the Cabi-
net Soas fearfully and wonderfully made.
The charge has been made that Cabinet
appointments occurred because the gentle
men appointed had made presents to Gen
eral Grant We do not believe those pre-
ents had any influence with the President.
They ought to have had an influence and
it should have prevented the appointments
1t happened that several among the val
ued personal friends of the President gave
him money, and that he, careless and in
different as to that, placed them high in
office. Not only in regard to his Cabinet,
bat throughout the country, the President
displayed the vividness of his remem.
brance and the keenness of his gratitude to
his personal friends. When we come to
count up the relatives he has appointed to
office, they are not very numerous. But
lie has appointed personal friends and the
friends Of friends and the .facorites of rela-
tiges to a degree that is not credita56 to his
sagacity as a man Of the people. In his an
nouncement that he did not intend to have
policy in conflict with the will of the
people he seems to have been entirely sim
cere His conduct in Office has given tes-
timony of the strongest kind to that effect.
Whatever may have been his shortcomings
he has not been burdened with a policy.
So easy is he on the duties of his office
that he has abundant leisure, which he
spends at+.the seashore and on the noun
tains.
SOME PLAIN TALK.
Some matters, however, seem to demand
the serious attention of the President He
has just received loud warning of the
perils by triends-the dangers offamily in
huences-and the exceeding great hazard
OF familiarity with New York sharpers.
In this part of the country the influence of
the Presidents father has been absurd and
injurious. In New York we find a Mr..
Corbin, known long ago in the Washington
lobby and in Wall street as a shreWd and
INSCRIPTIONS operator, who, few months
since. assumed the position of brother-in
law OF the President, and began presently
to speculate in that relationship. 1t was
his stock-in-trade. 1t gave him familiari-
ty with Gould and Fisk, the most notori-
Gus OF the Wall street gamblers. He as,
sumed to be able to control the appoint
ments in New York. There is too much
reason to believe that he did control some
OF them-perhaps that of Gen. Butterfeld
among others.
When the President passed through New
York, as he was IN the habit of doing on
his excursions, he was the guest of his
brotherin-law and this was entirely nat
ural and proper, for Mrs. Corbin is his
sister, who is most like him, and who has
more influence over him than any other
member of his family. This was Coving-
ton gossip before she was married, and her
influence was felt here in important ap-
pointments previous to that event.
PLoUGHING WITH HEIFER.
Failing to get his brother-in-law COM
mitted in Wall street speculation, Cor
bins next proceeding would, of course, be
to influence Mrs. Grant to allow him to
make a little money for her. If the Presi-
dent and his wife dabbled little in stocks
and gold at the suggestion and under the
direction of their brother-in-law with
brown stone front residence, evidently
they were presently apprised that the
transaction was not so distinguished by
innocence as it had been represented to
them by their brilliant and persuasive rel
~ative.
SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.
Messengers to Washington, Pennsylva-
MIA, and arguments by Jay Gould, and in
quiries by Jim Fisk meant something more
than that any association of the President
and his family in Wall street speculations
was simple, ordinary business affair. If
the President was in, he took care to get
out. and it is quite possible that the elabo-
rate effort to use him, had its influence in
causing the peremptory order that he gave,
AS he says'in the Bonner letter, for the sale
fgold
AND BOUTWELL, TOO.
While the bulls were at work with the
President, the bears seem to have had the
Secretary of the Treasury in hand, and
gave him fine dinner with the view of
why he should sell gold and crush out the
rascals. These were reformers in the same
sense that the late reformers in Hamilton
County were so. They were quite as wick
ed as Fisk and Gould, Corbin or Butter
field. They were in another ring, that
was all Their game was to steal as bears
instead of bulls.
THE MORAL.
Now we hope that in all this the Presi-
dent will learn one useful lesson. 1t is in
brief: that not only is personal govern
eminent played out in monarchies, but
that family influence will not serve any,
good purpose with Chief Magistrate;
that in his position all families of honest
people must be on the same footing; that the
Grants are not in the least better than other
folks because he is President, bit are rather to
he Disseminated against that his personal
friends must be judged by their fitness
rather than their friendship. If he can
learn this lesson speedily, and give evil
dence of his increase Of knowledge, the
people will be swift to forgive the errors
already committed but if he remains in
this particular dull scholar, the degree Of
popular impatience that he must encounter
may at least surprise him good DEAL