The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-08
SPIRIT OF Tzn PRESS.
Editorial Opinions OF the Leading JournnIs
Upon Current TOpics-COmpIled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
MR.. WELLS HIMSELF.

il is ascribe il to rancorous hostility to our
institutions But, then, those who are most
familiar with the way in which opinions are
formed in foreign countries are aware that
most of whatever disrepute the national cha
racter rests under with regard to all that class
of virtues included under the term bona tides,
is the handiwork of portion of the American
press The bitterest reviler of America and
Americans has never ventured on such foul
charges and foul insinuations as some of our
contemporaries hurl nearly every day against
men who are put forward by American soci-
ETY. as about as good specimens of the Ameri-
can man as it is capable of producing. We
we were told the other day by an Ameri-
can of distinction-and his experience has
been that of hundreds-of the bitterness
of the modification which he endured when
in Germany during the impeachment trial. at
finding himself an object of daily coincidence
on the part of his German friends touching
the corruption of Senators Trumbull, and
Fessenden, and Grimes, three of the foremost
statesmen of the party of virtue. And then,
there was no use in his denying it or trying
to explain it. 1t was not in Southern paper
they saw the story, nor yet in the foul-mouthed
organs of Northern Copperheadism, who
make vilifcation one of their ordinary
weapons of party warfare; but in the New
York Tribune, the mouthpiece of the best
element in the Northern population, and
which had up to the time of impeachment
been holding these very men up to the admi-
ration of mankind.
We bid fair, too, in Mr.. Wells case, to fur
nish Europe with another reason for believ-
& ing in our utter rottenness. Mr. Wells has
had everything done for him that American
society can do. He has been well born, we'll
bred, and furnished with the best education
the country affords He has lived with the
best men of his day, and has won and enjoys
their esteem. He has displayed very remark
able powers of analysis and induction in
field Of social science which until now can
hardly be said to have been explored in this
country, and has for this reason been selected
by the Government to perform the very i'm
portant duty of supplying the data for legis-
lation on matters Of finance and taxation dur
ing period of great public difficulty and,
indeed, peril. If ever man has given the
State guarantees for his good behavior, it is
he. And yet what do foreigners learn abont
him from the organ of the sober, virtuous,
religious, reading, writing, and thinking
Northern pubiic9 Why, that the minute he
secured an official position, and through it,
influence on public opinion, he sold his SER
vices to a foreign government and to foreign
traders, and, in consideration of certain
sum in 'foreign geld, agreed to suppress
material facts, manipulate figures, and con-
struct deluding arguments for their benefit,
and for the deception and impoverishment of
his own countrymen.
OF course, everybody here knows how false
these insinuations are; but then, unfortun-
ately, their Stiffness and absurdity prevent
people feeling the downright wickedness of
them, and visiting the men who invent and
propagate them with the Indignation they de-
serve. These ISLANDERS do, however, in one
way, recoil on the heads of their authors, in
asmuch as they excite, first, distrust, and then
hostility towards the cause they are intended
Ill. H. IL,
being lied for. Even the Christian religion,
strong as are its claims on the respect of
mankind, has suffered, and still suffers ter
ribly, from attempts to spread it by false
hood, and SANDER, and misrepresentation of
opponents and what it cannot bear
We may be sure protection cannot.
One marked result of the at
tacks on Mr.. Wells has been the steady
growth of his authority and the steady in
crease of confidence in the statements and
conclusions of his reports. Nothing, it is safe
to say, has ever appeared on this class of sub
jects which has produced such q profound
impression on public opinion His conclu-
sions, it is true have borne hard on the whole
theory and practice of protection; but there
was only one way of upsetting them or des-
troying them, and that was, showing either
that his facts were not facts or that the rea-
soning based on them was incorrect. This
has not been done; and for this, naked asser-
tions that MIR. Wells has been bribed, and
that he has been guilty of suppression and
distortion, are not proper and sufficient sub
titutes
There is talk Just now among some of the
more rabid high-tariff men about not only
suppressing his report as far as Congress is
concerned, but kicking him out of the Re-
publican party; but then, we presume, wiser
counsels will prevail. The suppression of
the report by the House would, of course,
only increase the number of its readers, and
MIR. Wells would be followed out of the Re-
publican party by such large numbers of the
present members that we doubt whether
enough would be left to carry on the business
of the concern afterwards with any degree OF
success. There is class OF men in the party
who have always been little anxious to get
rid of its brains finding the thinking faculty
a nuisance, and, almost as soon as a man
gives evidence of reaching his conclusions
with his head, get up movement for his ex
pulsion. Mr.. Trumbull and the late Mr. Fes
sender had a narrow escape, but they die
escape; and their example has had a very
encouraging effect. If the protective system
will not bear dscussion-and from the
dislike of the high-tarif men to permi
the circulation of Mr.. Wells report, anC
the refusal of the Tribune to print it
it apparently will mott certainly
cannot stand, and there is not the slightes
use, as we have more than once said, il
claiming a quasi-sacred character for it, a.
some of its friends seem disposed to do, ant
treating people WHO question its value as bat
men, to whom plumber or treason would no
be particularly disagreeable. 1t is a theor,
of taxation like another, of human origin, an,
that not particularly respectable one