New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-05-31
of buster and weakness, which has character
lied the action of our Government from the
opening of negotiations until now.
THE ADMINISTRATION A NAN.

TIE ADMINISTRATIONS MIN
Those who claim that the Administration is
entitled to a renewal of the popular sanction,
have shown disposition to make the coming
contest purely personal one. II such be
their preference, they can be easily accommo-
dated The Liberal Republicans, while selecting
and presenting candidate, have not neg
lected the fullest freest and clearest expression
of the public grounds upon which they
decline to support the President for re-
election; and as this has been met by q
persistent depreciation of their candidate, and
as the ADMINISTRATORS have chosen to
make this dispute about men, why should
they complain if they are answered according
to their own methodist This can be done with
greater facility, since the President has been
pleased to consider himself as the Govern
ment, and has apparently labored under the
delusion that the Presidency was given to
him for his eminent military services in lieu
of pension, to be enjoyed for his best emol-
ument and sharply managed as private
economical investment. In this matter we
have lamentably drifted from the simple
customs of an earlier day. Once there was
something homely and pleasant, but there
was nothing alarming, in the gifts which were
made by his admirers to a President. The
money value was the least part of the dona-
ton. Mr.. jefferson received big cheeses
and Gen. Jackson pipes aud canes in
abundance, but no President thought of
enhancing his private fortunes by the liberallty
of his partisans. 1t would have been but poor
way of urging petition for place in the gift
of Gen. Jackson to have enforced it by
bride, no matter b. what name the bride had
been called. 1t Is safe to say that he would
have sworn frightfully at any man who asked
his acceptance of house and land. A broken
head rather than a commission would have
been the result of such liberal servility.
The present President has pOcketed whatever
was offered him as a matter Of course and 1t
cannot be said of him that he has been want
ING in that gratitude which is lively sense
of benefits to come.
Akin to this, and emphatically public and
not at all a personal matter, is the cool au-
dacity-we can call it by no other name-with
which Gen. Grant has lavished office upon
members of his own family. :" He has" says
the Address of our Liberal State Committee,
committed acts of nepotism moro numerous
"his predecessors from George Washington to
Andrew Johnson" The charge has been
often made and up to this hour it has never
been denied by any one whose denial is worth
a farthing. All we have had has been the silly
jest that a man would be worse than heather
who did not care for his own household. This
will not do. If the Presidents family APP
pointments had been perfectly judcious it
would have been hard upon general grounds
to defend them; but the matter becomes in
toerable when in all other ways they have
proved as bad as possible.
While we do not expect Gen. Grant to I'M
derstand the scandal of many of the appoint
ments which he has made, it does seem in
credible that he should so obstinately persist
in keeping men in place who have done moth
ing SO thoroughly as to demonstrate their own
unfitness for it, Not even numberless Com
mittees, protests, investigations, infinite scan
dial, and clamor that fills the whole political
arena, have been able to pry one brother-in-
law out of the Office he disgraces in New-Or-
leans. The name of another is the scOn of
every dpomatist in Europe, and his vulgar
impertinences have been the subject OF CORE
spondence in every European Cabinet, but still
he sticks To give to another kinsman mis-
sion in Central America for which ho was no.
toriously unfit, he affrOnted the entire Repub-
lican delegation from Iowa. Gen. Grant seems
TO have forgotten that the President is civil
and not military officer; and this explains
his Undertaking to govern the South as If 1t
were still O great intrenched camp; his manip-
ulating our foreign policy as if he were treat
ing with an enemy at his mercy and upon the
point of surrender,-until, indeed, the tables in
one or two cases were turned, and he was
ready himself to surrender; his issuing his in
structions to free citizens about to vote rs if
they were his old infantry about to engage in
battle. Gen Grant is a soldier and the old
habits of q soldier stick to him. He has many
Of the professional faults of Jackson, and APP
parently no comprehension of that strict, law
abiding conscience which redeemed the SOL
dierly character of Washington, of Taylor, and
Of Harrison. They were good soldiers, but
better citizens. They never attempted to gov
Al. 10 l,,vn n,Jo