The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-21
THREE MONTHS OF GENERAL GRANT.

From the NJ Y. Herald.
1t is easy enough to say that Grant is failure,
and perhaps from this very many have
hastily said it. Are the facts such that men
must say it after deliberate thought? 1t is at
least quite certain that Grants decadence in one
sense is clear; he is not what the people fondly
thought him; he does not realize the generous
national expectation of his career, and hence
he has fallen from that height which popular
estimation had accorded as justly his. But is it
not possible that the people in their enthusiasm
placed him ut a point that no man would seem
to fit when looked at in cooler moments
Did we not expect too much of him? Did
we not in one humOr expect him to do
things that in another humOr and with
our jealousy of one-man power we even
would permit no man to do? 1t is an old fault
of the world that it eXaggerates its heroes,
and then contemns them that they do not come
up to the false measure. Here for ages has the
world been standing with folded hands before
the grand conception of Marius sitting on the
ruins of Carthage. Patriots and soldiers have
accepted it on canvas and mused it in verse
with peculiar melancholy. Well, Marius never
sat there at all. 1t was only a figure of speech.
Must we then scout the old democrat altogether
because he sat down many a muddy mile from
the place we have pictured him sitting 1t is
for this nation not to vote as failure in any
eaptous spirit that man to whom it owes the
final success of its great efforts; but if he is
failure, there is equal duty plainly to say it.
But what did the country expect of Grant? 1t
expected broadly the administration of the Gov
ernment on new principles. 1t expected a re-
version of the primitive system-that is, reVo-
luton against the otiice-holders, against sort
of political and official oligarchy that in an
immunity of fifty years had come to look upon
the Government patronage as exclusively its
own. If we consider only this point fairly, we
shall see that Hercules had but little to do by
comparison with what we expected of our
straightforward soldier For what were the car
nivorous birds of Lake Stymphalis the mad bull
Of Crete, the Lernen .dydra, the
Neme@n lion and the wild boar of
Eurymanthus but so many ideal types and
figures of the ferocity, recklessness, roaring
grumbling, shrielling, and tossing of the politi-
clans, mad for place and plunder? We eX-
pected too much But then it must be assented
that we have got much less than we might even
reasonably have looked for. We have got
nothing, and here it is that absolute failure is
obvious. Grant was relied upon to do ALL be-
cause in his whole career he had seemed n man
OF common sense, common honesty, and resO-
lutte purpose. But his resoute purpose has be-
come puerile yacation; his common honesty is
| nepOtism, or worse; and common sense is the
quality of all qualities that the administration is
| most without
g. Pressed to exclude the groyelling politicians
| from olhce, General Grant was ready to meet
| lhe PuDnc view of the necessity of such n
| course; Out he Immediately cOnfOunded with
these groyelling politicians every public man
Whosc Ialle mad strong party affiliations. How
| great Il pluhder this was is seen in the reflection
| that III such crisis as we have recently passed
through all men disposed to serve the country
faithfully IN civil life, and who were men of
| lorce' neceme necessarily party men. BY the
terms OF his exclusion, therefore, he forced him
self to choice of respectable good-natured
nobodies: Can the American people be per
suaded th9t there is nothing between that ex-
treme ana the miserable pace-holders of the
corrupt cliquesI On this principle Gront's
Cabinet was made. Disgusted with the result
he then Tell into the other blunder of GIVING m
his efforts altogether aud politicians of the
worst stripe had treer sweep than thew have
had before this long while, Here is failure. In
a rude age of the worlds history so simple a
soldier as the second Caliph could remember
and did not need Office. He could advise his
successor, also, mot to prefer his relatives
above all others" For President in this arc
to conspicuously Indicate his Indifference to
precepts 50 soundiy based in all views of public
morality and official purity is a great error.
We are, it must be remembered, only in the
third month of Grants Presidency. Popular
enthusiasm has cooled his disappointment An,
ticipations of vigorously honest discharge OF
public duties have faded away and the common
laugh is at the ridiculous anti-climaxes of Grants