The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-03
NATIONAL HOODWINKING.

From the NJ Y Tribune.
Unfortunate is the American newspaper
which merits the fatal praise of the London
Times. On the other hand, that organ of
what distinguished Englishman has well
named British Philistinism has reason to re-
joice and be exceeding glad whenever it finds
an American to its mind. Such coinci-
dence is apt to be that of the spider and the
fly. We take nothing from the proper credit
of q newspaper which is formidable on its
own side of the water. 1t is the representa-
tive of the worldly wisdom and the worldly
folly of great metropolis and empire; it is
the most compact establishment known in
current literature of that high order of intel
lectual vice whose business it is to work into
daily history the cowardice of the hour. Mr.
Bright and Mr.. Golden have described itwith
equal felicity. Too calculating student of
expediency to delude itself with the notion
that it~possesses a conscience, its science is
to tell how the wind blows. If such q news
paper is stupid, it is most elaborately so; if it
is wrong, the chances are that it is altogether
wrong-root, stem, and branch.
Accordingly, at this moment, the Times
cherishes the absurd expedency of mistaking
the temper of the American Government and
people. That temper is neither trivial nor
menial, and is most ably, amicably, earnestly
set forth in the letter of Secretary Fish. BY
this letter the Times is advised that the United
States, while sincerely desiring to approach
the negotiation of the settlement of their
claims with an effort to set this vexed ques-
tion at rest, fully realize the nature and ex-
tent of those claims, and await proposition
to open their negotiation rather than beg for
one. There is probably nothing so we'll as
sured in the American mind as, first, that we
have proper cause of complaint; and I'd, that
we can afford to wait. Our grievances like their
fanC laun nrnIxy 70 I.
any help of ours, but merely through English
neglect.
We repeat these truths with emphasis in
order that the firm faith of the people in
their diplomatic cause shall not be misrepre-
sented or misunderstood Especially and
Indignantly do we repudiate the unworthy
and un-American plea made by one of our
journals to the English Government for the
reopening of negotiations at Washington.
| Our people, remarks this authority, "would
| have no cause for suspecting that their agent
were discussed and settled at their own DOORS
| Though it is common for all peoples, French
as well as English, and English as well as
| American, to suspect that their agents
may be overreached, we believe that nc
| nation has ever erected its suspicion
| into a positive plea for being INDUCED
| by some other nation anxious to outwit it.
| The petition to have our people humored be-
cause their representatives are not wise, ol
those whom they represent are foolishly sus
ceptible, would sound better in London thar
| here but would in neither place be sensible
| When England comedies to us it will be with
an indubitable recognition of equality in every
| point of view, and for her own advantage al
| we'll as ours. 1t will be with a awholesomt
sense of what is due to a nation which has
fought and conquered those causes which pro
| duced the Alabama claims, and whose cause
is too safely invested to be put in jeopardy
| by quarrel.