The Portland daily press., 1877-10-09
Our New York Letter.
Senator ConkliEgs p osition-The Union
League Ciub-A Bright Outlook in New
York

AS Anticipated, the furry occasioned by the
telegraphic reports of the proceedings .of the
Rochester Conventions TASTED barely nine days
in fact it became very zsphyr-like at the end of
the third day. 1t turned out. as supposed it
would, that all the statements .about Senator
Conkling's attitude were: glaring .perversions
of truth; that he not only did not say nor
do anything adverse to the administration, but
that he exerted his influence effectively to re-
strain the majority from giving form and ex-
preston to their opposition to the Presidential
"policy." More than this, there Is no doubt
whatever that If he had not been a member of
the body or its recognized adviser, it would
have been extremely difficult to have excluded
from the platform an emphatic disavowal of
any faith in or sympathy with the course which
the gentlemen who have been managing the
government since the 4th of March, have pur-
sued. 1t really was no easy matter to pre-
vent the adoption by the committee on resolu-
tions OF declaration decidedly uncomplment-
ary to the administration. Mr.. Conkling was
the only man in tie state who could have him
dered it, and it required all his powers of argu-
ment and persuasion to accomplish the object.
What he had to say on the subject is. tersely
phrased in the frstl resolution which concludes
with the following words:
'We cherish the hope that the action taken
in relation to the southern states, will result in
peace, tranquility aud justice, and no act of the
Republicans of New York conducive to its
good effects shall be withheld"
The lSenator's speech breathes the same
spirit. Here is passage which describes the
neutral ground on which Republicans can stand
without danger of dscord:
"This is not an administration convention,
nor an an anti-admipistration convention. We
are not representatives of an administration
party nor of an ant-admiuistraton party. We
are Republicans. We represent great party.
That party has battle to fight Just now in
every locality and school district in the state.
Admins trations do not make parties. Parties
make administrations. Parties 20 before ad-
ILLUSTRATIONS and live after than. The people
make parties"
Now that the smoke and dust have cleared
away sufficiently to enable people to ascertain
precisely what did occur at Rochester, the men
who were wrought up to frenzy by iudamma-
tory kilograms and false reports of newspapers
appear in a very ridiculous light Some SYM
pathy ought to be felt for such of them, how.
ever las are well meaning albeit excessive
ly credulous and gullible. They are always an
easy prey to the Industrious Interviewer" He
catches them in the after-dinner hour of self
complacent garrulity, sometimes at their homes
and more frequently at their clubs. He prac-
tices at first upon their vanity and when he has
convinced them that the public is listening
breathlessly for their opinions on the matter in
hand, proceeds artfully to lead them on to
avowals the extravaganza and folly of which
fhaxy l:1o &c t;1 81
them in print next morning. When it is too
late to recede they feel impelled by sense of
mortified pride to plunge in deeper, and before
they are aware of it, they find themselves mex.
tricably entangled in factious conspiracies, the
effect of which, so far as any effect from them
is possible, is to foment discord in the ranks of
the party they profess allegiance to. and to
keep alive petty animosties and jealousies that
ought to be stamped out of existence, instead
of being famed into fame.
The Union League Club is unfortunate in
the extraordinary susceptibility of a few of its
members to these demoralizing influences.
There are not more than a score or two of them
but like bundle bee in camp meeting they
are able to make great, disturbance Ordina-
rily it is impossiblesto shake the torpor of this
eminently conservative and respectable body
1t sleeps TRANQUILITY amid scenes of wrong-doing
beneath its very eyes that ought to quicken its
every pulse to action. But once in great
while it starts up as if it had had an electric
shock and for day or two the newspapers are
full of accounts of. what it thinks and what it
is going to do. This noise is made, to be sure,
by very few persons, but what of that? We
a thrilling melodrama and hear the reverbera.
tion of stage thunder and the flashes of proper
ty lightning, to speculate as to the number or
quality of the workfolks behind the curtain
who are producing these startling scenic effects.
Similarly when we read long lists of names and
elaborate accounts Of proceedings originating
with the Club aforesaid, it is hardly worth
while to obscure the glitter of the spectacle by
recalling the fact that the whole thing is the
doing of one or two persons and that not more
than twenty were even passive lockers on while
it all happened.
After all, it is not SO much.evil intent as it is
a strange mania for promulgating resolutions
that incites these periodical paroxysms in an OF
ganization noted rather for its lack than excess
of animation. The average attendance at its
monthly meetings is between seventy-fve and a
hundred. Every time they "resolute" they CON-
NIT the nine hundred and odd numbers who are
never present to views or theories concerning
which they have never been consulted. There is
no particular power perhaps in all this 1t doesn
amount to much any way Hereabouts where
the whole thing is understood its fruits are i'm
palpable. At distance it may and doubtless
l.. L.
there have been a few notable instances in
which the Club has been betrayed into the
commission of follies which cannot have failed
| to impair the popular confidence in its wisdom
| Its arraignment of Greeley and attempt to visit
| censure upon him for signing jeff. Davis's
| bond was an extremely childish performance
| And yet it was by a very close vote and after a
much more exciting debate than any that has
occurred since, that the Club was dissuaded
| from perpetrating the egregious blunder of
meddling with matter wherewith properly it
had no concern whatever. Its enlistment a
year ago last spring in the interests of South
ern Presidential candidate in preference to the
far more able and equally upright citizen of
New York who would have honored the Exec
utive Office, was effected by piece of political
| iegerdemain played by two men one of whom
did not even belong to the club. A third of
the seventy-five members who voted for it may
| have been let into the secret of its origin and
purpose, but the other two-thirds were dupes of
a bit of strategy worthy of the Tammany ring
They walked into the trap as unsuspectingly as
possible, vociferously declaring all the while
against machine politicians
In the small gronp who run this lsbora.
tory of artificial public opinion there are several
gentlemen who are violently inimical to Mr..
Conkling. 1t happens to every public man to
encounter enmties in the discharge of his du'
ties whether be deserves them or not. He is
asked to do so many things that are impossible