The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-05-07
Snontaneity.

Carl Schurz in his Clnclnnatl speech uWelt
mpcb on the spontaneity of the impulse that
brought the Convention together. He recur-
red to spontaneity again and again, as if it were
the characteristic feature of the affair. Now
it is obvious to everybody that there was
nothing in it which could be called spontane-
GUS in any ordinary meaning of the word, and
as no person claiming the character OF gen.
tleman could think of disputing Gen. ochurz
it must follow that the proverbially PHILOSOPHY
ical and subtle ermanHntellecthas discovered
a new and more precise meaning that ought
to be universally recognized and accepted.
The discovery of this hidden meaning is,
therefore, one of the most important and
pleasant fields of speculation in which one
arduous one, for Senator Schurz says that
everything about the transaction was spon-
tancous, and one has only to use that word in
connection with all that was done and then
generalize, if he can, from the large number
of instances of its correct use. Thus:
A great many gentlemen in various parts
of the country, including Horace Greeley,
having become displeased with the admins
tration of Gen. Grant at the precise moment
when an Office was refused them or their
friends spontaneously determined to do "any-
thing to defeat Grant" By singular coin
cidence the masses of the people at that very
time were resolving to do anything that is
legitimate to reflect the same gentleman.
As soon as the disaffected Republicans, who
are all professional politicians had fully or
ganized their conspiracy, the Democracy of
the country, after singularly protracted and
severe course of disciplinary training by their
most adroit politicians, spontaneously resell
we'd to regain the lost citadel of the Republic
through the agency of the malcontents.
1t was spontaneously agreed by the two
parties to the conspiracy that the people of
the country should be cheated into the belief
that the Democracy were strangers to the
movement, and that they had not quite so
much interest in it as they had in the assem-
bling of the National Assembly in the time of
Louis XVI. JJa
The Cincinnati movement being wholly in
the hands of professional politicians, there
was spontaneous impulse, which was
yielded to with perfect unanimity and good
will, prompting every candidate and his
friends to overreach, cheat, bully, defraud
and swindle every other candidate. Accord
ingly there was in the Cincinnati Convention
more spontaneous log-rolling, thimble-riggng,
rlng-making and ring-breaking, selling out
and buying-out, bargaining and bullying than
in any other political assembly that ever met
on this Continent. The ethics of the race
course were for the first time adopted as a
proper guide in the deliberations of states
men.
The friends of Mr.. Greeley, burning with an
uncomfortable passion for reform, having
spontaneously packed the NewYork delegation
spontaneously squelched the few, poor little
free-trade weaklings, like Mahlon Sands and
David Dudley Field, who had succeeded in
making their way to Cincinnati, and the
Convention spontaneously sustained that ac-
ton.
Judge David Davis, being very rich man,
and having plowed with the Labor Reform
heifer, undertook the task of buying UP the
Cincinnati Convention as naturally and spon-
taneously as If he were railroad corporation
and would have succeeded had there not
been so many powerful and unscrupulous
combinations against him.
1t is not at all surprising that such won
derfully and fearfully spontaneous Conven-
ton as this ended in nominating the man
who far outshone all the rest in spontaneity
that is in shrewd management, sharp bar
gains and INSCRIPTIONS intrigue. Hence
forth let Horace Greeley be regarded as the
standard by which spontaneousness is meas
ured. Hde
1t is not wonderful that such Convention,
though it owed its birth so far as any deter
inmate paternity can be assigned it, to GER
tain prominent Missouri free-traders, spOn-
taneously nominated the acknowledged lead
er OF American protectionists for President!
Having got SO far, and having found that
spontaneity is practicable of almost every
thing except what is yirtuous and of good re-
port, we confess to considerable embarrass-
ment. The task of generalization is more diff
ficult than we supposed. What is this spon-
taneity? For our part, we are unable to an
swer. We only know that it is wholly bad,
and from this and all other like ills good Lord
deliver us
The Democrats protesting, almost univer-
sally, to be free traders or revenue reformers,
md fundamentally opposed to the distinctive
republican doctrines of which Mr. Greeley
has, for the last fifteen years, been most un-
compromising champion, will, in giving him
heir support as candidate for President, do
10 upon one or the other of these grounds:
LIST. That Mr.. Greeley has, while nominaly
'etaining his opinions SO that he may take as
many Republicans as possible along with him,
really repudlated those opinions. and will. il