The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-09-14
GREELEY'S ASSOCIATES,
From. the Boston Globe.


is known by the company he keeps. The
world judges, and has right to Judge,
him by his habitual associates. If they
are honorable and high minded he is like.
ly to have similar characteristics. The
law of attraction and repulsion, which OBJ
tains alike in the world of nature and life,
draws around person others of congenal
character and taste, and keeps away those
of opposite tendencies. 1t isproper, there
fore, that Mr.. Greeley's political oppo-
nents should apply to him the rule which
he has often applied to Others and natural
that his political supporters should endeav-
or to show that he can afford to be judged
by it. But it argues a consciousness of
weakness in its candidate, when one of his
prominent organs attempts to evade or
qualify this clear and well-established
principal of political and social ethics, in
order that Mr.. Greeley may, be brought
within its thus perverted and emasculated
limits. This is what has been recently
done by the Golden Age an able, frank,
whom it has said some very severe things,
and who is known to be steadfast oppo-
nent of the views of marriage and divorce
which that journal has persstently pro-
mulgated. We do not find fault with the
Golden Age for leaving the field of woman's
rights, as illustrated in the character and
life of Victoria Woodruff, to enter the
political arena in defense of Horace Gree
ley. Magnanimity to an opponent is diff
ficult thing, though politics, like poverty,
now-a days makes strange bedfellows, and
reconciliation seems to be an unmeaning
term, if it does net bring together the most
conflicting interests in support of single
political purpose.
But when we are told by this defender of
Mr.. Greeley that a man is not know by the
company he keeps, but by the company he
chooses, we are brought back to the intel.
lectual and moral infirmities which we have
previously pointed out in the so-called
Liberal candidate. If his associates are
not those whom his choice determines, if
his will is too weak to carry out the dictates
of his judgement, there must be a defect in
his character fatal to his usefulness in pub
lie affairs. Indeed, the plea that man is
not known by the company he keeps, but
by the company he chooses, would afford
many criminal justification of his
course. The associate of thieves and MUIR
derers might plausibly urge that they were
not of his own choosing, and claim an ex-
emption from the judgement which the
world has always visited upon the frequent
er of such bad company. 1t is no answer
to the charge which has been brought
against Horace Greeley of having unscrupu-
lous political associates, to say, as the Gold
en- Age does, that his companions in private
life are the intelligent, the cultivated, the
philanthropic, and the noble hearted. His
private character is not now on trial, but
those who are asked to vote for him have
right to judge Greeley, the politician and
the candidate, by the political companions,
who in the future, as in the past, will sway
his impulsive temperament and control his
feeble and vacillating will The apologies
which are put forth for the confessedly
corrupt public company in which be is
found, on the ground that his private cha
racter is pure and his private associations
untainted, are precisely like those which
McCaulay exposes in the defenders of
Charles l." We charge him with having
broken his coronation oath, and they tell
US that he kept his marriage vow' We
charge Horace Greeley with being the as
sociate and tool of Reuben E. Fenton and
the leaders of the Tammany Ring, and the
Golden Age tells us that he loved to visit
the home of Alice and Phoebe Cary!
Nor does the fact, insisted on, that Hor-
ace Greeley likes the company of good
books palliate the fact that he is found in
the company of bad men. There is no
panacea in literature for the evil associa-
tions of life, and some of the worst crimi-
nails in history have been close students Of
book lore. Eugene Aram had read great
deal, but this did not prevent him from
committing an atrocious murder, and
Louis Napoleon, whom the Tribune has
always condemned, was ever busy with his
books when meditating some evil scheme
against his fellows. We do not dispute
the fact that Mr.. Greeley has by the cir
cumstances of his position been brought
into contact with INSCRIPTIONS politicians,
but we maintain that it was his duty not
to make them his trusted political friends.
A celebrated historian has said that no
man is fit to be the ruler of great people
who will not cheerfully disoblige the COM
paratively few persons around him for the
sake of the millions whom he never will
see. Tried by this test, Horace Greeley,
with his easy, pliable disposition, or, as the
Golden Age puts it: His interest in new
ideas and faith in human nature, and I'M
willingness to turn away the unfortunate
and dispised, which have sometimes invit-
ed scoundrels, and put a premium upon
imposition" is singularly incapacitated
for position which demands not merely
rectitude of intention, but soundness of
judgement and stability of purpose.
We should be glad to believe that Mr..
Greeley, who, as his advocate says, has
profited by experience, and of late years
has protected himself from the self-seeking
crowd would be free in case of his election
to the Presidency from the influence of
such able but INSCRIPTIONS advisers as
have always exercised control over him.
But the fact that he has the support ofmen
whom he himself has hitherto characterized
as utterly unworthy of confidence, forbids
us to put faith either in his willingness or
power to resist them. The politicians
whom he has alternately vilified and
truckled to, would not fail to wheedle or
coerce him into compliance with their de-
mands. The consequences of such a rule in
which a political puppet would be pulled
back and forth by INSCRIPTIONS schemes,
can only be averted by the reelection of
Grant.
"A four-year-old urchin, looking out of
the front door, the other morning saw