The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-06-24

Pirsnts-The Tragi-Comedy OF the
Finance Debates.
The great Italian poet entitled the master
piece Of song in which he depicted the walls
and anguish of the damned, '4Commedia
Divina" "a divine comedy. 1t is only in some
such sense as this that Messrs- Morton Conk-
ling and Blaine can look upon the recent cur
rency battles as political comedy However
diverting the denouement may be to the
planner of the entertainment and 10 the spec
tators, it must excite something very different
from ungovernable laughter in the victims.
When Dante approached the abode of lost
spirits he read with horror and dismay the
famous inscription over the gate, "An hope
abandon, We who enter here" When the am
bilious trio we have named approached the
currency Inferno they failed to perceive the
inscription, and now, too late, they find them
selves forever shut ont from Presidential
hopes. While the country will not try to
restrain its merriment over this comnsedia
divina, Of which President Grant is the poet,
each of the sufferers may say, IN the language
which Milton puts into the mouth Of Satan,
''Tis true, am that spirit unfortunate who
kept not my happy station" As the too aspir-
ing leader Of the revolted angels fell by his
ambition, so these too aspiring candidates to
the supreme place in our government have
ruined themselves by their overweening haste
to get the inside track for the succession
If it be true that ''nothing succeeds like
success the converse of that saying is equally
true Nothing 30 exposes public man to
derision as ''vaulting ambition which DER
leaps itself and falls on t'other side" This is
what has happened to poor Morton. Had the
imitation legislation succeeded he, as the
leader of the imitation hosts would have occu-
pied very high and commanding position.
Space would have been cleared around him as
it always is around man of indomitable
will who carries his purpose. But to fight
battle and lose it, to 60 into the field with
dauating banners and great pomp OF mani
festo and then encounter the modification of
being outgeneralled, is blow to reputation
and influence from which Morton can never
recover
1t is wonderful how promptly the followers
of leading politician discover when the tide,
has irreversibly turned against him. Even
majority of the Indiana members voted in
the House against the last Imitation bill,
evincing their sense that the Indiana Senator
is dead cock in the Presidential pit. If the
Republican National Convention were to be
held this year Morton, since the strategy of
Grant has so completely checkmated and cir
cumvented him, could not get majority even
of the Western delegates and as the imitation
tide GIBBS, as it is sure to ebb during the en-
suing two years, it will be found that Morton
is beached high and dry upon the sand-a
deserted hulk which has made its last voyage,
and salutary warning to all public men of
abilities against the extreme peril of playing
the demagogne on questions that involve the
gravest public interests.
II Morton is laid out cold as Presidential
candidate no better fate attends Conkling, his
foremost rival in the Senate. Conkling has
gained no more by supporting the Presidents
policy than Morton has by opposing it.
Though an able man, his pomp of self-con-
scious egotlsm is not calculated to
win popularity, and his offensive bear
ing towards the Western infationists has
created q prejudice against him which
will abide in the Western mind. Not daring,
or at least not caring, to wreak their pent-up
vengeance on the victorious President, who
has patronage to bestow, the Western repub-
licans will see that Conkling gains nothing
by his opposition to their wishes. They will
make sure that no Western delegate is sent to
the national convention who would tolerate
the idea of Conkling's nomination, (which, if
not victory, is at least revenge" Conking's
Presidential chances are as dead as Morton's;
and it would not be easy to express the blight
which has fallen on his hopes by stronger
comparison.
The shifty, dexterous Blaine, who has tried
to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, will
meet the fate of all trimmers in important
controversies. His position is like that of the
imbecilc BeIl-Everett party in the stormy,
convulsive election of 1860 Disputes which
take strong hold on the public mind and
the public conscience can be settled only
by clean victory on one side or the other.
Neither infationists nor anti-infationists will
feel any tolerance for statesman who trims
between oil and water, which can never be
brought to mix. The country wants to sec
the currency question settled; but views
so irreconcilable can never be settled
by o compromise. Before the country can be
quiet one side or the other must achieve de-
cisive triumph, q triumph so absolute and
as to crush both effort and hope
on the part of its adversaries. The currency
question can no more be compromised than
the slavery question could in 1860 Blaine's
efforts to harmonic Congress on some bill
which the President could approve have
proved utterly abortive, and the public esti-