New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-11
THE OUTLOOK.
BY HON. HENRY L. DAWES. NJ. C.
From the Independent. |

Prom the independent
We have now reached midway in the adj
| minstratiOn of General Grant; and it should
| be profitable as well as interesting to look
out upon our reckOnings and learn, if posi-
BILE, whittier We have drifted and what is
before US. Indeed, whatever occasion there
is for anxiety in regard to the one arises
from uncertainty as to the extent of the
other. If there has been no drifting thus
tar IN our course, then there can be little
cause for anxiety as to the future for no
administration ever entered upon the dis
charge OF its trusts more firmly grounded
IN popular confidence, or more strongly
girded III the rectitude of its purposes than
the one which has as yet hardly finished
the work of its first two years.
And yet it has little else upon which to
rest an appeal for a continuance of conf
dence beyond its ability to Justify its past.
A new administration may be, often must
be, taken on'trust; an old one can never be.
What it has done and has failed to do are
always louder than promises, and will ever
I'LL the public ear and shape the public
judgment in utter indifference to preferred
renewals of broken pledges, or any pro-
fusion of new ones. Ability to grapple with
the untrled future may be generously ac-
corded to new men, but is never to those
already in harness. So any attempt to
judge OF the future of this administration
must necessarily involve survey of it's
past. 1t by no means ends, however, with
such survey. The lessons of experience,
the follies of opponents, the philosophy of
antagonism itself, as well as the tide of
events, are all elements not to be lost sight
OF III making up any estimate of ultimate
results.
The administration of General Grant need
not shrink from an honest and candid appli-
cation of any or all these tests in the exam
ination of its claims to continuance of
public confidence and support. 1t can not.
it is true, insist that there have been no
mistakes, or that it has met every expecta-
ton of its friends Indeed, one great claim
it has on the public regard, never to be
found among its opponents, rests on the
very fact that 1t searches with an unsparing
vigilance for its own errors, and cO1rects
them before they work it any harm. That
body which has strength and courage
enough to probe its own sores has also vital !
lty enough to recuperate and restore any
loss to the system arising from them. The |
severest critics of the Republican party are |
in its own fold. And so long as they remain |
there, and, in good temper, hold up its |
faults before its own eyes, they are an ele- |
ment OF strength. No greater mistake in
political ethics ever took possession OF men
or party than that cOncealment of errors
and follies was necessary to success. You
can as easily and as safely cover up cancer
OF hide the consumption.
chronic grumblers and sore heads do not
oelong to the class of healthy critics here
alluded to. They are as harmless as they
are NOISY But that antagonism which, i'm
pelled by conviction and not by disappoint-
nent or malice, wrestles with the policy of
The administration and opposes its meas
lres 1or cause Is, IN SO doing, as sure to give
: strength ana power as training does the
athlete, or as lifting swels the muscle All
hese the administration of President Grant
las successfully encountered, and is to-day,