New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-03-20
Mr.. COX,S NEW MONUMENT.

| Not least singular among the qualities whlch
90 to make up the remarkable combination III
the character of our Mr.. Samuel Cox, is what
may be called his suddenness. He is so liable
to break out unexpectedly; to come upon
| the country with a sort OF bounce
from some cover where no one sus-
pected he had hiding, and with some
strange proposition or unheard-of scheme.
| Now, who would have supposed that on Mon
| day, during the morning hour, he would nave
pulled on the House bill for the erection OF
a monument to Thomas Jefferson. Nothing
that he had said or done in the House
since the beginning of the session could
remind any one OF MIR. Jefferson. Ills
able remarks, made in the honest Ter
"vOr of the moment" concerning fraud
his speech in reply to Mr.. Hewitt, his attitude
toward the Silver Bill, and his position III
general upon political questions, remind one OF
ANYBODY sooner than of jefferson. And yet here,
almost at the first pause In the proceedings
after the fraud debate, he steps briskly up with
this bill to erect monument to Jefferson. why
no one would have thought from reading Mt.
Cox's speeches that he had ever heard OF such
a man as Jefferson, least of all that he knew
enough about him, or believed enough In him,
to interest himself in the erection OF monu-
ment to his memory.
As to the details of this proposition we are
in darkness. We know nothing of the plans
or specifications, the materials or the dimen-
sions. Only this: that Mr.. Cox, without any
apparent provOcation, with nothing in the
House or out of it TO remind him OF the de-
parted statesman, suddenly breaks the mon0t-
ony of financial discussion and fraud debates
and high talks over economy and the approprla-
tons with, "Ah, by the way, let us erect a
monument to Thomas Jefferson" There
have been occasions hitherto when the lnspir-
alton of Mr.. Cox's cratic behavior could be
traced, as was thought, to the office OF Mr.
Controller Kelly IN this city. 1t has been in
timated that it was in obedience to positive
orders from those headquarters that he let go
the shadowy hold OF the Speakership which ne
had in expectancy, to go to st. Louis and de-
feat the nomination of Mr. Tilden, and it has
been sometimes said that Mr.. Kelly was the
source of all of Mr. Cox's inspiration. But in
this matter we are unable to trace the hand Of
the Controller What does Mr.. Kelly want of
a monument over Mr.. Jeiferson's gravel Mani
festly nothing. The particular monument Mr..
Nelly wants 10 see eTtctcu just Ho" II o'Ci
Mr. Tilden, and we doubt if he cares the toss
of a copper about the grave of any Demo-
cratic statesman who has been dead as long
as Thomas Jefferson.
Mr. Cox's proposition, therefore, is not
only sudden and abrupt, but quite unaccoGnt-
able. If Il monument would keep down Mr.
Jefferson's ghost, so that it should not return
to haunt the men who have attached his
name to q Democracy which is no more
Jeficrsonian than Tammany Hall is Puritan,
we might understand this sudden solicitude.
But it cannot be that at this late period
they have begun to entertain any fears on
that score. If the ghost of the founder of
Democracy could ever have been reused to
revisit with his angry protest the councils OF
Democracy, it would have made Tammany
Hall untcnantablc long ere this. No; the
movement for monument must re-
main for the present mystery.
Perhaps, however. by and by Mr.. Cox
will call up the bill and make it his text for n
discourse on fraud or an attack on the Presi
dents title, or something equally pertinent and
proper. Until he does, we must be content to
call the whole affair one of Mr.. Cox's in
scrutabe mysteries.