Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1876-12-13
Grants East Annual Message.

Grants East Annual Message.
Grants message to Congress is
small, meagre, and unsatisfactory. OF
course, nobody expected he would
show any comprehension of the peril.
Gus political state Of the country, or
anything in the line of craftsmanship.
There will, therefore, be no disap-
pointment among those who look
through it.
AT the very beginning, as soon as
he has given the reminder that this
is his last annual message, he tries to
deprecate the Judgment Of justice aud
the animadvcrsion of his countrvmcn
upon his career as President by telling
that his misdecds have been the re-
suits Of his mexperience, and by
cloaking under the name of "errors'
and "mlstakcs" those unreasonable
enormities and that obstinacy in
wrong doing which have been the
main features OF his two terms Of Of
fee.
AS soon as he has got through with
this deprecatory passage, he adds to
it a string of those bald and dry sum-
mares Of the reports Of the depart
mepts, which form the bulk Of his
message and which were furnished to
him BY the members Of his Cabinet
or their assistants. There are the u.s.
ual paragraphs about foreign relations
from the State Department, none of
which calls for mention excepting
that in which fault is found with the
measures Of economy and retrench-
ment that We're enforced upon this de-
partment by the Democratic House at
its last session. There are a few par
agraphs about the army from the War
Department; but, in supplying them,
Don Cameron has RETAINED from say
ing anything about the recent and
present employment Of our military
forces in the Southern States. There
is q paragraph Or two about the navy;
but Robson here keeps clear Of all
those facts relating to its mismanage-
ment that would be Of real interest to
the country. 1t is rather singular that
we have no reference to and nothing
in the way of summary of the legal
opinions or operations of the Attor-
ney- General, Father Taft. We are
loath to think that Grant forgot him,
or that Taft himself has been kept so
busy as to be unable to furnish few
lines for the last annual message of
Grant, when he has no chance of ever
in another document of the
kind.
Having eked out several columns
with the department summaries,
Grant closes the message, as he had
begun it, with a few sentences that
are undoubtedly his own, though they
may have received the revisal and ap-
proval of all the minds in his Cabinet.
He takes hold, first, of the important
question, to which he calls the espec
ial attention of Congress, of "throw-
ing some greater safeguard over the
method of choosing and declaring the
election of President and remarks
that, "under the present system, there
seems to be no provided remedy for
contestiug the election in any one
State" This is a good opening of a
disquisition upon the great question
of the hour, and now that he has at
last reached it, we may surely expect
some enlightenment, or at least some
observations that will set people a
thinking. 1.-THE remedy he next
goes on to say, with happy facility
that leads US at once into the regions
of hope 1.-THE remedy" well, what is
it? Why, it is the establishment OF a
compulsory system of education, and
the Acknowledgement of all citizens