The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-02-02
Gail Hamilton Again.
Our Great-Grandfathers and their Civil
service-A Reviews in Four Paris-Mr.
Henry Cabot Lodge and the Great
Graudfathers Struggle Along, Via DoIor-
oso, to tho Conclusion of the Whole Mat.
ter.

"One corner of the curtain" says Colonel
Pickering, (which concealed the insincerity.
the duplicty, the falsehood of the Executive
has been lifted up. 1t will be raised still high
or, and all their deformity be exposed" "I am
disgusted with the men who now rule, At
some n manlfestations of their malignancy, 1 am
| shocked. The cowardly wretch at their head
| (this c, yardly wretch was Thomas Jefferson)
while, ike Partisan revolutionary monster,
pratlng about humanity, would feel an internal
pleasure in the utter destruction of his oppo-
nents. We have too long witnessed his gsner-
al turpitude, his cruel removals of faithful Off
Gers, and the substitution OF corruption and
loossness for integrity and worth. We have
now before the Senate a nomination of Merri-
weather Jones, of Richmond, editor of the Ex-
arHiner,a paper devoted to Jefferson and Jacob
ism; and he is now to be rewarded. Mr. Hop
Ains, Commissioner of Loans man of
property and integrity, is to give room for this
Jones' This commissioner may have at once
$4,000 in his hands to pay the public creditors
In Virginia. He is required by law to give
bonds only in sum from $4,000 to $4,000;
and Jones's character is SO notoriously bad
| that we have satisfactory evidence he could
not get credit at any store in Richmond for
suit of clothesp' 'Tn Short" says Colonel Pick
ering, corruption is the object and instrument
of the Chief, and the tendency of his admins
traitor, for the purpose of maintaining him
self in power. Corruption is the recommends
tion to Office Virtue and worth are his ene-
mics, and therefore he would overwhelm them
Depravity is the surest road to preferment."
| And Mr.. Cabot responds to these doleful senti-
| ments with still more doleful apprehensions
81 perceive with you that, bad as the times are,
| they are to become worse. My mind has for
many years been completely settled that the
fate of our country is inevitable. and all that
| good men can possibly do is only to mitigate in
| some degree, or defer calamities which no hu-
| man virtue and skill can avert" And he falls
| back on the despairiGg general reflection: at
is and must be the fate of every man of sensi-
bll1ty to suffer in the public service in propor-
| tion to his usefulness"
1t is undoubtedly true that much of this
| despair and detraction, this hate and rancor,
| arose from a conscientious belief, not only in
Mr.. Adams and Colonel Pickering, to whom
that no o7e who differed from them in opinion
could be governed By any action in life by
| aught except the vilest and basest of motives
But the same consideration should be used to
| tone down the violence aud virulence of our
| partisan warfare. The knowledge of yester-
| day should be the guidance of to-day. This
| consideration we do not expect in the multi
| tude. They are stralning every nerve to sup
port their families, and are doing patriotic ser
| vice in developing and distributing the wealth
of our country. They read the newspapers,
| but they are not expected or required to read
| history. They take sides and draw sharp out
| lines and are not reprehensible for supposing
| that the world was created this morning But
Il w M fath nall
l privateered them into wealth, ought to stand
| as the exponents Of culture, an impregnable
| breakwater against the everlasting tides of
Ignorance ana narrowness and partisan bitter
| ness. They ought to know and teach that the
| thing which has been is that which shall be.
Theysought to cheer dependency, and correct
haste, and soften hsrshness by the lessons OF
| the silent and signifcan. past
| Mr.. Cabot is not the kind of person to be
contemptuousy or lightly spoken Of He sp-
| pears to have been a man of moderate sbili-
ties, of limited culture, of quiet tastes, entire
integrity and excellent Judgment. He never
| rises, nor ever stimulates his great grandson to
rise, above the level of respectable and digni-
| fed commonplace. His letters are long and
somewhat labored dissertations on things in
general, unenlivened by CLEAN of humor
| except IN single instance, and that Is of SO
| ponderous a nature that it is not so much o
| gleam as a bssm-hewed into shape and lifted
| into place, and mortised into permanency with
| an effort that seems to have been exhaustive
L
| ample with filial fidelity, and everywhere con-
| templates his material with painful solemnty
| which even its scantiness would hardly justify.
