The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-03
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
RditoriaI Opinions Of the Lending Journals
Upon Cnrrent T0pIcs-ComDiled KverV
DaV for the Evening Telegraph.
THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB AND MIR.


THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB AND MIR.
STANTON.
From the NJ y. Times
The honors paid by the Union League
Club on Thursday evening to the great War
Secretary formed becoming and well-merited
tribute to one to whom not only the Union
League" but the Union itself owed so much.
The practical and generous form which the
feeling of the club took when ii resolved, in
accordance with Mr.. A. Il. Stewart IS report
that it would support heartily the movement
for the Stanton fund.- mot only as an ex-
preston of gratitude but also as an example
which will encourage a fearless, unselfsh,
honest and patriotic discharge of the public
duty" was worthy of the association and of
the patriot whose memory they revere.
Stanton was type, a representative man,
of that vast League" of loyal men who, in
their devotion to the Union, resolved that,
come what would, government of the people,
by the people, and for the people, should not
perish from the earth" He gave to the Union
all that any man ever gave to it--time, for
tune, energy, and life itself. Whatever
honors are due to those who periled all for
the country, are due to Stanton; whatever re-
membrance and return should follow, after
life's struggle is over, to those whom the pa
triot holds dear, should come to the family of
Stanton.
1t is, perhaps, a sad commentary on Ameri-
can public life in general that we instinc-
lively honor with regards so distinguished an
officer whose highest praise is that he was
upright and disinterested in public AFFAIRS
that we speak of his career as a kind of
marvel. Is it SO in all countries? Is public
life everywhere career of plundering and
recklessness, and is it so strange pheno-
menon that we must make wondering men
tion of it, when a man controls billions in q
few years, and yet is Sc exact steward that
he dies Door? Whatever be the truth else
where, and whatever be the reflection it sug-
gests, the careers of men like Stanton and
Rawlins ere impressive and honorable. SIN
the age in which we live" said the Nestor
among poets, Mr.. Bryant, "a mercenary,
Venal, sef-seeking age, when public men seek
to win popular favor by the lowest arts, and
enrich themselves by the basest means, this
is q shining example," We are so accus-
toned to the iocular, half -excusatory phrases
with which public dishonesty is cloaked-we
are so habituated to the spectacle of men
going into places of honor and trust compare
lively poor and coming frcm them loaded
with wealth-that the fact of two successive
Secretaries in the War Office-places most
auspicious for illicit bargaining and money
getting-leaving their families dependent on
the public, after lives of economy, strikes us
with kind of amazement.
But it is q happy reflection that disinter-
estedness in public service does not go unre-
warded among the American people; in this
respect, at least Republics are not un-
grateful" And what comparison is to be
made between that honorable income, made
up by the spontaneous gratitude of the fellow.
countrymen Of one who has died in the ma
tons service, and the accumulated pilferings
nnd plunderings of the dishonest public SER
want, wherewith he and his kin haunt theil
brazen dishonesty in public places?
Such was the tenor of some of the speeches
Ar,1 fIao olN tri
butes then made to Stanton's self-sacrifce
indifference to personal interest, nobility o.
character, generosity, resolution, sagacity
courage, energy, power of will, power OF
work, and spotless, exalted all-conquerinl
patriotism, were well deserved. We may
believe with Mr.. Bryant that Secretary Stan
ton ''never thought of gaining anything TO
himself by any office which he held-neithe
popular favor nor fame nor fortune. HI
thought only of serving his country" Will
DIR. Bellows we may declare that the Unioi
League Club and the whole nation owe ere
verence and gratitude for the great and glori
GUS services, the true patriotism, the tempte
and tried yet spotless public character o
Edwin M. Stanton" With DIR. Thompson
we may describe his zeal as that which sough
to ''drive out with scourge the profaner
of the public temple, and overturn the table
of the money changers" With General Val
Buren,, we may declare that Stanton ''acccom
plished greater work than fell to the lot G
Pitt or Carnot, or any other War Minister Q
history"
Above and beyond all this, it is evider
that all honors paid to Stanton are incentive
to public virtue. They are counter-agents
the loose public official morality of the time
they instruct and inform ali our youth thi
there is something better in public life tina
self-seeking and pelf, and that the sternt
and rarer virtues are still not without homo
and reward in our day and generation eve
as in the day and generation of the fathers