New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-12-11

had been restored, as they caiied IT.
to self-government, and instead OF haV-
ing wrongs to excite the sympathles
of tho people OF the North, had been put III
position TO expose their own duphclty ana
cruelty upon the financial question they were
either fatally weak or hOpelessly divided ana
there was 10 issue upon which they dared go
TO the people except this, that they had
been defrauded of the Presidency. To
this everything pointed, as Messrs. Wat
terson and Marble could plainly see. And
when it came to this, no matter how unpopular
Mr.. IiIden might be with leaders or masses,
the logic of the situation admitted of but enc
result, and that was a second nomination, and
an opportunity for him to obtain what he and
his friends claimed he had before lost by
fraud. 1t was in way TO come to that I'D
spite OF everything. For even Demo
cratic National Convention would have
The sense to see that a campaign on
the issue of great fraud without having
as a candidate the great defrauded would
be manifestly absurd. Then the coparccners
began to work it mp. Mr.. Marble published
his noble letter on the Electoral Commission,
which has brought him greater fame than
any other literary effort of his life. The Pot
ter Committee pranced INTO the arena with
a definitely announced purpose to uncover the
great crimes by which Mr.. Tilden bad been
cheated of the Presidency, and clouds OF wit
nesses from the Florida swamps and Louisiana
bayous came forward to prop up the case, and
GId prop it up-until the cross-examInation.
The whole business was well arranged, and
the play well set. Even with all the draw
backs OF lying aud self-cOntradigtOry WIT
ucsscs, the scheme had not failed at the time
OF the adjournment of the Potter Committee
last Summer. AZ that time events were lead
ing up inevitably to campaign on the Freud
issue, and the nomination of Dir. Tliden OF
course.
BIT "did anybody hear anything drap 7"
It was the cry of "Fraud!o with which the
Democracy were beginning to open the last
Congressional canvass. IL dropped back into
their tboats as they stood IN front OF HE
TRIBUNE'S cipher exposures. Two or three
things have been settled since the adjourn
mcnt Of the Potter Committee. One Of
them is what they call III the street
Mr.. Tildcn's "hash"; another that the De-
mocracy are IN no condition to run cam
palgn on the Fraud cry; and another that
on NhdlcNct S-uc lhtg 20 lO lHt IohuIlS
now they must fail, for they have en-
tircly forfeited the confidence of the
people. And still there are people, We are
told, who believe that Mr.. 1Iden is not
politically suuilcd out, but that there Is yet
speculation in those eycs. Notwithstanding
the fact that he maintained silence mt time
when, in the public judgment, if he were
alive, he would say something, few friends
insist that ne is 10y no means dead, but will
shortly come up smiling. What is If, then3
traucc2 The smell il too loud and aggressive
for that. The country will be very likely 10
take the view Of that theory that the bag
gage master expressed when he found his car
rocking with a smell OF Limburger cheese
viii h he could not account for. His eye fall
ing at length on "a case Of muslicts which looked
very much like a cofiin-b box, he turned away and,
Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, remarked,
as if he had made discovery: Vel, he
saint in no trance, you bet" There is some
thing too pronounced about the odOr of the
ciuLers To admit of the trance theory in Mr..
Tildcn's case. II isn't the OdOr Of Limburger,
either; it is political corruption. And yet if
it were possible we SHOULD like very much to
see Mr. Tildcn rcuOminated.