The Portland daily press., 1872-02-10
TIL PR ESS
SATURDAY MORNING, FEB. 10, 1872.
"The Passive Policy with the Postum
Attachment" -

This is what the New York Herald not in
appropriately calls the platform adopted at
the late Democratic State Convention in Con-
necticut. Resolutions like those of the
Liberal Republicans Of Missouri were
adopted, but there was great silence as to
whether the Democracy would ratify, the do
ings of the so-called Liberal Republican"
convention to be held at Cincinnati on the
9th of May.
The embarrassment of the Connecticut
Democrats in the matter of the Cincinnati.
Convention is natural, and, indeed, unavoid-
able, For that meeting is to be really Dem
ocratic meeting; yet to have it SO understood
would nip it instantly in the bud. 1t will be
hard work from the start to withhold from
the public mind the real significance of the
proposed gathering, and the democrats
throughout the country will be obliged to
adopt Professionally the ''passive policy with
the possum attachment in order to avoid
wounding the sensibilities of both FESTIVE
Republicans and of their own more radical
associates.
But all these precautions may prove use
less when men like George Wilkes are per-
mitted to tell the truth. In the course of an
article in the Spirit of the Times warmly IA
voring the Cincinnati movement, he frankly
says:
The principal effect of Grants defeat, how
ever, will be, not to defeat the nominee of
the May convention, but simply to change the
status to that of candidate, who will be
elected, in the main, by the votes of the DEM
ocratic party. And there is no Disgusting
the fact from men Of any political experience,
that the party casting the bulk Of the oOtes
ichich elects the nert President, aciU be, prac-
ticdliy, masters of the country. The superb
or flow of their expression will tide in enough
new Congressman to give them possession of
the House; and from this point of vantage
they will rapidly overrun every portion of the
broken fabric of the crumblng Republican
structure. Nay, the very candidate elected
under.such circumstances, Republican though
he might remain, would have to avail himself,
for the purposes of business, of the majority
which had made him President, and thus,
through every official act, would consolidate
the revolution.
Exactly. This is too simple to require so
grave and formal an announcement as the
above. Anybody can see that if Republican
President who is the choice of a majority of
the Republican voters of the country were
what is wanted by the Schurz malcontents,
they would 60 with their candidate into the
Republican convention, support him there,
and, if defeated, submit, like honorable men,
to the decision of their party associates. Ex-
Congressman Grinnell of Iowa has come East
for the purpose of proposing the name of Hon.
James F. Wilson of Iowa as a candidate
against Gen. Grant in the Philadelphia Con-
vention. Such movement is of course flu
tile, but it is an entirely honorable one. Mr..
Wilson is an excellent man, and, if he should,
by any turn of fortune, defeat Gen. Grant in
the convention, would be gladly supported by
the Republican masses. But the Schurz fac
tlon, unlike the friends of Mr.. Wilson, does
not propose to expose itself to the uncongen-
ial atmosphere of genuine Republican con-
vention. They prefer to engage in a conspi-
racy to elect Democratic President by Re-
publican votes, in the manner indicated by
Mr.. Wilkes. The paragraph we have quoted
above may not express what Mr.. Wilkes
means, but it is certainly what he says.