The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-09-17

tight and avows his neutrality which he excuses
on the ground of his distance from home. Long
after the battle is over he comes back and his
nrst public utterance is sort of admission that
governments generally do get corrupt after
dozen years of power, and perhaps ours is so.
1 take exception to Gov. Bullock's premises and
to,his conclusions. A wise administration does
not naturally degenerate into corrupt practices
1t endeavors by strict accountability and ac-
ceptable performance of duty to commend itself
to the favor and confidence of the people.
When the head is honest, the members are apt
to follow his example Gen. Grant was sus-
tanned because of his ''plain, modest, robust
character" and because he exacted capable and
upright service from all the functionaries of the
government He deserves eulogy and has no
possible need of an apologist.
The Ex-Governor exalts patronage as one of
the modes by which the Republican party has
been perpetuated. And get in the very conven-
ton he was addressing it was alleged that all
the federal patronage was arrayed on the side
of the candidate who was defeated. Patron
age never reelected President. Neither Lin
coin nor Grant were indebted to it for their
success. 1t availed nothing to johnson, who
employed it unsparingly, nor to several of his
predecessors who relied npon it as a means of
controlling national conventions. Office hold
ers do excellent service, when they go with the
current ct public opinion, but they are good
for nothing otherwise. The fear they have Of
compromising their own positions makes them
too timid for aggressive warfare Grants re-
nomination was brought about by unanimty
of sentiment in regard to his fitness that ex-
pressed ltseif>in every State, county and town
in the entire Union. The Office holders merely
followed the lead of the masses when they
urged the denomination of Grant If every
one OF them hal gone the other way it would
not have affected ten votes in the Philadelphia
| Convention. The idea of that result having
been influenced by patronage was one of the
Munchausensnis of last fall, which could only
impose upon very credulous and weak minded
readers
The case fairly stated stands thus: Gen.
Grant had an opportunity to witness and a
sufficient degree of public virtue to be disgust.
ed with Andy Johnson's administration. He
saw how that capricious and undisciplined
creature welded power for self ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
and for the reward of his train bands He
helped to overthrow him, and in accepting his
place, felt pledged to a publication of the
abuses he had suffered to grow up around him.
The whole course of the government from that
hour to this has been in the direction of economy
efficiency and rectitude. The President is prac.
tical, consistent, effective reformer He makes
no noise about it. There is no flourish of trum-
pets. He isn't given to proclamations But
the work is quietly going ON in every depart
ment of the government from Maine to Ore
gon; and as far as the influence of the chief
magistrate can be exerted, it will be used not
to prevent things from getting worse, but to
make them steadily better. When Gov. Bull
! lock has remained at home long enough to OBJ
tain realizing sense of the agreeable fact that
we are enjoying milennal period Of national
history, -he will substitute psalm of thanks
giving for his jeremiad of lamentation, a
strain altogether too lugubrious to be opposite
in Republican convention. YARMOUTH.