New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-11-11
A SHORT ANSWER.


friendly letter of comment on the present
prosperity and past policy of the paper, ven
lures few words of criticism upon what he
calls the error of our course during the last
Presidential campaign. He believes, or thinks
he believes, that The TRIBUNE stopped to
"seek its ends" and to crafty its personal
"preferences, OF antipathieS. or ambitions"
"by means of misrepresentation and calumny"
Our correspondent il one of q very small class
of preiudiced Republicans; but because he is
evidently honest, and because the tone and
flankness Of his letter rather please us, we
shall make him a short answer.
When we first charged some Of the leaders
of the Republican party with corruption and
the Administration with secret hostility to
reform, we are well aware that strict party
men refused to listen to us. We knew when
we made those charges that they would cost
us the friendship of thousands of our old asso-
GATES But we knew that they were true,
that it was our duty TO make them, that there
would be no amendment until the Republican
press rebukcd the frauds and misconduct OF
the Republican politicians. We aid not sup
pose that after the Credit Nlobilier exposure,
the Back Pay bill, the Louisiana investiga-
ton. the District of Columbia frauds, the dis
honorable record Of the last session of Con-
gress, and the long series of financial scandals
which have filled the year, any man would be
found so blind, so dali, or so stupidity obstinate
as TO persist in calling the charges OF the
Presidential campaign calumny and misrepre-
sentatiou. Every count in the indictment has
been proved. Every reproach which we made
- tod
now by the party organs which abused us for
telling the truth before the election. The
most subscTycnt of the Administration news
papers point to-day to the lesson of this
months elections as n warning that the party
has been weighed in the balance and found
wanting, and call upon it to reform itself in
stantly or it is lost forever. The partisan
press, after denOuncing THE TRIBUNE for
year and "A half, is now busy in yindIcating
everything that we have done, and trying to
echo everything that we have said.
We do not believe in voting for bad can
didate first, and scolding the party afterward
for putting him in nomination. We do not
believe in holding our tongues when remon-
STRANGE would have some effect, and speaking
ont when the occasion has passed. Honest
ana independent JouIudis WIZ o'houiN' '"'
cality wherever they find it and whenever de-
nunciation will do most good. For our own
mart, we believe that no time is more proper
for truth-tellng than the time just before
general election. We confess to personal
"preference for good men in office, and an
"antpathyn to all manner of frauds and
humbugs. When we expressed these senti-
ments year ago, the household servants of
the Administration called it "calumny and
" misrepresentation" Now that our words
have proved true, and the Republican party
has nearly destroyed itself by denying them,
the same obsequious fatterers repeat our very
language, and call it a friendly and fearless
warning. Prophecy is cheap after the event.