The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-31


of the deepest dye.
WHICH OF THE TWO TELLS THE
TRUTH?
From the N. y. World.
Senator Conkling, in his speech during
that discreditable night session on the San
Domingo business, arraigned Mr. Sumner for
an intentional effort to mislead the President
when he called upon the Senator in his own
house. He declares the true rule of dealing
between one official and another as between
one private individual and another, to be
this:-
"a promise or statement made to another
is to bind him who makes it in the sense in
which the other has a right to understand it."
Now, admitting the soundness of such
ethics, it is certainly necessary to its Just
application that the promisee be of sufficient
intelligence and altogether in condition to
correctly appreciate the language used by the
promisor. President Grant, it is said by Mr..
Sumner, addressed the latter four several
times at this interview as Chairman of the
Judiciary Committee. What does this be-
token? If Grant knew better, but was heed
less of speech, that theory of exculpation
necessarily involves an objectionable condi-
ton of the speaking faculties. May not the
listening organs have been as badly demo-
raliZed? In this connection we cannot lay
out of sight very significant statement by
Mr.. Sumner-that he deliberately meditated
upon the reply he should and did give, and is
able to repeat its very words. Why was this?
Were there any circumstances of the inter
view which warned him to be thus circum-
spect to provide against intentional or unin-
territorial Misrepresentation
But, however this may be, Mr. Conkling
having proclaimed his ethical premise, the
debate in the Senate and in the newspaper
press hostile to Sumner proceeds on the
assumption that in the interview the Presi-
dent was a simple minded, guileless, clear
headed soldier dealing with a Senator OF very
opposite qualities.
1t is impossible for one to read all this
without being involuntarily turned back to
events in the career of General Grant some
three years ago. Then it was that his i'm
mediate predecessor in the Office of Presi-
dent desired to rid the War Office of Mr..
Stanton and secure therein an incumbent
who would not pursue Stanton s policy. Cen
eral Grant accepted the Office after CONVEX
sation which President Johnson had ''a right
to understand" as pledge that he would pro-
mote or at least not thwart the avowed pur-
poses of his chief, which understanding the
latter charged that General Grant violated.
The result was personal correspondence
between these two eminent officials which
ended in an issue of personal veracity. The
turning point therein was the assertion by
General Grant that if the Senate undertook
to restore Stanton, the General Grant, would
either retain the Office to the end of judicial
proceedings or else give the President timely
notice to enable him to appoint another
Secretary ad interim. Instead of doing
either of these two things, General Grant
voluntarily and suddenly retired from the
War Office without any communication with
his chief, and permitted MIR. Stanton to enter
therein unopposed. In one phase of the
controversy there was an issue of veracity
| raised by General Grant between himself
and President johnson, in which the latter
was sustained by all the members of the
| Cabinet who heard the conversation, and
General Grant was left unsupported by any
one. But the gist of the whole matter was
in written confession which General Grant
subsequently made to the effect that, while
he accepted the War Office under circum-
stances which permitted the President to
understand that he did so in order to co-ope-
rate in the purposes of the latter, his real
purpose at the time was to frustrate, by a
final surrender of the Office to Mr.. Stanton
or some other person of his views, the we'll
known intentions of his chief. In other
words General Grant confessed that he had
acted dishonorably if the facts as alleged by
President johnson were true, and, without
himself denying the facts in such way as to
stake his veracity, their truth was established
by coneurring body of overwhelming testi-
mony proving his own admission of them.
This transaction derogates from the assumed
guilelessness of the President upon which Mr..
Conkling bases his superstructure of assault
upon Senator Sumner, for certainly the recol
lection of his affair with Andrew johnson
must have been so fresh in the mind of Presi
dent Grant as to warn him not to put his trus
in anything but the most explicit declara
tions, or, in other words, to be sure that the
reply of Senator Sumner was not in Language
at all ambiguous. Assuming that he was thu
on his guard and capable of appreciating wha
was said in the interview, there is an issue o
personal veracity raised between Grant an(
Sumner by the declaration of the lat
ter and Mr.. Conkling in the Senat
which cannot be evaded or put out of sight
MIR. Conkling, as Grants best friend, speak
ing in the Senate-it must be assumed afte
conference on the very point-charges unre
servedly that Mr.. Sumner, at the interview
in his own house in respect to the Babcoek
Baez treaty, either pledged himself theret
| or intended deliberately and with malic
sforethought to deceive and mislead the Presi
dent. This sort of an issue with Genera
Grant would be bad enough for the latter
it were the first one. But it happens to b
= the second.
: We are curious to see what the moral an
! Yalioioue foroas Of this country feDrasante