The New York herald., 1876-12-16
Lot Governor n.ye. speak Out.


fairly elected to the Presidency. That is an
opinion in which many of his fellow citizens
agree with him and many others do not.
But as he has said so we do not doubt that
he, at least, sincerely believes that he has
1S5 votes in the Electoral College.
Very well now, then, let him declare his
policy The time has come the air is full
of rumors and reports of what he intends !;
there are even stories Of private promises
and intrigues which are not quite credita-
BILE to him, and which, therefore, we do not
choose to believe for the present; but it
seems to us that on many accounts the time
has come for him to make public declara-
tion Of his policy We ask that he shall do
SO, not in the name or tor the sake Of the
politicians Of either side. whose anxieties
we can afford to regard with great CON-
placency we ask it for the people, who,
when they hear that Governor Hayes believes
himself elected, instantly want to know
what sort of man he is whom they may
see in the White House after the next
4th of March. What they want to know is
whether Governor Hayes sticks to his
letter of acceptance, or whether he
has surrendered to the politicians, the
Chambers, Camerons, Mortons, Logans,
Pattersons, Chamberlains, Kelloggs, to
whom there is no doubt he owes his cleo
ton, and who will set up o claim to rule
him if he really becomes President. That
is real, q vital and proper question for
the people to ask, and, we conceive, for
Governor Hayes now to answer not in a
corner, not in private conversations with
leading or would-be leading politicians, but
publicly and frankly.
If any one should object that the people
have no right to demand such confidence
from Mr.. Hayes, and that the demand has
no precedent, we reply that the nature of
the canvass which Mr.. Hayes supporters
made and his attitude toward it and them
are also without precedent. Consider for
moment what this was The Republican
Convention promised civil service re-
form and general paciication. Gov
ernor Hayes in his letter of accept
once, deliberately and carefully intensi-
fed these promises. Thereupon his
political allies began q canvass in which
they mentioned neither Mr.. Hayes, nor his
letter, nor his character or public services,
nor their platform, but gave their whole
time to set and deliberate attempt to 'fre
the Northern heart" and to revive the war
feeling, and actually misused not only the
civil service, but the military service also, to
carry the election, carrying their partisan
demands on government clerks and other
office-holders to an unprecedented extreme
This course of theirs lasted three full
months, and during that whole period Gov
ernor Hayes, the unmentioned candidate,
the man in whose name oil this was done
and who was said by his friends to be hos
tile to the whole of it, was silent.
We say that the situation is without
precedent in our political history. Never
before has party conducted it's canvass
deliberately and entirely on grounds dia-
metrically opposed to the declared princi-
pies and policy of it's candidate. Hence the
people are naturally and properly anxious
to know where that candidate stands. 1t
seems to us they have q right to know. Has
he been swallowed by Chandler, Cameron,
Patterson, Chamberlain, Kellogg, Morton
and the rest Or is he to-day the man he was
when he wrote his letter? That is very i'm
portant public question, and it is this which
the whole country is asking In other times
the principles Of the candidate and those of
the party were identical, and there was no
need for inquiry about policy which was
shouted from every stump in the land. But
now it is very different, and this difference
is caused by Mr. Hayes himself.
1t might, to be sure, be taken for granted
that Mr.. Hayes had been captured by his
wicked partners" and that, being elected
by their efforts and never having protested
against either their policy or their acts dur
ing the canvass, he would accept them and
fling in his fortunes with theirs. This
would be natural conclusion were it not
that, no sooner was the election really over,
than reports were spread that Mr..
Hayes stood by his letter and his
own policy. A Cincinnati correspond
ent of the HKRALD, two weeks ago,
gave us, apparently on good authority, q
systematic account of Mr.. Hayes proposed
policy, asserting that he intended thor
ough reform of the civil service and total
exclusion from Office and influence of all
who had been prominent under the present
administrations that he would call
one or two prominent Southern men,
of the character of Mr.. Lamar
and General Hampton, into his Cabi-
net; that he would take the advice Of
such men as to the conduct of Southern
affairs, and, to use the words of ex-President
woolsey, ''put Southern men in Southern
federal Offices" This account of Mr.. Hayes
proposed. policy was generally bruited
abroad for some time it came to us finally
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