Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1879-11-26
nEvIcrs TO .FIx"aRANT.

Ii is reported from Washington that
the proposal to put GRANT at the head
of the Army, with salary OF fifty
thousand dollars a year, is approved by
the Stalwart members Of Congress al
ready arrived at the Capital. Some OF
them, indeed, are represented as so en-
thusiastic in behalf of it that they favor
suspending the rules and passing the
bill at once, and with faith common
surate with their "cheek," express the
belief that it would 20 through by an
overwhelming vote.
We hayenO doubt that GRANT wants
the position, and that BLAINE, SHER-
MAN x Co will make a determined
and desperate movement OH Congress to
thus Jockey GRANT out of the Presiden-
tial race. There are many extreme
partisans in the Republican party also,
who would regard GRANTS accession to
such q position in the light OF fine
stroke of party policy-preferable in
deed to making him President. He
would be in a position better adapted to
making ''strong Government than II
he were President. A General OF the
Army, with his well-known partisan
bias; his stalwart attitude on all the
leading ISSUES; his contempt for civil au-
thoritv when It interferes with the tactics
OF his party; his readiness to employ
the military to maintain party supre-
macy; these characteristics in the gen.
eral commanding, would virtually put
the army under the control of the Re-
publican party, and at once settle all
the issues in their favor. We would
leap at once to the position OF a nation
with big \.
In the mean time, those who are not
in sympathy with the SHERNAN-BLAINE
programme, and who have had GRANT
in training for the Presidency so long,
do not propose to let 90 at this stage OF
the game. Having sent him all around
the world and into all the kingdoms OF
the earth, they will now make a move
on the South, with a view OF disturbing
the antagouistic condition OF affairs in
that section.
Already the agents of this Southern
boom are sending out compliments and
courtcsies to the approaching visitor.
GRANT responds with words of conser-
vatism and magnanimity. The other
dav ne directed the Southern people to
be informed through the Louisville
C0u~jyr Jo,p5,aj, that in whatever posi-
ton he may in future be placed he is for
chose AMI only those things which will
allay all bitterness OF the past-all sec
tional animOsities-and those which will
make us a united, great people, such as
we are now really believed 70 be by the
great nations of the world
This latter movement is, perhaps, the
most ridiculous as well as the least dam
gerou5 of any yet attempted. The New
York Tribune refers in very fitting terms
to the GEANr movement in the South,
as follows:
1t must be remembered that EXPIRES.
ident Grant is the foremost representa-
tive OF nearly everything that the Dem
OcratiC South has steadily opposed. We
cannot look merely ut his war record
and shut our ewes 10 what happened
during his eight years OF civil rule. He
was more ''stalwart' all through his two
terms than almost any of the Republi
cans of the present day. He had no
liberation for theories OF state suprema-
cy; he carried out the provisions OF the
"bavouct laws with what many of us
thought was extreme rigOr; he used
troOps without scruple to enforce the
federal authority; his soldiers dispersed
Legislatures and guarded ballOt-bOXes.
When President Hayes adopted a dlt-
ferent policy, there was such a chorus
of rejoicing throughout the South that a
stranger might have supposed that the
iron heel OF despOtism had Just been
taken from tine neck OF a PROSTATE peo-
pie.
Yet this is the man with whom the
sanguine supporters Of the Stalwart pol
icy hope to divide the South. There
have been less probable things which
have succeeded anil more probable
things that have failed, but there is
nothing in the future OF politics that
strikes us rs having So much of the im-
,,robob1a obout If ~ this