New-York tribune., 1878-04-03
CUSTODIAN OF A GREAT IDEA"

always clear. That is to say, he is liable to
indulge in reflections the drift of which does
not readily appear to the casual reader; ana
| to make sudden and abrupt remarks when
the average Democrat clutches at wildly,
without really cOmprehending, and which
may for aught he knows contain problem
in philosophy, or be the simple cOnun-
drum of an idle fancy. He is full OF all
subtety and his ways are past finding out
At least once year he creates a sensation in
the Democratic party. Last year, as Will per-
haps be remembered, in his capacity OF Rep
resentatve in Congress and orator at Demo-
cratic mass meeting in Washington, he issued
a call for a hundred thousand men, mostly
| Kentuckians, to come TO Washington. This,
with the drain that had been already
made upon Kentucky to fill the offices
in the House, would have exhausted the
arms-bearing population of the State. Fears
having been expressed that he intended to
subvert things he was demonstrated with by
several persons whose names had recently
been put upon the pay-rols, and who were.
consequently, extremely solcitous for the
preservation of the Government. These
| apprehensiOns were quieted, however, by
| his assurance that il was merely an in
vitation on his part to Il hundred thou
sand men, more or less, to "cOme up
and take something with him. AS there
seemed to be some feeling on the subject he
withdrew the invitation, and everybody
brcathed freer; especially the sincere patriots
who had just begun to reform the Government
as committee clerks, doorkeepers and messen-
| gers. There are still many people who firmly
| a.. Of fx,fra rat,tia
spiracy TO upset something more than bot
tie, and that if Mr. Samuel Cox had not been
tampered with, by holding out hopes to him
of securing Post Office in the
| Black Hills for friend of his who
was ready with the oral" there
would have been a revolution. 1t may
be so. Washington at that time was noto-
riously knee-deep i'll mysteries OF the most
profound description, which have never yet
been uncovered. though several statesmen
| have talked about them in their sleep, and
some have even threatened on the flOor~Of
| Congress to divulge them. 1t is now known,
moreover that Mr.. Watterson contains the
| key to all of them, and is liable at any
moment to spread out the history of that
period in the columns of The COurier-Journdi.
But this all happened more than year ago.
! Mr.. WattersOn has now within few days
gone and stirred up the country again. In a
ratting article which has been widely quoted
and commented upon, he has said that the
Democratic party lacks leaders and leadership,
| brains, prudence and common sense, ability
| in its newspapers, discretion in its editors,
! and in fact everything necessary to make
! political organization influential, powerful and
! successful. There's nothing new in all this,
| of course everybody knew it before. But he
says-and has startled the public with it-that
the party is tine custodian of a great idea"
And now everybody is asking what the
idea is. If it really has an idea, the
party's relation to it is most felicitOusly eX-
pressed by =" custodian" we presume Mr..
| WatteIs0n means DoOrkeeper. Now if there
is any one thing in which the party has dem
onstrated its capacity it Is i'll the line OF Door
keeping. 1t was no doubt the conviction that
he was custodian of an idea that led the
former Doorkeeper, Fitzhugh. to magnify his
Office, and proclaim himself ga bigger
"man than old Grant, and it is not
at all unlikely that Doorkeeper Polk
doubled up his pay-rolls, and massed his
noble army of Tennesseeans III solid columns
before tho doors of the House, because of
profound consciousness that he was Door
keeper of the party that is the custodian of
an idea. 1t may have been this necessity for
bookkeeping of the highest order that led him
| TO surround the House with deputies and
assistants to such an unusual extent deter
mination not to let the idea get ont,
if he had to call out by proclamation all
the able-bodicd men in Tennessee to hold the
doors on it. In that view of the case, the
action of the House in refusing to censllre
him for his vigorous though expensive door
keeping is both explcable and justiiable.
But what most piques public curiosity is the
nature and character of the idea the party is
keeping door over. There have been periods
in history when the party was known to have
ideas, but not recently. From 1854 to 1860
it was custodian of the idea that slavery
should go into the Territories. In 1861
its idea was that the South could not
he coerced; q little later, that the South
could not be subjugated; in 1864, that
the war was a failure then, that the Consti-
tutiOnal Amendments were of no effect; and n
little later, that the bonds should be paid in
greenbacks. Each of these ideas became stale
in turn and was abandoned, and then it held
in custody the idea that the Southern States
should be freed from Federal interference.
That went by with the action of the
present Administration a year ago. One
other idea that it had vague notion
of being custodian of was that of Civil
Service Reform. Since the party has had an
opportunity in limited way to put this idea
in force, and has shown to the country what
it really means by Civil Service Reform, we
presume no one, not even Mr.. Watterson, will
have the assurance to claim that as the great
idea of which the Democracy is custodian.