The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-08-06
TiIdsn and Morrisssy.

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gamblers, must not understand the badinage
OF newspaper controversy as a reflection upon
the personal character or political integrity OF
MIR. Tlden. Our Governor is a distinguished
and honored citizen, of blameless life and
purity of character, who has lived on into
ripening years without a scandal upon his
name. He was probably never in gambling
house in his life, and would look with horror
upon the habit of gaming and its moral infiu-
ence upon people. 1t would be a source of
deep pain If we were even to seem in the play
of political badinage to. throw stigma upon
the personal character of any citizen, of one
especially who had risen to the emil
nence of the Governor. We are the
more anxious to make this explanation to our
correspondent because there is nothing we
deplore so much as this habit of indiscrim-
mate SANDER upon our public men. The
tendency of people to pull down. their gods
is sure evidence of moral and political de-
cay. And our great men-our leaders in
thought and action and in political affairs
those who govern us in religion and literature
and ofice-are our gods. Reverence is one
of the noblest virtues. Even an iconoclast
as mercless as Carlyle never wearies OF his
theme of hero worship. Grant, Sherman,
Johnson, for instance, with all their faults
and limitations, are among the national idols.
In honoring them we honor some quality
which q free people always respects. Mr..
Tilden, as a citizen, has done as much to en-
IL - toc nd
esteem of his countrymen as any of our lead
ers. TO have destroyed the old Ring was as
noble a service as to have destroyed rebellion.
Mr.. Tilden, in that task, did his part with
courage and persistence-with the highest
courage, for he was warning upon his party
and apparently closing the avenues to adj
vancement and power.
When we speak. therefore, of the relations
of Morrssey and Tilden we must not be I'M
derstood as charging our Governor with the
vice of gambling or with any act inconsistent
with his character as a self-respecting gentle
man. The fact that our excellent CORE
spondent so feels should be lesson to the
Governor. People will not draw the distinc-
tons that rest in the Governors mind.
Governor Tilden sees Mr.. Morrissey in
double relation-political and personal. he
sees him personally as a gambler in the
active pursuit of a profession which lies
under the ban of the law, and which as the
Executive he would suppress and punish
He sees him politically as an enterprising
political leader, who has been in Congress-
,ubo hoe nouar ovar conventions and alao
tons. AS candidate for office Mr.. Tilden may
see no reason why he should not have political
relations with Mr.. Morrissey. Well, as poll
tics go Inc New York there is probably no rea-
son. 1t is, we regret TO say, too often by
means of the Moriisseys that our statesmen
rise to power. They represent that dema-
gogic influence before which even Til
den, scholarly, sensitive, high-minded and
pure, must bow. Our political idols are like
those in the old Hindoo mythology. The
Hindoos have the god Of wisdom and the god
of cholera, the god of peace and the god of
rapine. Mr.. Tilden may well say, in re-
spouse to the censures of men as good as our
correspondent, that he is statesman, that his
career is politics. and that he must bow to the
idols in our mythology of universal suffrage,
to Morrissey and those like him, even as the
devout Hindoo must kneel to the god who has
charge of the treasures of tho earth, who is
monster with three heads, his body covered
with Sores We admit that this is one of the
debasIng Offices that popular suffrage exacts
from our statesmen. And when we see Gov
ernor Tilden in relations of confidence with
Morrissey-r recognizing his leadership and
counting his power-we feel as we should if
we saw pious Brahmin PROSTATE before the
deity who controls the tempest and the rain.
1t is in this sense-a political sense alone
that we make any criticism upon Governor
Tilden and the relations which, we are assured
by Morrissey in a dozen interviews, exist be-
tween himself and the Governor. Far be it
from us to throw stain upon an honored and
blameless personal life But at the same time
we think that the Governor would
command O higher degree Of conf
dence and esteem if he regarded Morrissey
as he regarded the old Tammany
is too proud to conciliate and too brave to
fear. He is the Governor OF great Common
wealth and candidate for the Presidency.
He is an admirable Governor. and would make
an excellent President In the honors which
now enfold him and in any honors that he
may win the HERALD could only take pride.
But he is now a national man. For every
vote he can receive from Morrissey he
would lose hundred votes from those who
regard Morrissey as one who is willing to live
beyond society. Governor Tilden should rise
above these influences He could find al ex-
ample worthy of emulation in the life of the
younger Pitt. When power and wealth and
rank were offered Pitt if he would only bow
down to the spirit of intrigue and venality
which came into English politics from the
Walpoles and Pelhams he disdainfully put