His nearest approach to levity is in declaring
Mr.. Cabots two years of college life we'll sac
i rifced fer the stamp of the quarterback, and
| the dash of the salt water which his voyage
left on his character. am not in danger OF
setting higher value on college culture than
| Mr.. Lodge, but even should hardly reduce it
to SO fine a point. Dash-whether of salt
water or fresh-was conspicuously absent from
| Mr.. Cabots character. Caution was there,
| and prudence and strong common-sense, or
| what was then common-sense; but there was
no more of the breezy and bounding sea in his
| character than In the cup OF warm water where
| with he whipped his shaving-sosp to lather.
| A certain slowness and lack of usrUe commend
| themselves to his own admiration and that Of
his great.grandson as dilettante Incidence,
| and led him int the childish act of going home
| to Boston in the middle Of the session, and re-
| signing his seat in the Senate. Yet in his hon.
esty, his sincere love of country, his unfalling
| interest in politics, and his intelligent compre-
hension of methods, he represents the class
| which constitutes the bone and sinew of the
| Republic. But 1 trust we have within our
in fact, is more noticeable In tne Dook before rs
| than the conspicuous and influential part
which Massachusetts then took in the National
| councils. Even Boston was full Of men. The
| only resemblance between that day and this
seems to be the perennial truth 80 pithily ex-
pressed by Nathan Dane, quoted by Samuel
Putnam and served up BY Mr.. Lodge. "It
| will not do to trust the Boston lead. But
erratic and unsafe for leader as Boston
undoubtedly was, she had an intellectual
virility which struggled long against
senescence. Indeed, persons who do not yet
account themselves old, recall with interest
and with pride the lions of Boston, to whom
every distinguished stranger was introduced,
| and whom every intelligent traveller was eager
to see. There was Daniel Webster-primus
inter pdres. There was jeremiah Mason,
| whom Mr.. Webster ranked superior even to
Chief-Justice Marshall in the law; and there
was Edward Everett and Rufus Choate and
| Charles Sumner and Prescott, the historian,
| aud George Ticknor, and the venerable Josiah
| Quincy, and Abbott Lawrence, and Franklin
| Dexter and John A. Andrew, and Theodore
| Parker, aud a little while before the great
Charming. In the editorial field Joseph i.
Buckingham, and Nathan Hale and Richard
Haughton, of the Atlas, beloved by Webster,
and trusted by all the Wings, applied ,p,inoi..
Piles and shaped public opinion, and did not
count the watching of the political weather.
| vane to be the whole duty of the press. OF
her hundred orators Wendell Phillips remains
with his Athenian eloquence, and for second
to him it would be hard to choose between the
/ rugged aggressiveness of Alexander III. Rice
and the coy virtue and bland persuasion OF
| William A. Simmons In this light of other
| days the wisdom of President Hayes assumes
q clear, if somewhat grim and CHASTITY radiance,
| when he reminded General Devens and DIR.
| Loring before Richmond audience, that Bos-
| ton must henceforth take its sombre station
beside Quebec, as city Of tho past.
l Let us hope however, that this Northern pol.
icy of the President will not be successful; that
| we are only in the dip of the waves, steadyinn
| to meet their crest once more, and not founder
ing in their final fatal gulf
As in pointing out the negative part which
! | Mr.. Cabot took in the eager work Of his con
| poraries, mean no slur upon his character, SC
| in calling attention to the weakness and the
| wickedness that blur the shining page of oui
| history, there is no lack of reveresce for the
| great names and the great hearts that made its
| lustre But when narrowness and prejudice
| hold up this blur before our eyes and call upon
| us to admire its bril- liance in contrast with oul
shadows, it is not unmeet that the very stones
1 cry ont. The history with which Mr.. Lodge
deals is foil of parallels for our encouragement
and warning, but his eyes are holden, and be
gives no sign. He repeats his great-gra adfath-
| ers enc nsratons and characterizations OF Mr.
| Adams lniquties as 'shamefully wrong" yet
overshadowed by the one unpardonsble sin o.
abandoning the system he was chosen Il
| maintain, and introducing its opposite with al
its pernicous consequences, as fast as he can.
! but he sees only defeated ambition 10 a similar