New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-05-18
THE GEAuLRcY PARK VIEW OFT


II is n very long-headcd old gentleman who,
having gone out of politics. sits Watching the
course of current political events from a bay
window in GTamercy Square. lie has waited
and still waits patiently. No one can afford it
better than he. He knows that soon or late
the party must come round to him, and
in n cool passionless way he sits III the
ooze like the "dam clam" his friends
compare him to- and waits To be dug up. The
whlrIgg of time he is quite sure will bring
round his rcycEges, and in that faith he bides.
lie remembers how in 1876 a party that did
not want TO nominate him found itself bank
rupt of political capital, with but q single Issue
upon which it could hope to make head
way, and compelled to come TO him "a
the only available figurchead for the
Reform they inscribed on their ban
ncrs and pretended to believe in. After all
the clamor The party had raised on the sub
ject of Republican corruption and malad-
mini,tration, and the need of administrative
re- oIn, they found themselves face to face
with Mr.. Samuel j. Tildcn as the only
leading Democrat who had record that
did not utterly belle the professions of
the party. They had talked and fumed
and foamcd about reform in an
empty and unmcaning way for months, de-
signing merely to make capital against their
opponents. Mr.. TIIdcn meantime had been
actually doing something in the way of prac-
teal reform by bringing Democratic thieves
70 Justice. 1t accordingly happened, greatly to
the surprise-and it was by no means an
agreeable surprise-of the party. that when they
came to follow the logical conveyance
Of all their professions and prOtcstatiOns,
they found the sage of Gramercy Park, cool,
seIf-posseSscd and bland occupying absolutely
the focus. 1t was q revelation to Il great
many Democrats. They had no idea that it
would come to this. But there the little man
stood. And he said with unblushng frank
ness. rs he laid his index finger on the
top button of his vest, "The People want Re
FORM and they have found it here" He
was wise enough to know that all the capital
his party had was in the carelessness and cor
ruption which continuous power had engen-
dcrcd among the Republicans and was cum
ming enough to trim his sails TO catch all the
wind from that direction. Cold" they say,
"as dam clam but on the whole cannv.
1t Is the same shrewd old gentleman who
listlessy looks on the political current from
his bay-windOw to-day. He did not fully
serve the purpose of the men whom he
masked a year and a half ago. lie did
not answer their impotence. They called
his conservatism timidity; they denounced
his INDIGESTION and lack of nerve, and
CHARGED him with cowardice, because
he would not consent to their selling the
Offices and the Government by revolution
ary proceedings. Because he failed them mt
the crucial moment they turned upon and
abusrd him with unmeasured violence. And
he retired from politics and went to Europe
came back and retired again, and now views
things phlosophically from his bay-window.
During this time the party to whose cry
of Reform his candidacy gave its only
semblance of sincerity, has been trying to get
along without him. 1t has been laboring as no
party ever did before to get up some sort of
a political issue upon which it could make a
record to go to the country on. 1t has
acted with its usual sagacity. 1t has
undertaken to mako political capital in
the same way. and upon the same prin-
ciple that it would make business capital and
increase the country's material wealth-with
wind. Its struggles In this direction have
been sometimes distressing and sometimes
amusing; and its successes have been invari-
ably disastrous. For eight months have the