New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-07-31
MR. TILDENlS MORTGAGE.

The persons who are pasSi0nateIy lmplOrng
Mr.. Tilden to take himself out of their way
appear to he not much acquainted with him.
There is a haggard anxiety about their inn
portunity, however, which would hardly, APP
near if they were not conscious that Mr..
Tilden holds cutthroat mortgage on his
party, and that he means to EN- Orce 1t. This
being the case, their prayers for relief are adj
dressed to ears of stone. " Do something for
the Democratic party" they pray. Bat MIR.
Tilden will want TO know what the Demo-
cratic party has ever done for him. He
gave to it many years of decidedly effec-
tive work, as his Republican opponents
in this State can testify; lifted it out of the
slough of despond when his cry of Reform"
first struck the public ear; gave it an organ
ization of unrivaled powers for management
and trickery in this and the neighbOriDg
States and obtained more votes, as candidate
for President, than the party could have cast
for anybody else. Even after defeat he was
not content, but proceeded to send trained
emissaries to all the doubtful States to super
wise the count, and allowed his private house
to be turned into telegraph station for
cipher dispatches. After all this, the question
is not, in Mr.. Ti!den's opinion, what should
he do for the party, but what should the
party do for him.
His mortgage, as he well knows, would not
be worth much if 1t were matter Of sentl-
ment. Generosity, gratitude and honor have
their uses, but are not satisfactory ties for a
Democratic party. Mr.. TIlden seized the stu
alton as soon as he was defeated Imme
dIately he cried Fraud, and set his agents to
raise the same cry. He foresaw that Che
Democrats would unanimously initiate his ex-
ample; that they would posture before the
country for four years as party which had
been defrauded of the Presidency; and that 1t
would be impossible for the party, at the
end Of four years of such clamOr, to
nominate any other man without stultify-
ing and beating itself. So it comes to pass.
Democracy would like to get rid of MI. Til
den. But if he should not be nominated, it
would be the formal and final judgment of
his party that he was never defrauded of an
election, and in that case the party would
stand sef-accused and self-cOndemned, before
all the world, for four long years of most
constant and most uncomfortable lying. If
Mr. Tilden is not its choice and the choice Of
the country, the party has only detiled itself
by repeating falsehOOds and ISLANDERS. If Mr..
Tilden is to be laid aside, the whole Fraud
issue, with all that 1t involves and implies,
must be abandoned; and it must be confessed
that President Hayes was rlghtfully elected,
that the most infamous lies have been cOntin-
ually told by Democrats about him, and Sec =
rotary Sherman, and Minister Noyes, and
other Republicans without number and that,
in short, the vilest fraud in the history OF
the country is the Democratic party itself.
The party is not ready for any such confess
SION Mr.. Tilden has calculated shrewdly.
Ingenious evaSions by the scoIe will be in
vented by malcoDtent and fractions Demo-
Gratis, but all will be of no avail. The party
will say, and the people will say, that If Mr..
Tlden was rightfully elected i'll 1876, he and
he only is entitled TO the support of the party
IN 1850. But if he is not now entitled to
that support, the party is unfit to be trusted,
and deserves only sound thrashins for its
malignant ISLANDERS. The fact is that the
mortgage was drawn by a shrewd lawyer.
1t will probably hold, infinitely to the disgust
of Democrats.