The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-07-24
GRANT IN 1850.

The Sentinel has upon frequent occasions
made light of the proposition for which the
st. Louis Globe-DsmOcrat is to be credited,
that General Grant is the one available
publican candidate for the presidency in
$780, 1t would scarcely be worth the time
fol any one to treat the proposition seri
ously, if it were not that some of General
Grants more influential enemies, of his own
party, have become alarmed at the readiness
with which the suggestion of his candidacy
has been accepted, and have begun to draw
the hounds off the scent" by assigning any
but the true reasons for the hope which is
in his adherents
Very likely the Globe-Democrat did not
have in mind the real secrets of Grants
popularity. Very likely the proposition
came more from the feelings of gratitude
which the chief stakeholder of that high
newspaper compound of religion and
veriIity naturally entertains towards
the ex-chief magistrate; and very likely the
editor, discerning both the gratitude and the
popular drift, so combined them that out of
the recognition of the movement grew a
happy thought and happy self-advertise-
ment
But, however the nomination may have
come to pass, there Is a tidal-wave of demand
in the mass of the republican voters for
Grants nomination that is daily gaining aud
will soon be of overwhelming force. That
"he is needed to save society"-to protect
us against anarchy and impending dissolu
ton of social order''-to ''quell the insur-
'rection of communicable be 1.-The forlorn
hope of the laboring masses"-to "gulde
with the clear head of craftsmanship the
troubled natlon"-to ''see that the great es-
'sentals of life, liberty, property, the due ex-
'ecution of all. the laws shall be protected and
carried QUITO "rescue the PROSTATE south
from the unholy hands of the democracy
or do any other thing that either a true
patriot or his bette NOR, rampant
radical partisan, might do, is all pure SEN
sation An imperialism under Grant has its
adherents, but they are yet too few and the
times too unripe, and the idea too strongly
obnoxious to the American principle, to be
more than passingly noticed at present. IL
Grant is nominated the movement will
grow.
But the immediate facts are: First-That
the republican party is seized of the idea
that military executive is the safest A
soldier to use the army to control the people,
the army at all times at the behest of the
soldier president, the GENERALIZATION of all
federal power under a military domination,
has come to be the ideal form of republican
government in the mind of republican parti-
sans Aarshais of court in citizens dress
although thousands of them may be on hand
at the polls, as in 1876, are after all but COM
mon men, and may not inherit The exercise
of the voters rights; but police in blue
clothes with U. S. on their breast plates and
musket in nand, would be mighty and
might prevail. That Grant inelines u such
an idea Of government was shown by his
course, with the congress to back him, in
1876. Grants military habit of reticeuce is
in his favor- 1t undoubtedly apbesred
many times during his eight years of service
that he kept his mouth shut as well from
the want of knowledge of what ought
to have been said as from the want
OF facility ia speaking, or the
mere habit of keeping dumb But
the people don't know that They think of
him a man who has not made a fool of
himself by pen and ink or by garrulity, and
worship him for wisdom be never uttered il
he ever had it. 1t the dumb oracle of
Athens who most controlled the unlettered
Greeks, until it was shown that the dumb
oracle could not have talked anyway.
Second. Grants us inertia Is apparently
his own. HIS luck of position and lldog-
gedness, and not great military ability, made
him general Of the army at the close OF the
conflict. His generalship-in title-gave
him the presidency, and when he got there
he had wit enough, as well as fTnness