Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-01-03
The resident and the Party.
From Harpers' Weekly

w. Curtis, editor of Hdrpeys' Weekly. Far
removed from all corrupt influences; edi
tor of paper that sends its three hundred
thousand weekly messages all over the
world; of great sagacty and conspicuous
integrity, his judgment is entitled to the
greatest respect. OF the Retrenchment
Committee debate and the assaults upon
the President he says:
If, indeed, the President can be shown
to be personally implicated in dishonest
dealings, the sentiment of the Republican
party, which now demands his renOmina-
tion would instantly change. But for
more than two years the attempt to impli-
cate him has been made with steady fe-
rocity, only surpassed by its futility. In
every way, by every kind of false asser-
ton and malignant inuendo, the assault
has been urged upon the private and pub
lie character of "a man whose service to
the country is incalculable. Called to a
position of vast responsibility, for which
his previous illustrious career had not es-
pecially prepared him, but which he could
not decline; involved at once i'll the ter
rible net of the abuse of the civil service
system, which the practice of every party
for forty years had meshed about the Pres
ident; with nothing but his honest pur-
pose and his proved patriotism and sagac-
ity to depend upon; saluted in his first
sincere efforts at political independence by
the sneering amaZement of many Of his
own party-President Grant with all the
mistakes and misfortunes which have
marked his administration-as they must
of a necessity, mark every administration
is stronger in the public confidence in the
third year of that administration than any
previous President, and is the undoubted
choice of the vast majority of the party
for the nnyt fOur Xaarg a.
He is plain man peculiarly man OF
the people in the American sense-simple
in his manners and habits and tastes. He
is not scholar like John Quincy Adams,
nor a courtier like Martin Van Buren,, nor
natural diplomatist like Abraham Lin
coin. He speaks to the point, and makes
his opinions and sympathies evident. His
personal attachments are very strong, and
his fidelity to his friends so constant that
he is slow to suspect evil. But so steady
and malignant has been the misrepre-
sentation of him and his administration
in q thousand petty personal details
smoking, driving, travelling, associates,
property-that his real character and posi-
ton are obscured to many good men in the
country by thick cloud of SANDER.
He is called a member of the Seneca
Stone Ring because he does not sell stock
which he bought before he became Presi
dent, and which he holds as every Senator
or other high public officer holds his pri-
vate property. 1t is u property largely
held in Washington, and the quarry Is
near the city; consequently, it is much
used there; and, as certain active proprie-
tors push ii, as all such interests are pushed,
the President, because he does not sell his
stock, is accused of corrupt completely.
He is called mercenary and mean, although
he spends all his salary and his small pri-
Vate income in maintaining the proper
dignity of his office. He has uDquestiona-
bly, accepted certain gifts, offered in CRATE
full recognition of his services in the field,
as Golden received them for his services in
Parliament and on the platform, and as
General Mcclellan received his house,
without suspicion cast upon his motives.
So, also, some of his relations are in office.
We should be glad if this were not so
but, even accepting the most malicious and
exaggerated statement of the case, the
country will hardly feel that it is a fact
which involves more than question OF
taste, unless it appears that those persons
are incompetent or corrupt.
But as we said, all the attempts to in
volve the President in dishonest transac-
tons, although unscrupulously renewed,
have conspicuopsly and totally failed.
Even in the debate upon Senator Trum-
bulbs resolution, Senator Schurz, while
insisting that there was some mysterious
power above the Secretary of the Treasury
WnlCn protected une general Oruer system,
honorably said "There had not been suf-
ticient evidence to connect any one at the
White House with this business; although
such allegations had been made" If it be
the wish of Senators Trumbull and Schurz
to investigate fairly the honesty and econ
omy of the public service, all good citizens
are with them. But if their object be to
identify the Republican Administration
with dishonesty in the service, the coun-
try will hardly forget that General Grant
is the only President who has strenuously
insisted upon reform of the whole sys-
tenn of party patronage-to which the
Senators are not strangers-the only Pres
ident who has recommended it to Congress,
and who only awaits the completion of
necessary details to put it in execution.
The evil practice of the Civil Service,
necessarily breeding corruption, was first
formally opposed by General Grant in his
first annual message, in which he said /:
"There has been no hesitation in chang
ing officials in order to secure an efficient
execution of the laws sometimes, too,
when, in a mere party view, undesirable
political results were likely to follow. Nor
has there been any hesitation in retaining
efficient officials against remonstrance
wholly political" That he has been some
times overborne by the tremendous power
of an evil system, we do not deny. But he
has not relaxed his purpose tograpple with
it; and, Congress having expressly au-
thorized him to undertake the work, he
states quietly in his third annual message