The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1872-05-31
BEEcHER ON CINCINNATI
A Movement Originated by High Moral
Idealist and Captured by Wire
Pulling Politicians.
I From tue Christian Union. j

From the Christian Union.
We have defended the Republican
party, not by denying that there
were evils in its administration, but
by saying that there were largely
vicious elements which had been
long fixed in our political methods /;
that many of them had been cured,
that others were on the way toward
eradication, and that still others
could be reached by the pressure of
public sentiment acting within the
present Republican organization. y
There were three parties Of
discomfort the Democratic party,
including the South; the Senatorial
party; and the party of moral idea
lists, who sought to raise the whole
tone OF political morality, push out
the small breed of managing politi-
clans and bring in the era of states
men. The call from Missouri did
not promise any important results
until this appeal of the party of NOR
al ideas for higher life in the gov
eminent was added to it. That is
always taking cry. Good men are
always signing for the millennium.
The idea of carrying on govern
mont by high moral principles, and
by men of the New Jerusalem stamp,
is irresistibly fascinating. Men Of
aspiration, ardent optimists, pious
idealist, recluse and scholarly men
who do not know why men cannot
behave themselves as easily as books
do on shelf, all glowed with a Sc :
cret satisfaction that at length the
best spirits of the republic were to
gather themselves in Cincinnati and
lift the country to loftier plane of
virtue, PROFOUND principles worthy
of the days of the fathers and set
forth issues which would separate
between the wheat and the chaff.
There rose over the horizon an ideal
of political purity which kindled the
hopes of thousands. This was not to
be a convention of politicians, but OF
sober citizens--wise men, who car
ed more for their country than for
their own ambitions. WE'LL what
has happened3 Never since the days
when conventions were called has
there been in any party conven.
ton that more deserved to be called
politicians convention. There
was gathered in Cincinnati proba-
bly, as many men Of distinguished
excellence and of political and econ
mic wisdom as ever met together on
this continent. There can be no
doubt of the sincerity OF their Pur-
poses and of their high moral aim.
But these were precisely the men
that did not make themselves felt.
The politicians had used them to
gather an imposing convention and
then they were allowed no more IN
huence in it than if they had been
pigmies. These wise men were mere
bubbles that rose, swelled, reflected
the iridescent hues of imaginary vir-
tue, burst, and passed away! The
politicians ruled. The real, old,
shrewd. wire-pulling, cunning poll
ticians, trained in hundred cam
paigns, threw their net, their fine
and silken net, and swept the whole
swarm of bright fish that had come
there to lay their spawn for unnum
bered generations, and who found
themselves caught and sold in th'
market! The platform is but
shorter catechism to the old RePub
Iican confession of faith. The only
two points Of diference-universa
] amnesty and civil service reform
though not in earlier platforms, have
been General Grants special endeav-
ors, and have been hindered and de-
feated by the Indifference or cold
ness of some of the very men who
| =: th;s Convantion. The