The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1877-04-07
Scrap OF Recent History.
IChicaro Times.I

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If any man in the American Republic
is entitled TO place faith in the heaIfen-
ish doctrine of lucky star, that man is
Rutherford B. Hayes. He has risen to
his present eminence by a succession of
lucky chances. Fate has crowned him.
In the war, thousand colonies were as
brave and efficient as he. Save for his
wounds common enough in those days,
his military service was in no way dis
tinguished. He did not attain national
reputation as soldier. Beaten only
once 70. Congress, in the two terms he
did serve there was nothing in his career
to signal him out from the common herd
upon the floor. He might have been Gov
ernor of Ohio through hundred terms
and never have been thought of for
the Presidency but for the, to him, happy
combination of circumstances which
rendered it absolutely necessary to the
defeat of Blaine that his opponents in
the Cincinnati Convention should unite
upon man who had not been identified
with the struggle for the prize. His luck
1t is highly probable that any other Re-
publican, at least any mentioned prom
inently for the Presidency, would have
been defeated beyond the hope of return
ing board resurrection. After the cleo
ton, with the majority of the people
against him and having but minority
of the electoral college, his lucky star
led him into the white house with a title
to its tenancy which his opponent did
not formally dispute.
Hayes, in his various personal successes
of public kind, was indebted more to
circumstances and to his negative good
ness than to positive merit. Thus so in
consequential thing as. the Bible in or
rather out of the schools, contributed in
directly but positively to his nomination
to the Presidency. The reasoning in sup
port of this assertion is not too fanciful.
It may be assumed with something of
certainty that if Hayes had not been Gov
ernor of Ohio in 1876, with prestige of
having beaten and succeeded William
Allen, he would not have been thought
OF for the Cincinnati nomination. How
came he by the Ohio nomination in 1876?
He had been Governor before and was
in excellent standing with his party in
the State, but according to one of those
bargains which have no binding force in
either law or ethics, but pass as obliga-
tions among politicians, on the principle
of honor among thieves, he was not en-
titled to the nomination. He
had been party to promise
that it should fall TO TAFT,
who was in the field soliciting it, and
who IN previous campaigns, If we re-
member, had made way for Hayes. But
it was feared that Taft was not the man
to beat Allen, and The retention of Ohio
in the Republican column for 1876 de-
pended upon Wrestling the State from
the control of that statesman. The
Pope's Toe had been thrust into the
canvass. 1t was claimed, absurdly
enough, that the Catholic clergy were
seeking to gain control OF the public
school system. A part of the Kepubli-
can plan was to pose as the champion
of the public schools and the implaeable
foe of clerical interference in secu lar af-
fairs. The Protestant heart was to be
fired. But Taft, it was felt, was not the
man to bear aloft this standard. His
heart was in the cause, but that but
was one of those big-little things that
demagogues are always interposing
with an air of great concern, not
unmixed with mystery. 1t was moth"
ing more nor less than the fact that
while upon the supreme bench of the
State Taft had given a decision which
was in accordance no less with the law
than with good sense and common hon
esty. The school board of Cincinnati,
after long and rancorous agitation, had
decided to dispense with Bible-reading
in the common schools. Their power
to do this was questioned in the courts,
and when it reached the tribunal upon
which Taft sat he saw no difficulty in
determining that the action of the board
was wholly within its discretion. That
was all. He did not even indulge the
dictum that not only had the board
the power to exclude the Bible, but that
it was but exact fairness to the Papists,
free thinkers, Jsraelites, Mohammedans,
Spiritualists, and the various sects of
Protestanism supporting the schools, 70
exercise it. But it was enough for the puri-
tan element of the Western Reserve that
he had gone 80 far. In the intensity of
their bigotry they could not see that
Taft had done nothing but his obvious
duty. They insisted that such recreant
should not lead them in an encounter
with the emissaries of Catholicism,
and it was speedily apparent that not
withstanding the bargains Of the slate
makers, to which Hayes was a party,
Taft could not secure the nomination.
Seeing himself that this was SO, Taft with
drew in favor of Hayes, who, as an adyo-
cate of the policy of having no ones re-
ligion but your own in the public schools,
or, rather, as one who hadn't any record
on the subject, was unanimously chosen.
Thus it was that the Pope's big toe
aided in elevating Mr.. Hayes to the Presi-