New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-08-20
any day, I'D show their faith by their

works.
We are asked to forget their history and
to accept ~ an atonement for the past tho
promise that they will become great re-
the fable of the two old rats, after having
laid waste the cheese room and the pantry,
asked admission to the new kitchen upon
the ground that they were reformed rats
who wished to change their business. and
knew how to keep out other animals of the
same character.
THE GREAT REFORNER.
Governor Tilden is an inveterate bachelor
of sixty six. q lifelong Democrat, and has
been for twenty years leader in his party
and closely Unidentified with all Of its most
of New York politics, graduate OF Tam
| many Hall, disciple of the resolutions Of
| '98, an ardent sympathizer with the rebel
lion, he completely filed the character
known during the war as the C0pperhead.
Mr.. Kelly and other leading Democrats,
before the nomination, earnestly described
Mr.. Tilden as q railroad wrecker, q char
no deals in broken down railroads and
puts them on their feet again, in which pro-
cess the original stock and bOndhOlders lose
their entire Investment and the assets pass
chiefly into the wrecker's hands. They
described him IS q lawyer who seldom sp-
pesred in court, and boldly affirmed that
he had thus made q fortune of 81, DOC, 900
to $40, 00O 600. When ships are cast upon
rock. bound coast the wreckers come down
upon them, often numbering the surviving
mariners and always robbing them of
every valuable thing.
REFoRMER MoRRIssEY AND OTHERS.
It is well known that John Morrissey, the
prize fighter and world renowned gambler,
oh o<
had more to do with his nomination than
any other dozen men, and that MOrrissey's
gilded gambling hell was the Tilden head
quarters at Saratoga last summer and will
be this.
1t has occurred not unfrequently in the
worlds history that the greatest thieves
and plunderere, after they had laid in 9 suf-
ticient store of wealth, have turned re-
formers and put the world to shame by
their exhibition of SUPERIOR virtue. How
many kings and r0bber barons, after lives
of murder, rapine and sack of cities, have
made atonement by founding churches and
monasteries, thus disgorging small part
of their blOod-stained plumber, and then
died in the odor of sanctity and took their
places among the saints. Tweed, when he
was overtaken by misfortune, was not so
rich a. Tilden; but it is an open secret that
he had in contemplation, after continuing
business q year or two longer, to turn re-
former and become the regeneratOr Of the
public and private morals of New York.
Tweed's benevolent purpose was defeated
by the untimely publication of specific evil
dence of his crimes, of which his friends
were compelled to take notice. He had for
q number of years been at the head of the
Tammany Society of New York, of which
Tilden was Q leading member and
sachem. This Tsmmsny Society had for
twenty-five years been regarded by
many as the most corrupt political
organization in the w0rld-emphatically q
brotherhood of thieves, and close corpOr-
alton to which none but the most distin-
complete admiralty jurisdiction in the adju-
dication and distribution Of political prizes
in the State of New York, and aspired to
extend it over the United States, and did
VIGOROUSLY control the Democratic National
Convention in 1868. That Tweed and his
gang were the champion thieves of the ma
ton had been as we'll known for years be-
believed while Tilden and he were in sworn
fraternity in Tammany Hall as when Tweed
was in the penitentiary. But when, in 1871,
the New York Times published the specific
proofs of his vast villainies, the courts,
grand juries. and every man in public life
were compelled to take notice, and then
Tilden, as q matter of self-preservati0n,
dence, and rendered valuable services as
prosecuting witness and attorney, as he
knew where to find the evidence and to
put his finger on the different transactions.
If the criminality of Tweed and bis Tam
many gang had not been notorious for
years, or if Tilden had turned prosecutor
and witness before their exposure, his char
acter as a retormer would stand better
than it does.
IS IT PROBABLE OR EVEN POSSIBLE!
To me- it seems highly improbable that a
man tho has for thirty years been the as
sociate and counsel of the stock gamblers
of Wall street, who for many years lived
with Tweed in sworn fraternity in Tam
many Hall and was bis co-operator in the
foul politics of New York, and who has
wrecked go many railroads, can be q con-
scientious and patriotic man. If the pub
lshed, and 80 far az know the uncOntra-
dicted accounts of bis manipulation of the
Chicago and Fond du Lac, the Galena and
Chicago, Kenosha and Richford, Grand
Rapids, Harlem extension, the Peninsular
of Michigan and other railroads that might
be named, are true, he and q email ring
with whom he operated have, under the
forms of law, taken from the companies and
stockholders millions of dollars. 1t seems
impossible to distinguish the Continental
Improvement Company. of which he was
the originator, from the Credit MObilier, and
the evidence of Cakes Ames before the
Mr.. Tilden as the original adviser and
counsel of that notorious and deadly insti-
tuition known as the Credit Mobilier. 1t is
asking too much of human credulity to be-
lieve that man who has thus lived and
tiourished, and grown rich and gray, can
have the spirit Of true refOrmer or be
governed by any other moti1 than the lust
of power.
CHICAGO CONVENTION
Tilden and Hendricks were both men,
bers of the Chicago convention in 1864, held
in the midst of the last great struggle with
the rebel army, when it was apparent that
from the North, and united in framing that
reasonable declaration that the war was .
failure and ought to De abandoned. That
declaration made at the time and under the
circumstances was q political crime of the
first magnitude, and in any other country
in the world struggling with armed traitors
would have been punished as high treason.
GREENBAcKs.
When greenbacks were first created as q
wsr measure in 1862 they were violently op-
posed by the entire Democracy as unconsti
tutional, which they held as to everything
calculated to help put down the rebellion.
Mr.. Hendricks stated in 1863 that the paper
OF the State banks was q better currency,
when he knew the war could not be carried
on with that paper. In 1867, after the war
was over, Mr.. Pendleton conceived the idea
of adopting the greenbacks and issuing
enough to pay the national debt. This
would at once repudiate the debt and des
troy the greenbacks and kill off two of the
hated agencies in putting down the rebel
lion. Hendricks accepted this idea, and
made his race upon it for Governor in 1868,