The New York herald., 1874-11-07
The Lesson or the Dsy-For nosn
Sides.

The Lesson or tho Dsy-For Both
One of the most valuable. but to hasty or
faint-hearted citizen one Of the most vexa-
tious. qualities of the American people Is their
patience. s'They are as long-suffering as
though they were forty millions OF donkeys'
said an irritable statesman once of his coun-
trymen; and short-sighted philosophers. who
cannot see beyond the abuses of the day, per-
petually imagine our liberties to be in danger
because some wrong is not remedled or
some ring broken up as soon as it Is dlscov-
cred.
Well, Tuesday showed once more, as many
previous November Tuesdays have shown,
that tho patience of the American people IS
the patience not of dull or weak sluggards but
of giants. They bear long with misgovernment
because they feel themselves strong. Ihey
are generous masters, but it is because
they know themselves to be masters They
give their trust slowly to new policies or new
party leaders; but also they withdraw it
slowly. They are long-suffering, ready to for
give much to their servants generous to make
allowance for inexperience, not quick to pun
ish blunders or waste. if only they believe the
motive honest. But their patience has an
end, and on Tuesday once more the American
people showed that they. and not the poll
ticians, are masters Of the country.
The people of the United States rule. That
is the lesson of last Tuesday. When they
bear with gross abuses such as have disgraced
the administration of General Grant, with the
appointment of scandalously unfit persons
to high Office with jobbing with cor
ruption in the capital with the spectacle OF
President consorting with jobbers and
attempting to reappoint them to the places
they had misused; with atrocious misgovern-
ment in. the Southern States supported by
the Presidents s friends and relations, and by
the federal army-when they bear with these
accumulated offences against good govern
ment it is not because they are weak or ia
tally careless or unpatriotic, but because
they are conscious of their power to punish
and because with this they have one Of the
most important characteristics of free peo-
pie, great love for stability. Unlike the
French, our people have horror of change
They are by nature conservative They pre-
fer the thing that is even to better thing
still untried They clung to the old demo-
cratic party until that aspired to mastery, then
they discharged It summarily They bore
with the republican party until that in turn
forgot it had master in the people, and now
they have flung it aside
Nor should the successful democrats forget
one other trait Of the people. When they are
once convinced they do not readily change
their convictions. The democratic psrty
long held power as the conspicuous friend Of
the Union. When large part of its leaders
turned against the Union the party was at
once cast of by the people. General Grants
platform was, ''Let us have peace" and on
that the people elected him. But when, after
six years in power they see that he does not
let us have peace but the contrary, they dis
miss his party, and their contemptuous treat
ment of his third term intrigues will long re-
main a warning to politicians to study mod
Grafton or, at least the appearance of it,
Whatever platforms and speakers may pro-
fess or conceal, the people are sincere and in
earnest They hold their rulers to the bond
The democratic leaders have promised peace,
prosperity, better currency, economy in ad-
ministration; let them beware how they trifle
with these promises. The people are not only
masters, they are hard masters. They do not
look narrowly after the means, but they de-
mand success. If this great democratic VIC
tory should be followed by new disorders in
the South; if, in the next Congress, demo-
cratic leaders should be found incompetent
or corrupt if, this winter, democratic
Legislatures should choose improper per-
sons to the United States Senate; if
the policy and spirit of the party should
prove to be unfavorable to peace to q re-
newal OF industry and commerce, to sound
currency, to an economical and purified ad.
ministration, not only in the federal, but in
the State and local governments, the people
will as surely cast it off two years hence as
they have just flung aside the impudent third
term jobbers and Southern political gamblers,
and with them number of honorable men
who were unfortunate enough to be found in
bad compsny.
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