The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-11-23
A Great Opportunity.


upon a new career more honorable and better
calculated to confer upon him enduring re-
nown than any in his previous remarkable
history. From present appearances he has
been quick TO see this new field of fame, and
has already entered upon it. Other men
have by their military genius carried their
country through periods Of great distress and
danger. Other men have by their honesty.
good administrative ability and firmness pre
served the peace among their own country
men and with foreign nations, managed the
finances judiciously and kept within safe
bounds political strife and the rage of fac
lions. But the instances are much more
rare in which rulers have succeeded in secur-
ing high degree of efficiency and purity in
all the departments of government, and have
selected such advisers and appointed such
subordinates as to insure the economical and
entirely honest expenditure of the public
money. Scion, Aristides, Julian, the An
TONNES, William of Orange, William III. of
England, Washington, John Quincy Adams
and Lincoln are all entitled to credit for alb
solute personal purity, integrity and right
purposes. But the circumstances by which
the most of them were surrounded forbade
them to make good civil administration the
primary object of their endeavors. Foreign
wars, domestic disturbances, the initii ton of
new systems of government and thousand
disturbing causes diverted their attention
from that reformatory work to which they
would gladly have devoted themselves. And
if there were any of them who were other
wise favorably situated for making admins
trative reform of paramount Importance, the
times in which they lived and the people that
they ruled were too rude and barbarous to
admit OF it.
But now all has changed There are no
wars, foreign or domestic. Even the voice of
partizan strife is for the moment still. Ad-
ministrative reform is the thing for which
the people aye especially clamorous. The
times are right for it. All political parties
and factions are fully committed to it. Hon
esty and efficiency in the executive depart
ments Of the government-honesty in the
custom houses, in the post-ofice, among in
ternal revenue officers-everywhere-
are the prodigies which the people are look
ing for! Grant has exactly the qualities that
the situation demands. He is honest, firm
and patient. Above all, he isn't nervous.
He can endure the violence of enemies or
the frowns of disappointed and unreasonable
friends without any disturbance to his men
tai balance. The man is suited to the times.
He can give his country during the next
four years the best organized, the most ecc-
nomical and the purest government that ever
existed He need trouble himself about no
obligation to political friends-he need be
embarrassed by nobody's Claims 1t was
the reform principles which he represents
and his own great name that brought the Re
publican party safely through the perls of
the late canvass. Never was man in bet
ter situation to execute his own will, and to
bid defiance to bad counselors. Cameron's
repulse was the most popular act of Grants
life. The continuance of the policy fore
Swallowed in that act would make him
name greater than that of any of his contcm-
than Gladstone's, greater than Theirs. He
can, if he will, beat these civilians at their
own trade, soldier as he is, for his is the
greater opportunity.
Honesty is contagious as well as vice.
Official and business and mercantile honesty
react on each other. Such official purity as
that of which the country now dreams would
be certain to have powerful effect on the
transactions of private life Virtue as well
as vice spread from rulers to their people.
The England of Charles II. and the England
of Victora-the France of Louis XIV and
the France of Louis PHILIPPE, show this. 1t
has long been felt by thoughtful men that
the bane of our modern civilization is the
alarming prevalence of pecuniary dishon-
esty-the laxity of modern views of integrity.
Populations, small and great, committed by
clerks, cashiers of banks, officers of insur-
ance companies, persons in all places of trust,
public and private, are so alarmingly fire.
quent that it appears to many pc, pls as if all
the advantages of our high degree OF civiliza-
ton and Of our form of government were in
danger of being neutralized by the democrat
izng influence of universal fraud. 1t is in
the power of the President to check if not to
stay forever this wave of corruption, by in
Sailing honesty at headquarters, and keeping
good examples everywhere before the people.
The Cincinnati Gazette which strongly OPP