The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1869-08-19

A morning gust sweeps down upon us
daily from Long Branch. 1t is disgust.
Forney continues to edit Grants cigar
stumps and the hours Of Mrs. Grants
baths These things are ambrosial to
sycophants; they are nauseOus to sound
stomachs. / burn my cigar stumps no
shorter than Grants. Your wife keeps
herself as clean with. additions as the
Mistress President Why so much fanfar
onade? If details must be told, the news
comes of the latter lady, that she is hang
ing to Grants arm at Long Branch with
every step he takes, like broken sprig of
dogwood How else wouldshe be known as
the lady of the Presidentg Certainly. The
President, what of him. Grant, turning
his administration into holiday, sends for
his stud The velvet sands of Long Branch
have not felt their magnetic, spanking
tread Grant without horse, loses his
electricity The horses without Grant,
lose their airing. The black favOrites must
be sent to him, perhaps, as Dana accuses
the Tallaposa, at the government ex-
pense.
We will wait little. But, giving the
best guess from the present standpoint,
the President has failed us. He is a dis
appointment. He has not done one
luminous act since coming into power on
the 4th of March, not one that the people
have risen up:and applaudedhim for. He is
Opaque to-day as in the interregnum form
ing his Cabinet, and the thing clearest in
this capacity is that the light is not in
him, no more than in the tumbledOwn
Cabinet affair The people have pinned
faith to his mysteriousness long enough,
and it is all that they have yet, or, per
hapS, will have in the end, to assure them
of the future
There is a kind of pretentious incense
quence about the Administration that is
ridiculous, a running to and fro of blue
breeched, shOulder-strap lackeys, buzz of
bass drums in tie background, as if there
were being spread the net of some cOmpli-
cate, far-sighted, tremendous policy, a
simmer and show of pOnderousness that
exists only il the expectations of the peo-
pie. The doubt once in while grows
thick, whether Grant is not more at home
in gig behind his Havana than in the
White House fronting the people. Look
ing him steadily in the face, it occurs to
you that the Republican party, powerful
as it was, might have taken from its box
the first intelligent hackman on the street,
and done as well. Grants face has no
clearness or illumination in it, more than
ii
the rebellion. The AHdntic Monthly lately
contained an article upon his intellectual
character" 1t is in doubt whether il exists
Not man, woman or halfgrOwn child in
the country, but has constantly put the rid
die these two years: "HOw is it that
Grant, with his face like stogy boot, is a
great MANI" 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 Brutuses
who seem fools and turn up wise men
are few. Grant sw lmg to the head of mill
tary affairs when the momentum of the
nation was ready To break down treason.
He swung to the front of civil affairs when
the party that gave supremacy to ideas had
become nation itself, and he is a bubble
borne on its surface. In either case, the
people have been of real Importance, and
the man of fictitious Importance. We
wanted hero and President, and pro-
nOunced the wOrd-Grant
Grant came, believing in himself, and
imposed upon us. His Oracular silence at
the beginning made us expect Cabin ct o
giants. 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 q
decimated battalion. The ministers hang
to it unsteadily still and "WhO are to be
Grants Secretaries" is an open question
yet, just as if you asked what grains of
floating sand would go into petrifaction.
You have heard how Robson was ap-
pointed Borie's SUCCESSOR jolly fellow,
introduced automatically to Grant, in a
Chi ri Iaffl
ing his way into the Cabinet with his knife
as he dined at the same table The peo-
pie needed introduction, too, to the new
man. But that was little matter
The monkey races sometimes select
their leaders by the length of their tails.
Louis XVIII. made Monsieur D'Avaray q
duke for helping him into his carriage.
Then Grant imposes upon us with other
pretensions He has published to- an ex-
travagant eccentricity his love of quiet and
retirement. No public man of his station,
since the beginning of the government, has
40 constantly thrown himself in the way
of the people. A triumphal procession
through the county every six months since
the war has been the least of it. As Pres
ident, he is pushing his social prerogative
TO the fullest bent There have passed Ia
weeks since the adjournment of Congress
Grant has passed half of them here, the
rest in social unbending elsewhere. They
say he takes gayly to the dance at Long
Branch, sliding through the figures more
glibly than at Annapolis and West Point.
This is very well, but the country is asking
of him and his Cabinet few serious ques.
tons that it would be well to have an
swered from Washington, reception balls
at the seashOre Notwithstanding. What
about Cuba, South America, Virginia, the
South, the Alabama matters, and political
assassinatiOns?
1t is credible that the Cabinet and the
head of the nation, properly digestng
these things, would not find much time to
be absent from the capital. Anyhow, the
nation Is anxious to see looming above the
rosy horizon of balls, routs, excursions.
banquets, receptions, and seaside frivOli-
ties, the Executive head Of a powerful Re
publican administration. We are hardly
contented with this sphinx-like policy. It
may be Delphic, as Shellabarger said, but
is less than republican. The President
would do well to accept humility from the
Cabinet tiascO, and consult the people
henceforth. A member of the Grant
family is reported To have remarked, Just
after the nomination: at was the Gen
erals desire not To be made President by a
party, but by the people" Perhaps here
is little light. Perhaps Grant believes
that the " era of good feeling" may return
again under his Administration that he i.
a Colossus, under whose legs all people
can walk.
so far the pettinesses of his administra
tiOn have been the most Objectionable
and nou- plavipp President no rop,;nd