Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-08-22
The President at Bennington.

W nateNer our cnlel magistrate may io- |
ceive or expect of criticism for his policy as |
reformer and pacifcator, it is obvious that |
deeper interest than that of criticism pos
sesses the great heart of the people, when |
it comes to an issue of actual loyalty of feel |
ing toward the appointed head of the ma
ton. Notwithstanding all trite sayings to
the contrary, the people of republic like
this-those who quietly think and feel with
out much public expression as professional
cynics or hypercritics, not ungrateful
and unappreciative of the profoundest quail
ties of their President and the bearing of
his acts. This was seen at Bennington as
at Troy and elsewhere during his late visit
to New England If he is at all anxious or
uncertain about the final reception and eff
feet of his civil service order, so-called, it
can only be lest it should prove gratuitous
backstroke at his hackers, which he would
have more trouble to reconcile with his own
thoughts of right and honor toward friends,
than it would cost him in courage to face
foes in course about which he had 10 mis-
givings of that kind. And his act must
bear only present seeming of ingratitude,
which will pass away as the better sense of
the country comes to realize more the pre-
found ndelicacy and consequent bad rflu-
ence of systematic self-seeking or dictation
to the people on the part of any administra-
ton with reference to itself or the future
as though the people were incapable or care
less of knowing and expressing their own
minds.
During the delivery of DIR. Bartletts force
ful and finished Grafton on Thursday, it
seemed to a sympathetic eye at near view,
that the President, who sat within an arms
length of the orator, Strengthened up in
wardly and took longer breaths of relief at
finding beside him man of such masculine
vigor and positiveness of moral tone ex-
pressing so fearlessly the spirit he himself
had to cultivate in sometimes alien at
mosphere. The pulpy joggley, man.fear-
ing temperament of politicians, who have no
well authenticated moral convictions, and are
professional time-servers, is not so good an
ing men like the orator on that occasion.
! Our Vermonters are, both in war and peace,
so sure and determined in knowing their
own minds, without regard to cavl or fear,
that they are even little cool and I'M
demonstrative of any feeling, until armed
opposition or decisive occasion arises for
them to fire up. And then everybody knows
where they are, SO was it with the veterans
Of last week at Bennington, when they were
soldiers, and so was it there when the closing
sentences of the Grafton concerning the
President, were uttered and applauded. His
countenance changed from the expression Of
patient, determined waiting for the future
sanction of events for his best convictions,
to an expression of full and deep satisfac-
ton, as in glad and unexpected revelation
of the same convictions in the evidently
him. And when called upon after dinner to
respond to the discriminating and most cor
dial compliment of the chairman, Mr.. Phelps,
who, by the way, presided from beginning to
ingenious plentude of happy phrase and
faultless urbanity and wit, which Curtis OF
a Holmes might envy, in the toast, not to
the President as an official merely, but to
- Rutherford b. Hayes, President of the
United States" so overcome was the latter
by the fervent sanction which the audience
gave to the sentiment that-asserting his in
ability adequately to express his great graf
itnde he desired-if he might without dis
courtesy, simply to take his seat in silence
A previous speech, Immediately after the
grafton, breathed the same spirit and proved
his mastery of thought and language suited
to the occasion for him. President of this
country cannot gable on harmessly about
many or any matters simply to "make a
speech every time his admirers choose tc
call upon him to talk.