The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-13

ana tale0; B1erce, brought In with rush
upon Henry Clay's slavery compromises, was
swamped, and nearly swamped his party at
once in the violation of his pledges Bucha-
nan was altogether too weak and wishy-washy
for the terrible crisis of an organized South
ern Rebellion; Lincoln was borne into the
White House second time, not as the leader
of his party, but as the follower of the will
and wishes of the mighty North in the war
for the Union; Johnson was Tyler No. 3;
Grant, elected as the victorious champion of
the Union cause in the war, and elected to
finish the work of Southern reconstruction
adopted by Congress and approved by the
people, has now, as statesman aud politician,
to depend upon his administration as the
candidate of the Republican party for a re-
election.
The example of Jackson, then, is the ex-
ample for Grant. jackson, elected first upon
what at that day was the unparalleled victory
of New Orleans, had to make his capital and
consolidate his party for his second election.
He in good time raised good popular issue
against the United States Bank; but he did
something more. He found that he had a set
of old grannies or scheming conspirators in
his Cabinet, and from his back woods training
as soldier and politician he had learned the
value of decisive measures. He promptly,
then, turned this riclety Cabinet adrift and
gathered about him new men and vigorous
and active politicians, up stairs and down
stairs in the kitchen, and right and left he
made the fur fly from the backs of his party
mutineers. lie SO fully learned the value of
active, devoted, and skilful party politicians
in this work that he made Martin Van Buren,
his Bismarck and his successor, aud the tren-
chant Frank Blair, of the Washington Globe,
the Won Moltke of the thoroughly disciplined
Democracy.
General Grant, then, should try the role of
Old Hickory, for if he will he can fill it. Let
him try it and begin with his Cabinet A
clean sweep, as q political sensation, would
wake up the sleepy heads throughout the
country; but even partial reconstruction
with some new pieces of timber of the Old
Hickory quality would be great hit. For
example, John w. Forney, backed by that
skilful veteran politician, General Cameron,
is spoken of for Postmaster General. Why
not? Is not Forney, looking to the necessi-
ties of Grant and his party, the very man for
| the time and the place? Was it not Forney
| who saved the Democratic party in 1856, by
saving Buchanan in the Pennsylvania October
election of that year? 1t was; aud how did
| he save Buchanan? By a judicious applica-
tion of some two hundred thousand dollars,
more or less, raised in New York in the buy
ing up certain hungry Fillmore journals and
oliques in the keystone State. Those jour
nails and cliques were in the market, and if
Greeley had been as smart as Forney in secu-
L
power by larger bid than Forney's, Fremont
might have been elected. Who knows?
Forney, as an active party engineer, at all
| events, would be at this time to General
Grant worth dozen Greeleys in the Post
Office Department. Greeley has always been,
is, and always will be too crotchety and too
full of what he knows about farming for
party manager. Lincoln smoked him and
! joked him in that Niagara Falls diplomacy
and in other things to his hearts content;
and every body was delighted with ''Old
Abe's' hearty Jokes, and Lincoln's was the
true conception of Greeley. Even Thurlow
Weed, with all his "reminiscences and all his
now harmless egotisms, has been a bungling
political manager compared with Forney,
and very small potato compared with
Cameron. And who is John Covode,
who insists that Cameron is not
the man for the confidence of Grant? Covode,
we believe,lis the photographer who origi-
nally spelled Congress with X, and is an old
WORKOUT political fossil, defeated for Con-
gress in the late Pennsylvania election. And
can any one suppose that with the Republi-
can reinforcement of thirty thousand negro
votes in the late Maryland election Forney,
as Postmaster General, would have been as
unlucky as Creswell? No; for Forney would
have carried the State. We know, from
what we know of Tammany Hall, how the
thing would have been done, and Forney, a
graduate OF Tammany, knows how to do 1T.
There is no use in being thin skinned in
dealing with the rhinoceroses of party poll
tics. A party, like an army, must have dis
ciplipaIian at the head of it, or it will become
demoralized and an easy prey to disciplined
enemy. Look at the Prussians and then at the
French. Look at Tammany Hall and then at
the Republican party of New York. General
Grant, then, can do nothing better than to
initiate the party policy of General Jackson,
beginning with his Cabinet His programme
as statesman is safe enough, but it has
neither the sound of the trumpet nor the roll
of the drum. AS politician, therefore,
General Grant must look to the discipline of his
party and call his best generals around him,
or in his next advance to the Rhine he may
fall, like Napoleon, with all his troops of the
line and all his African legions.