New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-02-07
A SUSPENSION or JUDGMENT.

suspension of public judgment until the facts
in their cases are made known. They have
both arrived at that point where absolute
silence is the best resort. Public opinion has
already pronounced upon their cases. and it
will be scarcely possible to reverse it, They
are both caught in trap of cruel and cum
ming mechanism. The more they struggle the
more they will tear their flesh. The best ali
vice which the many friends of Mr.. Col
fax can give him is to stop explaining. If
his good genius could have stopped
his mouth before he made that sweeping
and exhaustive denial at South Bend last
Summer how much more tolerable would have
been his position to-day. This speech was in
tended to convey, and did convey, the i'm
preston that Mr.. COfax had never had the
slightest direct or indirect relation with Cakes
Ames or the Credit Mobilier. His friends so
received it. His opponents Loyalty gave him
the benefit of the denial We printed those
! frank and bold words in THE TRIBUNE with
pleasure, and with the conviction that some
one else must have been mistaken. This was
the great temptation and the great trans
! erosion of the Wee President His dealings
with Mr.. Ames, though improper and in
delicate for man in his position, were
venial compared with this denial of
them. That speech at South Bend placed
| him on an inclined plane, down whose
| inexOrable grooves he has glided ever since,
without a single opportunity of checking his
course, until he reached that desperate plunge,
/ the other day, into an act which we hesitate to
! name. He has never said one word which has
not aggravated his case. Had he kept silence,
or told the whole TRUTH he would have been
beaten with few stripes. Our advice to him
now is that he make no more explanations. We
| should regret now seeing him tell the truth. 1t
! is too late to do any good. Let the Committees
report, and then let the case be summed up.
As for Mr.. POmerOy, his disaster is a matter
of much less consequence. When SanchO
Panza falls from the back of Dapple there is
no such rafting of armOr as when Don
QuixOte tumbles from the saddle of ROsinante.
Mr.. COlfax, up to the hour when, in his nerv-
BUSINESS and fear he gOaded Cakes Ames into
turning and rending him, had a blamcless
character. He was as much respected as he
was liked by moral and Christian people. He
made professions of rather exceptional cor
rectness which were generally accepted. He
had been in politics from bOyhOOd, and had
never been guilty of any indrectiOn.
He had had great opportunities, but
remained poor. After ALL the sum
he received was trifling. SO that his
lapse will be felt and sincerely regretted in
thousands of Christian families where he was
admired. But in the case of Mr.. POmerOy
there is no such feeling. He was always more
or less grotesque. He has made money from
his youth up. The beans of the charitable
paid tribute to him in the famine days. The
seed-corn of the founders of his State was
grist to him. In Washington he thrived and
prospered beyond his kind. His pOrtly form
seemed nCtirished by subsidies and commits
sions. He thoroughly enjoyed life, and looked
with comfortable contempt on rough rascals
like jim Lane who drank whisky, and spent
all they stole. Everybody, except Gen. How
ard and Mr.. Harlan, knew his thrifty
ways and smiled in the indulgent way that
honest worldlings have over the wicked
nesses of the prudent. Probably no one, ex-
cept the two naive spirits we have mentioned,
ever regarded seriously the comedy OF tenn
perance and religion which was part of his
system. So there is more amusement than
surprise OF regret over bis downfall He has
said to some reporter "that he has done some
"service to the nation, and that he he's its
confidence" He may have been called
cOnfdence-man and mistaken the meaning of
the words. He betrays an utter unconscious
ness of the real trouble when he says he is
the victim of conspiracy. Of course he is.
So is any rat, caught with a bait of cheese.
His opponents in Kansas knew bin to be cor
rupt, and they wanted to prove it openly.
They knew that nearly half the Legislature
had his cash in their pockets, and they
wanted to make this appear. They knew
he was bribing everybody he could,
so one of them said, "Bribe me-"
These cunning men have their odd
moments of credulity like others. Mr..
PomerOy was pleased to hear Mr.. York talk
so sensbly and Immediately opened TO him
his heart and his pocket-bOOk. York uhpacked
in the open session the contents of both
these precious repositories, and the effect must
have been startling even to himself. These
unclean dallyings with corruption, which had
appeared 80 commonplace in the atmosphere
of rum and good fellowship which filled the
hotels, suddenly seemed mODstrous and shameful
when exposed to the day. The edifice which
the Senator and his friends had labOriously
reared by the plumber of dozen years crum
bled all at once like house of cards If
York had pocketed his money and kept quiet,
POmerOy would have been elected on the first
ballot But York rose and told a story, the
details of which were familiar TO nearly
the whole house, and POmeroy was from
that instant an impossible candidate.
That breath of publicity was fatal.
The very men whose pouches were stuffed
with his greenbacks were seized with sudden