The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-07-27

them up ifpossible, so that they must surren-
der or fight. This is the only way to treat
with such determined barbarians as the
Cheyennes
Don Quixote Davis-His New Moral and
Political Departure.
The venerable and highly respectable ex-
chief Of the confederacy never professed to be
reconstructed politically, and his recent al
legged scandalous demeanor in various ways, on
the stump and in sleeping cars and other
things, indicates that he refuses to accept any
reconstruction morally. Ever since he was
captured in woman's petticoats, trying to pass
himself off as his wife's grandmother, he has
exhibited the utmost decentralization. The
chains of Fortress Monroe, the terrible ordeal
of his mock trial at Richmond, the insufferab!e
degradation Of having to accept abolition
bondsmen to get free-all these crushed the
proud heart Of the champion, and he roamed
about the world aimless and detected. But Of
late he has found renewed vigor, whether on
account of his cheerful life insurance pros
poets, or the famous New Hampshire election,
or under the chatting influence of the demo-
cratic new departure, we cannot say; but GER
tain it is that jeff has suddenly sprung into
the social and political arena with all the vigor
of boy of twenty and some of the passions of
an old man of sxty-four. He has raced and
chased about the South, pummelling the sand
bags of reconstruction, stoning the ''unac-
| ceptable situation" with the sturdy but cloudy
rhetoric of sophomore, and generally set
ting the old politicians of the South by the ears
and making the simperng women of the re-
bellion happy. But Jeffs exuberance Of
healthful vigor has carried him too far. He
has allowed the heyday in his blood to run so
far away with his judgment that we fear he
has ruined himself irretrievably, morally, po-
litically and socially.
| An ex-President Of the confederacy ought
to be more moral than anybody else. He has
to sustain all the Confederate pride of station
that there is left. He is the great hero for the
trusting women of the lost cause to set up as
their model. He is the lost cause itself, and
when he loses his moral character and is dis
covered to be no better than he should be
then the cause is indeed lost. We hope
the story about him relative to a sleeping car
arrangement, which we publish in another
column, is not wholly true. If it should prove
to be so the ''Lost Cause" has received the
severest shock that it has had since Davis
other petticoat scrape at the close of the war.
Whenever any man atans Davis extremity
of rashness he naturally wants to shoot or
pummel newspaper correspondent. Davis
felt this way, and having practised with dumb
bells. trained on oat meal and rare beef and
shot at mark for some weeks, he sat down in
his office, surrounded by clerks and pistols,
and waited for some newspaper man to come
and ''interview' him. The ''HERALD CORE
spondent," being ubiquitous, was naturally
enough the one to come along first, and upon
him the chivalric champion Of the 'Lost
Cause" opened his heavy guns. He first tried
to worm some confidential information out Of
the HERALD correspondent, for, with all the
impulsive recklessness of this aged Hotspur, he
keeps weather eye open usually to the main
chance. This failed, and then as there was
nothing to be made financially out of this jour-
nalistic customer, who hardly thought it worth
while to insure his life in such Davis firm
(though he might have changed his mind had
he dreamed of the imminent personal danger
In which he stood), Davis gave loose rein to
bis fury and hurled the usual Tennessee COM
pliments at his head. The correspondent OBJ
serving the arsenal that backed up the vener-
able Don Quixote, and seeing ALSO the wrath
full countenances Of the Memphis clerks, whose
holiday pleasures evidently consist in dissect-
ing newspaper correspondents from the North,
blandly and politely withdrew.
Some time after this Louisville paper pub
lished, on the authority of Memphis gentle
man, the narrative of the sleeping car adven-
ture that has been going the rounds ever since.
Mr.. Davis promptly denied it, and we won't
insist that it is true. But Mr.. Davis organ in
Memphis says that il was written by the
HERALD correspondent out of malice for his
"unchivalric and ungenerous treatment by
the high toned Davis This is not only untrue.
but we refrained until now from publishing the
story at all, because we wished to do no one
injustice, and we publish it now merely in order
TO give both sides Of the very interesting case