New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-06-27
"A Double Failure.

who participated in it, has been OF material
use in casting strong light on the situation
inside of the enemy's camp. The names OF
the signers of the call, such as Carl Schurz,
w. Cullen Bryant, Oswald Ottendorfer, and
others known to have been anything but
favorable to the Cincinnati nominations did
not forebode much good to Mr.. Greeley; and
the New York Tribune was probably the only
paper that pretended to view the matter in a
different light, and with apparent good ma
ture tried to persuade its readers that on the
contrary, it was probably intended to unite
all those elements on Mr.. Greeley. This in
depreciation was too transparcntly absurd to
deceive anybody, since Mr.. Greeley is the
regular candidate of the Liberals and no
special unificaton on him would be needed.
any more than the Republicans need another
special Endorsement to unite on Gen. Grant.
The result, however, has shown that Mr..
Greeley while blandly smiling had correctly
estimated the rising storm and once more
managed so shrewdly that, as in Cincinnati,
he outwitted his antagonists and completely
defeated their purpose of throwing him over
board. Some of them assert that the meet
ing was packed by his adherents we have
no means of ascertaining the truth of this as
sertion, but certain it is that another sale was
brought about, and that the very man who
was sold out in Cincinnati, Mr.. Carl Schurz,
threw all his influence in the scale to perfect
the bargain in New York. Yet, although
the Greeeytes have been successful SO far as
to prevent any definite action against their
candidate, they failed in turn in their attempt
to have him Endorsed as the candidate of "the
elements opposed to General Grant" The
meeting adjourned without adopting any
resolution, and a handful Of uncompromising
Free Traders, the originators of the move
ment, who decidedly went into it in good
faith, called a meeting for the next day, in
which they manifested their indignation and
dissatisfaction by nominating William S.
Grocsbeck, of Ohio, and Frederick Law
Omstead, of New York, for President and
Vice President on an emphatically anti-Pro-
lection platform.
1t is not with them that we have to find
| fault, for they have acted strictly in harmony
with their convictions, and if in the end they
should discover that they have been butting
| their heads against stone walls, their defeat
will none the less be an honorable one but
what can be said in vindcation or even in
extenuation of the majority? Almost every
one of the assemblage with few exceptions,
admitted openly that he would have preferred
some other candidate, that Horace Greeley
by no means was a representative of the
principles of Liberal Republcansm, that on
the contrary, he had always joined issue with
the Republicans; yet, for expedency's sake
| it was argued, the distastelul beverage has
to be swallowed. In other words, the GER
tainty that Mr.. Greeley will receive the
Democratic nomination in Baltimore and
thus be the only candidate who will have a
chance of success against General Grant, no
matter whether or not there will be either a
Free Trade or Bourbon Democratic ticket in
the field, has all at once convinced those
heroes of principle that opposition to Mr..
Greeley would prove ruinously expensive
pleasure, for it is perfectly understood among
the Liberals themselves, that notwithstand-
ing all fine phrases about civil service reform,
making Office Independent Of political part-
sanship and the like, in case of Horace Gree
ley's election, patronage and office will be
rendered pretty much in the customary way,
and that he no more than any other man,
can be expected to favor his opponents at
the expense of his supporters, and conse-
quently they can neither be expected to turn
against their bread and butter prospects.
We notice that the part played by Mr..
SchuZ in this demonstration is viewed in
this light and severely criticised by large
part of the Germans who were his most en-
thusiastic admirers and supporters, and had
followed him heretofore placing perfect faith
in his political honesty. The New Yorker
Staat&-Zat'ng expresses itself in this sense.
His unconcealed dissatisfaction with the Gin
cinnati nominations, his flat refusal to attend
the Greeley ratification meeting in New ork,
and his name under the call together with those
OF men whose opposition to Mr.. Greeley was
known, had induced the belief that he would
take determined stand, and the disappoint-
ment felt is consequently the more bitter.
| Others, on the contrary, who as it
now turns out, knew him better, never
entertained such illusions, but correctly
| predicted what was to come. a Western
| paper, the Cincinnati Courier, told its readers
several days previous to the meeting, that
MIR. SchuZ would probably undertake to be-
come the mediator and peacemaker between
the Greeeyites and the extreme Free Traders.
IL further informed them that during the first
weeks after the Cincinnati Convention he
entertained the illusion that Greeley would
either withdraw voluntarily from the contest
or be compelled to do so by the force of cir
cumstances. In such a case, Mr.. Schurz
would again have assumed the leadership of
the so-called reform movement, but when the
action of the Democratic State Conventions
dispeled his dreams and left him no doubt of
Grecley's nomination in Baltimore. he real
lied the disagreeable fact that he had to sail
with the tide and make his peace with Gree
ley, lest his public career might come to a
sudden and disastrous end. The Couier goes
on to comment on Mr. Schurz's course, and
concludes by saying that after having thus
descended to the level of a common politi-