The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-10

Grants brainp This is really a very import
ant inquiry, for it bears upon the question of
Grants fitness to make selections of public
agents. If Sumner over-persuaded Grant,
let us have the fact that the latter relied on
the assumed superior knowledge Of the for
mer in such matters That Motley was un-
suited to be Minister to London every one
outside the new administration was aware
His life has been that of a lttteSGteur, and his
occupation that of q horid, sonorous PAM
pbleteer, exploiting the sensational incidents
instead of unfolding the truth of Dutch his
tory. 1t is inconceivable how a President
seeking for evidence of Mr.. Motley's
mental and moral character could
have failed to study his correspondence
with the Department of State as Minister to
Vienna, and reading that, could not detect
the absence Of the qualities needed in an
American Minister to the Court of St. James
In one respect Motley and Grant are alike
and that is in unboumded self-conceit Mot
ley was not an American, in the true sense OF
the word. He had little orno association with
his country beGond that which birth gives.
His years Of manhood had chiefly been spent
in Europe. He knew next to nothing of our
affairs, or of the methods of our people, ex-
cept what he got by reading. Mentally dis
tracted about slave labor, he had come to
lose all patience with and nearly all love for
his country, and his interest in it only re-
turned when that domestic institution fas-
tened on us by England, was uprooted. He
was a fair type of that class of men, now fast
coming to grief, who lost no opportunity of
proclaiming in the ears of those who knew
not tie facts that under the Lincoln regime
new power, more enlightened, more truthful,
more gentleman-like, and altogether better
class of men had taken the helm of public
affairs than we're those Democrats who had
managed the concerns of tho United States
during nearly three-fourths of its existence
as a nation. We repeat, it is important to
know who is primarily responsible, not Off
cially but morally, for the nomination of such
q man
If Grant pleads wants of information as
to Motleys real character up to the time of
his first interviews with the newly-made min
lister, surely he must have detected what
manner of man he was during the confer
ences which preceded the departure for Lon
don. To deny that. is to assert that Grant
has no faculty whatever of estimating char
acter correctly, and proclaims trumpet
tongued his unftness to be President. And
if he discovered Motley's fatal defects, why
did he not remove him from Office then as
we'll as last July? Why did he imperil the
vast Interests of the nation by trusting them
to the hands of this preoccupied drea mer
over the affairs of the Dutch instead of Ame-
rican republic?
There is popular belief that Motley was in
structed to make no public speeches much
as Schenck is now to be directed to eat no
public dinners (shade of Talleyrand, Canning,
Franklin, and Palmerston defend us.), but
that in Liverpool he disobeyed his orders.
On this point the public will expect to learn
all the facts from the President, and if there
was disobedience, what rebuke was admins
tered and in what terms.
Then about the instructions given to Mot
ley, was there dispute thereon with him, or
Sumner, or Hooper? Did the instructions
follow substantially, as to belligerent recog-
milton, in the line of Summers speech? II
not, in what respect did they differ? And,
above all, did Motley deviate from the course
laid down for his guidance in conferences
with the London Foreign Office? And if he
did, then was he admonished or reproved
therefor at the time? If the offense was
serious, why was he not that instant removed!
In a word, since President Grant, out of the
mouth of his chief spokesman, Mr.. Morton,
has in effect volunteered to explain the
Motley muss, the public will wish to know
how it happened that the minister was un.
harmed till Sumner resisted the San Domingo
lob?