The Portland daily press., 1877-12-18
TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. is.

in spite of spirit Of disaffection, the mean
est and most paltry example of which occurred
in his own home.
AT this point hostilities should have ceased.
liz never had been a war of Conkling against
the administration, but of the administration
against Conking. He had been on the defen-
sive all the while. But no sooner were the lau-
res of triumph placed upon the brow OF our
Senator than the President consents to an act
which he knows perfectly well will force him
to assume an attitude of resistance. The NOM
nations of Roosevelt and Prince completed
the drama of blunders which the admnistra-
ton had been playing before the country with
the scene laid in New York. So far as the
places are concerned they are of no consequence
to Mr. Conkling But he was not to bs de-
ceived as to the motives which impelled the
effort to supersede Messrs. Arthur and Cornell.
They were to be removed because they were his
friends and Roosevelt and Prince were to be
appointed because they were friends of Mr..
Eyarts. That is the old-fashioned doctrine OF
rewarding friends and furnishing enemies
which tits customary to hear 'reformers'' de-
claim against even while they are practicing it.
1t is extremely probable that the adminstra-
ten over estimated its ability to accomplish
the end it sought. Indeed it is extraordinary
that it proved SO deficient in resources. But
the President had a warning in the adverse re-
port of the Committee on Commerce and the
laying over of the nominations at the extra SEES
sion, which he would have done we'll to profit
by. The New York representatives endeavored
to do him good turn by joining in a request
that he would let the matter rest II was
such polite thing to do that it is difficult to
comprehend why he should have neglected 80
opportune a method of extrication from an
awkward dilemma. He seems to have been
pushed on by the advice of the two secretaries,
who, however cratic they may be in their po-
litical affiliations are consistent always in their
opposition to Conkling
At any rate the Senator has no reason to
complain. He can stand it il they can. He
has chivalrously interposed to prevent two
friends from being sacrificed on account of
their fidelity to him and to their party, and he
has saved the Republicans the reproach of hav-
ing through an Executive who was their choice
removed competent public servants without
cause and thereby trampled on that essential
article of civil service reformation which depre-
Gates every form and phase of prescription.
Seine Of the newspapers pretending to give
accounts of what took place in secret session,
reveal the inaccuracy of their conjectures by
the nature of their statements. 1t is not an
easy matter to procure precise reports through
a key hole, especially when there Is a consider
able space between the door and the nearest
Senatorial desk. One journal ludicrously de-
scribes Mr.. Conkling as saying that Mr.. Roose-
welt was his 'bitter personal enemy, the fact
being that there never has been anything per-
sonal between them, for the sufficient reason
that the Senator never to his knowledge
saw the rejected nominee. He is also rep
resented as having adopted a suppIicating tone
in his appeal to his brother Senators for
their assistance, story that will strike every
body who knows Mr.. Conklirg as being ex-
quisitely ridiculous. But the fact is that no
human being who has no better sources of in
formation than newspapers 10 respect to the
character and attributes of our Senator can
form any adequate conception of him. The
density of ignorance which prevails 10 this city
in respect to him among men who are intelli-
gent about almost everything else except poll
tics is simply amazing. The falsehood and
nonsense that is altered about him in our daily
sheets if it were gathered together in a series
OF volumes would give the public quickening
sense of the base uses to which printers ink
may be applied. Happily their inconsistency
and extravaganza neutralize their effect and
there he is SO completely panopled against su,-
cessful attack by the recttude of his life and
the loftiness of his aims, that he is out of the
reach of the shafts of detraction and SANDER.
Unquestionably the most impudent mode of
vituperation TO which his calumniators resort is
in drawing comparisons which place him on
lower moral plane than that assigned to men
whose principal political stock in trade
consists in the effrontery with which they claim
monopoly of all the cardinal virtues. There
is as much difference between the sincere and
earnest public man who follows in the straight
line of duty with fearless independence and the
charlstan who is perpetually prating of his own
merits and the shortcomings of everybody else,
as there is between refined gold and glistening
tinsel YARMOUTH.