The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-04-30
The peIiticaI Cobblers at Cincinnati.


The Cincinnati meeting Wednesday will
not he an Insignificant affair in point of num-
hers There is every reason for its being one
of the largest mass meetings ever held in this
country. First, the leaders have been busy
for months in manufacturing and moulding
the clements, working every power and call
ing into requisition every agency that can in
auence the odds and ends that constitute the
mass OF the widely different enemies OF the
Administration; second, every newspaper,
willingly or not, has, through the machinery
of the Associated Press advertised continually
and attractiyely the extensive preparations of
the meeting; and, third, the Liberal and
Democratic leaders in Congress have taken
every possible means to magnify the import
ance of the meeting. Beside the notable
crowd of ex-oficials, the sore heads and he
original enemies of the Republican party,
there will be hundreds of idlers-lookers on
in Venice-and scores of newspaper men, to
say nothing of the army of claquers that the
fuglemen of Gratz Brown, Judge Davis and
Mr.. Trumbull will have on the ground. The
rangement and well organized applauders
can make it. 1t will have all the imposing
stage effects of Andy Johnson's Philadelphia
Convention with such other attractions as its
new allies can bring.
The matter of nominations is now upper
most in the popular mind, and will doubtless
be arranged by the leaders so as to have the
show of unanimity, but when the political
salmagundi, the free-tradeIs and the tariff
men, the radicals and the rebels-the numer-
GUS ex-oficer holders and seekers, and the
few impracticables that demand civil service
reform-those who favor and those who de-
nounce the constitutional amendment and
econstruction-whent these elements under
take the task of constructing platform wide
enough, strong enough and many-sided
enough to rally all the elements that hate
Grant, then we may expect to witness the
most consummate skill. The Cincinnati
leaders, it may be assumed, are too old and
adroit politicians to expect to break up the
entire Democratic party on one hand, and
draw heavily upon the Republican party on
the other, by simply announcing hatred to
Gen. Grant. The Republican party was call
ed into existence by virtue of great truths
that existing parties had turned their backs
upon. If the Cincinnati leaders fail to set
forth clearly their principles, all of their man
ufactured enthusiasm, all OF their pre-arrang-
ed and rehearsed thunder will fall upon the
people as mere empty noise and idle play
acting. . .,..,... .i.-s s-5.-.
How fearfully and wonderfully made will
be this Cincinnati platform, to give express
sion to all the crotchets and contradictions of
the builders myriad ''thimble rig trick' of
now you see it, and now you don't"-a
political stereoscope, with views adjusted and
adapted to elements the most hostile and to
opinions directly opposite. 4.
Horace Greeley, the pig iron despot, and
David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson and the
Missouri Democrat, all ultra free-trade apos-
ties, we may presume, will be assigned the
task of fitting up tariff plank that will meet
everybodys views. The iron, salt and other
monopolies by hundreds will applaud it, while
the thousands of the free trade voters SUD-
posed to exist in the West and large cities,
will hail it with genuine enthusiasm. What
a magnificent piece of work the tariff plank
viii be-what consummate skill will be dis
played.
The civil service plank would at first appear
an easier task, but considering the elements
Of the Convention, the few honest ones there
who demand it, and the multitude of Office
seekers and ex-ofice-holders, who are there
because they want offices, it is no matter to
be cast off carelessly. Let the Cincinnati
Convention endorse the work of Mr. Curtis,
board as approved by the President, and the
majority of the Convention-every one from
Maine-are out of the party Fail to do it,
and the people will not rally under their
standard. The civil service plank must be |
arranged so as to draw both of the hostile |
clements. What magnificent piece of du-
olicity that civil service plank will be, that at
'nce inspires the energy, hope and greed of |
everal thousand ex-office holders, tens of |
of furnishing Office seekers and at
he same time evokes the patriotic support of
he intelligent masses! a-
What an amazing piece of workmanship
that plank will exhibit that is at once to sat-
isfy Mr.. Summers friends that it secures to
all men, regardless of race, all that his civil
rights bill required and at the same time re-
stores to Forrest and his Ku-Klux Klans the
right to burn freedmen's school
houses and hang and shoot niggers at will
Another plank that will display the unique
genius of the Cincinnati builders is that re-
specting the validity of the national debt and
all the questions growing out of it. Witness
August Belmont looking sharp for his ''shent
per shent," Gen. Ewing declaring for unlimit-
ed greenbacks and three per cent. interest
AID Alexander Fl. Stephens in grey uni
form demanding the entire reputation of the
federal or the payment of the rebel debt-wit-
ness these notable worthless constructing
plank that shall cause the capitalists and la
Dor reformers to rival the rebel Democracy in
the support of the Cincinnati movement!
Of course it will be deemed necessary to ac-
cept the Constitution as it is, the results of
the war and the reconstruction measures in
some distant generality in order to please the
people who still believe that these measures
are Of vital Importance. 1t is is also necessa-
ry to secure the strength of our friends of the
lost cause. The former may be pleased with
a sounding generality while the Stephenses,
Ransoms, FORESTS will be sat
isfied with good sound denuncation of
Grant and Congress for interfering with and
breaking up the Democratic Ku-Klux organ
ization and promise that under the Cincin-
natl order of things no federal authority shall
interfere with these knights of the lost cause
in regaining by midnight assassination what
they lost at Appomattox.
On the question of amnesty, as the most of
The Cincinnati leaders are getting to believe
that jeff Davis is better man than Grant. |
there need be no equivocation.
There is one plank in which every Cincir- |
natl workman can unite in finishing and that
is: ITO beat Grant" The friends of JEFF. |
Davis will be eager to aid in this because they
feslre to avenge themselves upon Gen. Grant
lor ms operations against them in 1865:
the democrats generally, because by his vic
torres over the rebels, he forever DESTROYED
their party the ex-ofice holders and seekers
want to beat Grant partly for revenge and
partly in the hope that his defeat NAV restore
them to the public crib; the Gratz Browns.
Trumbulls, Greeleys, etc., etc., because
they are sick unto death with Presidential
fayar