National Republican., 1876-06-29
THE ST. LOUIS NOMINEE.

THE ST. LOUIS NOMINEE.
Boss Kelley has been defeated and his
cohorts of Tammany roughs. thieves and
strikers have been put to flight. This is
the manner in which the Democratic
sham reformers will announce the nomi-
nation of Samuel ]. Tilden, of New York,
to be their candidate for President.
Thoughtful people, however, will quickly
remember that John Morrissey, the New
York pugIlist, gambler and anti-Tammany
rough; Bill McMullen, the rowdy Phila-
delphia alderman, and others of like
kidney, will return from the seething
streets and steaming bar-rooms of st.
Louis, the proud victors of q most inglo-
rious campaign. Starting out day or two
before the convention with less than
two hundred votes, Tilden, by the manip-
ulation of States, from many of which he
cannot get an electoral vote, managed to
secure the nomination on the second
ballot. All descriptions of the proceed
ings of the convention and attend
ant circumstances up to this point
agree that disgraceful disorder, wild con-
fusion, inebriety, street fighting. bar-room
brawls were the leading incidents. Thus
the great reform ticket promised by the
Democracy for the Centennial year was
conceived in debauchery and brought forth
in corruption. 1t cannot be that such
ticket will win the support of the intelli-
gent people of America or sufficient num-
Der of them to ensure its success.
But aside from this, the man who heads
the ticket has a record that will damn him
with lasting infamY in the estimation of
the average citizen. A peace Democrat
during the war; the author of the peace
plank in the Democratic platform of
1864, when Mr.. Lincoln on a war
platform swept the country with the
vigor of combined and enthusiastic loyalty;
a pretentious and scheming railroad law
yer; an uuprincipled swindler of his rail-
road clients, Samuel J. Tilden has risen
step by step upon the ladder Of Demo-
cratic fame until he has reached its topmost
round-has gained the greatest glory that
can be accorded TO any Democrat of this
day and generation, the honor of being
beaten by the Republican nominee for the
Presidency.
The little fame he has earned as a re-
former shrinks into nothingness when it is
subjected to close analysis in the light of
sober facts. When elected to be Governor
OF New York he found frauds existing in
the management Of canal affairs, and took
aHv of than ai1ad hrr ho ~ Of
venal cartoonists, to build for himself
reputation as the Great Canal Ring
Breaker. La doing this, however, he was
careful not to prosecute his Democratic
friends who were implicated in the frauds,
and very careful to persecute the Republi-
cans who were likewise connected. Sus-
tanned at all times by Republican officials
on the bench and in the Legislature of the
State in his efforts to expose fraud and cor
ruptioD, he succeeded in imposing his pre-
tended attempts at reform upon few peo-
pie outside of his partisan followers, for a
time, as solid and substantial realities.
They forgot for the time being that
he had been the associate and in
innate of Boss Tweed, and that
his political artfulness had been
learned at the feet of that great convict-fu-
gitlve. Within the past year, however,
the sober facts have been made apparent
SO plainly apparent that the delegates who
sustained him at St. Louis must have been
blind either to that which all intelligent
men know or to the interests of their party.
AS it is, Boss Tweed's bosom friend, his
trusted lieutenant, the man who always
subscribed literally to his campaign funds,
and the man who, when elected TO be Gov
ernor of New York, was only prevented
from pardoning him by the greatest posi-
bic moral pressure, is before the country,
and his character and past record thrown
open to dissection. His alleged popularity
is sheer buncombe. Well-posted residents
and active politicians at his own
home declare most positively that
he cannot carry his own county, while
every one who knows anything about his
last campaign knows that he descended to
the most contemplate tr.ckery TO secure
votes. Among other things every cham
bermaid, porter and hOstler in the State of
New York was supplied with copper-plate
tdc-similes of personal letters TO them from
the press of his brothers, who are engaged
in the patent-medicine business. This in
cident shows the low cunning Of the man,
the mean side of his character, combined
with which he possesses the most lofty as
plrations, and determination and a force
of will which, in the service of good
cause, would give assurance Of success.
But he is not statesman. has never rem
dered any service TO his feliow-men that
should distinguish him above others. and
unlike General Hayes, his Republican com
petitor, he has no record which will draw
about him the sober elements of the coun
try and develop any earnest or deep-seated
enthusiasm.