The New York herald., 1874-10-30
0snsrai Grants Dignity and the
Newspaper Press.

are acts inconsistent with the dignity Of his
ofice-acts which, if they may be committed
by common men, should at least not be CON-
mitted by the President of the United States.
Our joy at learning that the President has
made this discovery is shadowed only by o
faint regret that he did not make it earlier.
An earlier perception on his part of the fact
that something is due to the dignity Of his
Office would have spared US many scandals
1t must have prevented acts which the nation
has seen with q sense of general humiliation /;
acts at which the people have been indignant,
and others at which they have been covered
with patriotic shame, to see the Chief Magis-
tracy of the country fallen SO low.
1t is even possible that if General Grant
had thought of his dignity only within year
or two past the republican party might not
now be paying at the polls the penalty Of his
offences. He might have reflected that as even
Andy Johnson-poor old, sadly-berated Andy
Johnson-refused the gift of a carriage while
President and as John Tyler returned horse
that an office-seeker had the impertinence to
send HMM the face Of such examples he
might have remembered that it became the
greater dignity Of . greater man to refuse
numerous and far greater gifts, and SO his
dignity would have prevented the establish
ment of the precedent that any Office in the
gift of the President may be bought if the
buyer will only adopt the thin device of CALI
ing the price gift If the President had
thought of his dignity earlier we should have
been spared the story of Casey at New Orleans
and the whole train of disgraceful conse-
quences up to the federal assassination of
sovereign State. Nearly the whole story of
reconstruction might have been written diff
ferently; for the support and retention in
Office of bands of men fit only for the galleys
is not dignlfed in President There are
several nominations for the Office of Chief
Justice of the United States which would not
have been made, and Spanish cruiser would
not have pulled down our flag at sea- In fact
as the fate OF the world might have been differ
ent if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, our
recent history might have been far more re-
spectacle if General Grant had discovered
earlier the pinch of dignity which now in
clines him to hold his peace regarding the
third term.
Although we are naturally rejoiced that Gen.
sral Grant now regards his Office as one which
requires some dignity in the incumbent we
are sorry to find that his notions of dignity
are neither American nor intelligent. he re-
CARDS it as beneath him to express On opinion
on subject discussed in the newspapers
This man whom the newspapers made Presi-
dent-may they be able to expiate the Of
fence now metaphorically puts his heel on
the power which created him. He in whom
no party had confidence, and whom the polit-
cal leaders of every stripe distrusted with
wise prescience which the people did not COM
prehend; who, despite his military successes,
would, if the parties could have had their
way, have been left in the army or legislated
into obscurity, was forced upon the dominant
party by the newspaper press of the country
declaring the preference and opinion of the
people and he makes to the press as far as he
may the same return that the viper made to
the woodman in the fable. Wonderful result
of newly discovered dignity! His notice, un-
less it be venomous notice, can barely de-
scend to the newspapers. If now there were
Brahmins in this country and other grada-
tions of caste down to the Sudras we could
comprehend that newspapers might be
Sudras and Presidents Brahmins and then,
of course, the newspapers, treighted with the
thoughts and discussions of the people, would
be fifty times unclean, and might not come
into the atmosphere OF an official Brahmin
without publication and ''gifts. Then the
attitude assumed by General Grant would be
were neither Brahmins nor Sudras in this
country, and that the people and the printed
papers which contain their thoughts and adj
vocate their cause are not beneath any mans
notice, but eminently worthy the attention of
men in power. Was this an error?
What is the position of the newspaper in the
social and political fabric of our time? 1t is
the mouthpiece of the people. Their thoughts
find utterance in its columns. Their aspira-
tions their purposes, their achievements. their
antipathies, are the staple of its argument day
by day. Dionysius of Syracuse it is reported,
constructed chamber on acoustical princi-
pies, into which was led the sound of every
murmur, OF every cry OF despair ana every
whispered curse from every cell of the prison
in which his victims were secured. And we
might compare the newspaper press to that
gathering chamber. 1t is a reservoir
in which is gathered up and retained and re-
corded-not the murmur of the prisons
merely, but whatever has passed through the
minds of the people, what is said in the work.
shop and the bank parlor; what is spouted
about at party rallies and what is chatted
over at tea; what the autocrats of the break
fast table lay down as the law, and what the
oracles of the corner grocery put forth as in
/ fallihle There In not q uaxa MT a rix,.,lo L.,