Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1876-09-07
Personal Vituperation IN Congress

Ever since the Chicago Times came
under its present management it has
gone upon the supposition that a
newspaper is nothing if not abusive.
1t is continually twitting the Journal
of being respectable, as if that were
the objectionable sin of tie press
But change has come over its spirit
In its issue of the 9th it enters a
solemn, almost lugubrious protest
against personal vituperation in
politics" 1t is the best joke of the
season. 1t is as if Jake Rehm should
piously cross himself and call upon
the citizens of Chicago to be honest,
or tie vilest drab of the "patch"
should steal a nuns street suit and
distribute tracts on virtue at female
prayer meetings. Crawling out of
the sewer of malicious defamation,
with all its filth clinging to its dirty
rags and polluting the air, it whines
out depreciation of the very course
it has always pursued, and is still
pursuing. at this moment its editor
is lowering on the borders of three
States, skulking in hole out of
which at an instant's warning he
could run beyond the jurisdiction of
the law, which is in pursuit of him
on a charge of criminal personal
vituperatior heaped upon a politician
in neighboring State.
Why this cant? 1t is the old
story, "When the devil was sick, the
devil a saint would be-" The De-
mocracy, of which the Times is now
an organ, started ont to conduct this
campaign on the line of personal
abuse, but has found it to be losing
game. When the hunter discovers
that his hounds are on the wrong
track, he sounds retreat. The party
managers are trying to call off their
dogs.
1t is not strange that the Democrats
adopted at the outset the policy of
personal assault. They were COM
PEELED to do so, or to surrender uncon-
ditionally. There is not principle
of the Republican party which has
not been so abundantly vindicated by
events that the opposition was under
the necessity of endorsing it. An
examination of the St Louis plat
form in tho light of the Cincinnati
platform shows that the only differ
ence Except in finance, and the
Democracy tried to stradle that fence),
is that while the one indorses the
record of the Republican party, the
other indorses the principles of the
Republican party, but condemns the
party itself. The Democratic plat
form may be summed up without an
important omission in these words !:
the Republican principles are all right,
but the Republican politicians are all
wrong. Finding nothing but
personalities to assail, the policy
adopted was "Uobson's choice" The
fact that the lower house of Congress
was in their hands favored them. 1t
enabled them to spy out every nook
and corner of Republican administra-
ton. Some thirty different smelling
committees were turned loose upon the
records of the Republicans, and never
did sleuth. hounds hunt for prey with
greater persistence and vehemence
than did those committees. Early
and late they ransacked the fields of
Office. Not track did they fail to fol-
low from end to end not hole did
thew leave unexplored. Everywhere
they searched, and the least little in
dication of corruption set all the pack
into a perfect frenzy OF barking. AL
most from the day Congress met until
now the air has been full of the sound
of their bayiug. Hardly any one es-
caped. President Grant was to be
proved a member of the whisky
ring and Belknap no worse
than the rest of the Cabinet
From the day Congress met unit
almost the present hour, the press anC
speakers of the Democracy pursued
the traduction policy with the utmost
zeal. Suddenly change has come
They loath SANDER and despise scan
dial.
Notwithstanding the fact that the
Republican candidate for the Presi
dency has been in official life muct
longer than his opponent, the expecta
ton that he would be vulnerable and
his antagonist protected behind thu
breastworks of obscurity, has beer
signally disappointed. Nothing de
rogatory to Governor Hayes has bee,
found. A General Hayes did some
thing or other once which was not "oI
the square," but it was not Rutherford
B. but some man down East. Not
solitary blot can be found upon him