The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-03-18
a CONGRESSMAN AND THE PREsI-
DENT.

OF all the filthy effluvia that ever ema-
mated from the foul, bcastly mouth and
sodden brain and reeking body of any de.
PRAYED wretch in any legislative assembly,
the most infamous, in all its incidents of
messureless human degradation, was that
embodied IN the speech of one Dave Mum.
Dave is black-skinned, coarse-haired
hunchback, elected by negroes from dis
trict OF cotton plantations in Tennessee.
We would designate the county in which
he was born and reared, but the people
there would ever hereafter curse the STATES
MAN for printing its woes and publishing
its shame. At the last election in his
district, Dave was beaten, as happened
once before. When this accident befell
Num-, President Grant made him the repre-
sentative of Grant-not of the country, or
of its people or government-at one of the
little rotten republics of Central America.
Cholera and yellow fever were both raging
at the seat of the government to which
Dave was accredited as our Minister or
Charge d'A6aires, and Grant really hoped,
no doubt-we suggest 1t in kindness-that
Dave would die speedily. But equatorial
heat and smallpox and cholera and blue.
bottle flies fell stillborn or in paralysis in
the presence of Dave, and, save when some
wretched half-brecd negro or yellow-sklnned
native was startled out of tropical torpor
by the tremendous asperities of Dawes hide
Gus face and stiff, straight hair and dubious
nose and greasy, watery, soluble eyes,
nothing remarkable happened. Dave spent
a year; drew his outfit, Unfit and salary with
promptitude becoming an appointee and
special representative of the personality of
Federalism, and came home. He had funds
enough to consolidate the blacks, and
the whites were stupid enough to have
two candidates, and Dave again sat
through the last two years in
Congress. His term has expired and
just before he went out, wishing to have
another appointment at Grants hands, he
forwarded to his ExcellOncy expressly sew
eral bull pups in this nice little package Of
filthy words. He said in his place in the
House:
az bad rather see Grant, with the conf
dence l have in his ability, with the conf
dence have in his integrity, and with the
confidence have in his patriotism-I would
rather see HIM military dictator than see
any man on earth President of the United
States who would sit silently .byand see the
weak and the helpless trodden down and
oppressed without attempting to stop it."
That paragraph is worth first class mis-
sion. 1t is decent, modest, cunning. There
is no coarseness about it. The purpose is
adrotily and modestly hidden and Dawes
innocence is patent and Grants weakness
understandable. Isn't there genius and
taste and pure morals and strictly substan-
tial honest worth illustrated in the relations
of these two men to one another! What
shameful commentary is this pronounced by
a member of Congress upon the besotted
vanity of 'hero President. So foul
shame TO the first officer of the great repub-
lie is embodied in this appeal to Grants
stold vanity and compatibility, confessed
by the Presidents friend and admirer and
he a'member of Congress, that the incident
should be stricken from the memory of men
and all public and private records showing
that Dave Num- ever existed should be
annihilated. The infamy attaches to the
country and may Get into some obscure page
Of history.