New-York tribune., 1873-01-30
THE FALL OF POMEROY.

Men who regard politics as a mere matter
of trade acquire, in the course OF success
full career, contempt for human nature which
sooner or later proves their ruin They judge
the public by themselves and their chattels.
They think every man has his price, and
sometimes make the mistake of putting
the price too low. Public distrust OF
public indignation they think very
little of They defy the first and
feel sure that the second when it comes will
soon blow over. The basis of their confidence
is that honest people have no such interest in
fighting them as they have in holding to place
and power. Fortified by this reflection they
grow continually more impudent and careless,
until at last they positively force the com
munity to rise against them and rend them.
Who would have imagined it possible for
any Senator to have shown so brutal con-
tempt for public intelligence and virtue as to
90 to Kansas, while the State and country
were all alive with indignation over the man
traffic of Caldwell, and attempt TO buy another
Legislature? Yet this is what Senator POme-
roy seems to have done. He had no other
means of working. He saw his hold on the
State was weakening. His popularity was
gone He was without those personal quail
ties which attract men. His career in the
Senate had been marked by nothing but II
participation in a series Of enormous jobs
by which many men of his kind pros
pered, and none of them were Crate
full His only weapon was his money.
He had enough of that, acquired
in many ways, and he went to work to use it
in the old manner He had no more sagacity
than to go into the open market for votes at
the very moment when the Caldwell case was
throwing a broad shaft of light into all such
shady places. AS might be expected, he was
caught in his iniquity. Yesterday morning,
Mr.. York, a State Senator. sent to the Clerks
desk $1,000, which he said he had received
from Mr.. Pomeroy for his vote. We are
told the effect was enormous. We are pre-
vented by previous events from inferring that
the mere mention of bribe proved so startling
to Kansas legislators. But perhaps there
was something in the amount which reused
their dormant virtue. Perhaps cold Subsidy"
as they playfully call their great man, had
acquired the rest of them on more reasonable
terms. At all events they were greatly out
ragged, and Immediately elected the Hon. John
James Ingalls, Hatis, and had their favOrite
statesman arrested.
There is little reason for regret and much
for congratulation in this disappearance of
the Kansas Senator from the field of his ac-
tivty. Among all the wrecks that lie along
the shore, tossed there by the storms of the
last few months, there is probably not one so
sordid as he. Like Mammon, he was the least
erected spirit that fell" From his first entry
into public life he has weighed everything
by money standard He has judged all
public measures by the cash that was in
them; and estimated all men by the amount
it would take to buy them. Other considera-
tons he regarded with dull and phlegmatic
seorn; Tie found SUCCESS ;.Gs and egpfort
ID his way Of life, and doubtless
imagined it was to last forever. The sum he
is said to have sQuandered in this election
proves sufficiently what confidence he had in
the final triumph of his greenbacks. He was
not q man to throw away hundred thousand
dollars s On q foriorn hope: We cannot therefore
but be glad that he made the trial, and that
the country can have the benefit of the
lesson lfis failure can teach. There is,
after ALL quickening of the pub
lie conscience, which demands decent
respect for honesty from public men.
Even in Kansas the effect of the exposure Ct
Caldwell is plainly seen in the drama of yes
terday. Two years ago. when the Kansas
lawgvers heard Caldwell was in the market,
they carried him their votes like merchandise.
To-day, when they learn that Pomeroy is
engaged in the same traffic, they show him
the door and then send a constable after him.