The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1876-07-05
SAMUEL j. TILDEN.
The Kind of a Man He Is.
A PEN PICTURE BY GATH.


A PEN PICTURE BY GATH.
TILDEN's CHARACTER CAMPAIGNS
HIS POLITICAL PRINCIPLES AND PECU.
LIARITIEs-CAN HE CARRY NEW YORK?
Gath, George Alfred Townsend, writes
the Cincinnati Enquirer as follows con-
corning our candidate: No two men, run
ming agair st each other for the same office
have reached the beads OF their parties 80
differently as Hayes and Tilden. Hayes is
young, unembarrassed, sapling growth.
| pushed forward by propitious seasons and
not retarded by a little bloodshed laid
around the roots. Tilden is an old, stunt
ed knot or trunk, kept back by old age,
and then suddenly Towering and starting
| forward. Something seems to have sat
upon him and kept him down until, by an
accident, the yoke slipped of, the fingers
took leaf, and mankind exclsimed: "Who
the deuce thought there was any vitality
therew Mr.. Samuel Tilden has lived
in New York forty years, and has
grown rich here by acting as
counselor and srrsnger of large corpor
tions and forms OF property-work that
| required the greatest patience, versatility
and dexterity. He bad to find out the
condition OF such property, manage legis
lation concerning 1t, bring together or keep
apart its rival owners and claimants, pull
mortgages from beneath or pile them on
the top, travel, write letters, slip things in
the newspapers and money columns, go to
the higher courts, compromise, sell at auc
ton, foreclose; in short, perform the en-
tire chicanery of business at the greatest
money center of the country aud at the
state capital, where the laws are made
and applied.
TILDEN's CHARACTER.
With q Drottv lOnU oxnarianao in ruh1io
manhood and career, am at a loss to un-
derstsnd a mind like Tilden's. He is at
once thorough and cute, small and pro-
found, mean and mighty. The work he
had to do was often on great scale, and
the processes he had 10 employ so sinister,
at times, as to deserve the name of shys-
teriDg. He lacked the dramatic quality
and personal presence, and although am
bilious from boyhood for political consid-
Grafton, never received any reward for
such devotion and industry except petty,
unOroamental places. Thepoliticisns "sse
down" upon him. He gave many
hint of his wishes to receive the
nomination for this or that Office,
but they made a mule-criver and
psck-siave of him, and grumbled even
that he should be kept chairman of the
state committee of the party, where he had
to do huge amount of iactotum work.
In snort, ne WAS 10 new 1OTk
what John @. Thompson is to Ohio politics
-almoDer, Mordecsi, bottle-washer, sit
ting in the receipt of customs and pinned
to the coat-tails OF statesmen-a kind of
heelbsrrow to greatness 1t cost Sammy
Iilden $4,000 TO be elected to the state
senate OF New York late in life, while other
men could have gone tor five hundred or
thousand. They bled bim because they
thought it was too muca presumption,
and
he WAS TOO READY FOR THE SACRIFICE.
In the Legislature he wanted to get an
honorary vote to preside, and it was re-
garded as a joke. This happened only
four or five years ago. 1 heard Hussed
the bald-headed speaker OF the assembly.
say that Horace Greeley and Sam 1ilden
were a good deal alike, ootn secretly COW
etOus OF nonors, and sullen because tney
were never conferred. All this is singular
because 1ilden' was willing to spend
money out of his large wealth TO receive
political fayors. Indesd the reason he
never got nominated nor honurs was his
want of masculine, fraternal, political
character. Big-shOuldered, hsil-fellow,
scramble-handed politicians looked upon
him as little fellow hanging around, a
tolersble SORT OF useful nuisance, like a
house-fiy or an undertaken. He wasn't
frank enough; he didn't swear as we did
in Flanders; he insInusted too much that
be thought he was fit. II, therefore,
anne to pass that when Samuel j.
Tllden, at q pretty ripe age, received the
nomination of governor OF New York, 1t
was given to him like barren scepter,
foredoomed defeat. The party had been
completely routed in the metropol and
the state by OBrien's Tweed exposures,
through the New York Times. Nobody
wanted to hold up the bespattered ban
m and add his the iOfnnmi MONS
muster-roll of TsmmsDy Hall. The honor
went begging. Judge Sanford K. Church
was offered it by acclaim alton and declined,
and even in the absence OF q candidate Ill
den would have been refused the nomina-
ton, had he not worked for it with every
unequal energy. IL was his only chance.
He brought to bear all patience, entreaty
and anxiety, and they ssid "For hesv
ems sake let him get this and be defeated,
as he will, so he won't poster us any
more"
TILDEN's CAMPAIGN.
The old chap took the nomination and
went to work like a rat. He literally
crswled over the whole ground, working
night and day, with nearly Sublime pa
tience. He had a residence in New York
city, on 'Grammercy Park, and there were
q score, some say, OF clerks and copyists
and lithograph presses, auditing books,
the census, an arithmetic and q cslculat-
ing mscbine employed there. He could
take the square root OF Csttaraugus coun-
~ by holding a glass of brandy between
his eye and the fire, and reducing the OPP
position there to an equstion. He fought
old General Dix, his opponent, by alge-
brsic squares, and exhausted him log
aritbmically. Cunning as badger, creep |
ing as a terrapin, Newtonian IN his range
of view, and am bilious as the devil, this lit |
tie old man, threatened with psrslys sis. coH
frbDied with old age, without domestic
comp Anion, and folding his Geld bones
away In feather beds 10 keep on the earth
az all, fought ID to the wall, beat him by
substrac. ion, aud was sinsugurated amid
profound surprise. As Go not expect 20