The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-02
sR1RxT or TEE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions OF the Lending JournnIs
UpOn Current TOpIcs--Compiled Every
Day for tho Evening Telegraph.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

III IL gn0 misfortune OF bu8 .1NtDuDllChuo
that they have not at the head of the admins
tration, in this extraordinary juncture,
statesman with sense, experience, and skill
enough TO bind these loose and disintegrating
elements to the standard of the party, by
striking out an attractive and inspiring policy
for the future. The crisis has not prece-
dent in our history, and but two or three an
alogies; and to meet it we have President
who is incapable of appreciating his own in
terests and Indifferent to those of his party,
not q statesman of any Sort nor even q poll
tician, and who has not only had very little
experience in public affairs, but whose know
ledge of the transcendently important sub
jeots with which he is called to deal is to the
last degree meagre and unintelligent.
Besides, General Grant has not even sought
to supply his own painfully manifest def
ciencies by calling to his counsel the ablest
statesmen his party can afford; but, with one
or two exceptions, he has selected his advisers
from among the commonplace partisans of the
country. Harrison, Polk, and Pierce we're
rather inferior men, though, in respect to
proper training for the Presidency, vastly
superior to Grant; but they summoned to
their Cabinet some of the most eminent
statesmen in the ranks of their party. Look
ing to the promotion of the public veal
rather than TO the preservation of his per-
sonal importance, Harrison was not unwilling
W Do ONCTSuhuOW6u Dy W0DSbeT anu OElbbeu-
den, nor Polk by Buchanan and Marcy, nor
Pierce by Marcy and Guthrie. But Grant
takes Hamilton Fish and George M. Robeson!
In the present unprecedented crisis, when
the political horizon is eurtained with thick
clouds, and the old charts are rolled up and
laid away, are General Grant and his Cabinet
the men to launch the Republican ship on
an untried voyage, and steer it safely over
the unexplored and uncertain sea of the
future2
Turn we then to Congress. Its halls are
as replete with talent as they are destitute of
friends of the President. And who are the
leaders of the Republican party in the two
houses Mr.. Sumner dominates the Senate.
Vain, conceited, arrogant pompous; holding
tho widest doctrines upon international law,
and uttering the crudest notions about
finance; wont to conceal meagre ideas under
a sophomorical amplitude of rhetoric, and
smother them under masses of far-fetched,
ill-assorted, generally irrelevant, and always
useless learning-he is the last man who
should be intrusted with the guidance of the
Republican party in an exigency like the pre-
sent. He is an incompetent pilot, except when
the gale blows strong from the African coast
The wind no longer sits in that quarter, and
Mr.. Summer will seriously damage his reputa-
tion and his party unless he disappears from
public view along with the dusky client whom
he has served too we'll.
Mr.. Butler, regardless of all the proprieties
of time and place, has usurped the leadership
of the House. Brimming over with brains,
audacity, and ambition; never in his element
except when fomenting a quarrel with dis
tinguished members of his own party, whom
he rules on the principle Of ''your purse or
your life" always eager to jump into other
peoples business, as Mr.. Dawes keenly ex-
pressed it; aspiring to play the role Of Thad-
deus Stevens in the House, with an intensely
pro-slavery record behind him =; coveting
Henry Wilson's seat in the Senate with his
weather eye peering far out to sea in search
of the Presidency-Mr. Butler, with the helm
in his hand, is the very pilot to run the Re-
publican party high and dry upon the shore.
a5 Though the signs are ominous, there is no
need that the Republican party should suffer
shipwreck. But with an incapable, inexpe-
rienced, irresolute President, surrounded by
feeble and discordant Cabinet, and relying
upon the support of an unfriendly Congress,
its danger is extreme. If the party would
escape the fate which is surely impending, it
must demand an immediate reconstruction of
the Cabinet, compelling gincompetency to give
place to capacity, while at the same time de-
posing Mr.. Summer and Mr.. Butler from
positions which they are peculiarly untitled
to FILL 'll.-'~ pAi4 .l' ,-1ssi7 'c.'
I, Oh for pilot to weather the storm
cyl PRESIDENT AND PRINCE.
From the N. 7. World
\ 1t is sad to read the criticisms of Republi
can journals and their edifying Washington
correspondents on the errors of commission
and omission, chiefly omission, on the par
of our President in his treatment of Prince
Arthur. 4tl .h.L
In one quarter there is an outcry on ac
count of asserted ill-breeding of the Presi
dent, that, after indicating the hour wher
and the place where he would receive the
Prince, no one was ready at the appointed
time-when, promptly at the minute, the
latter arrived, accompanied by the British