The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-21
GRANT AND CAMERON.

".
When, week ago yesterday, General Grant
returned from his trout-f fishing excursion, the
immediate transmission of his Cuban message
so engrossed public attention that the signifi-
canoe of that excursion escaped comment.
But it is very suggestive. 1t betokens an
entire change in General Grants associations
and personal intimacies, and foreshadows a
contrast between the first and the last years
of his administration.
The distinguished mark of personal conf
dence and close intimacy which the President
has given to Simon Cameron ought to startle
the Republican party. Trout-fshing in Penn
sylvanla is an innocent recreation; and the
recreations of the President, so long as they
are innocent and decent, should be regarded
with generous indulgence. But trout-tishing
with willy, unscrupulous politician like
Simon Cameron exhibits General Grant in a
new light and Simon as dextereus ''fsher
of men," We do not know with what Came
ron baited his hook, but he has evidently
caught President. Sturdy old Dr. John
sons definition of fishing-rod-''a pole with
fool at one end and worm at the other
requires some modification. We have been
regaled with the spectacle of corrupt politi-
cal intriguer at one end and weak Presi-
dent dangling at the other
General Grant has differed from all other
Presidents by a peculiar prudishness in his
winter after his election he took none of the
Republican leaders into his confidence; he
deigned to consult none of them about the
composition of his Cabinet; he mortified and
offended them all by repelling their opinions
and advice. When the Cabinet was an
nounced, it became still more evident that he
contemned and spurned their whole class.
His strange selections provoked their amaze
ment and disgust. There was not a man in
tha lfCkx p1< had
connections. After General Grant had orga-
nized his administration, he spent great
part of the ensuing summer and autumn in
journeys of recreation and amusement; but
in all those frequent journeys he took care
not to consort with politicians. He did not
travel in their company; he did not accept
their hospitality; he kept aloof from them as
if he desired no personal intercourse except
with officers of the army and wealthy men
who had given him presents.
1t is that singular distance and reserve
which render his ostentatious association
with Simon Cameron, who is one of the
worst types of the tribe of politicians, so re-
markable. A great change has come over the
spirit of the President Like the weak man
that he is, he vibrates from one foolish ex-
treme to the other extreme still more foolish
and Objectionable. General Grant has be-
come sensible that he made mistake in sup
ministration without the aid and cooperation
of party leaders. But after repelling those
who were entitled to his confidence, he is
forming relations with the most intriguing
and unscrupulous of corrupt politicians.
Butler has become the main pillar of the
administration in the House, although
Butler has not yet been honored with any
such striking mark of personal cor
diality as has been bestowed on Came
ron; but of all the public men of the
country Butler is perhaps the last whom
anybody could have supposed General Grant
would consent to rely upon for assistance.
Butler intrigued against him in the army;
kept spies upon him during the Virginia cam
paign; made virulent, bitter speech against
him at Lowell accusing him of numbering
our soldiers in the Rebel prisons; and he was
paid back by General Grant in the contemp-
tuous report in which he alluded to Butler as
having been ''bottled up at James river. In
the year of the Presidential election Butler
prepared a pamphlet against Grant, and was
on the point of printing it, exposing, in his
sharp way, the blunders of the Virginia cam
paign. The fact that Butler has come to be
the Presidents chosen champion in Congress,
shows how impossible it is to predict
General Grants personal relations from