Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-07-03
nltoKEN rIAonINEs.


ventured upon a little before the
meeting OF the republican conven-
ton at Chicago, and now that both
conventions have done their work,
now that political machinery on a
vast scale and Of wonderful COM
plicity has been put in motion at
both Chicago and Cincinnati, tried
to is utmost capacity and shattered
to fragments in the process, we
gladly resume the subject for the
purpose of preaching our funeral
sermon over the demise of party
machinery on both sides.
Never were machines so elabO-
rateIy constructed, never so persist
emily kept at work for unprecedented
periods of time, and never so COM
pletely smashed as these were in
both conventions. .-@ ''"
Never was there 50 stupendous a
political piece of engineering as
THE GRANT MACHINE.
The wires which conveyed its mo-
tive forces extended round the
world. The courts of Europe and
Asia, from London and Berlin to
Pekin and Jeddo, were invoked TO
give prestige to its owner the
bloody shirt, emblazoned with sec
tiOnal hate, was fiuttered in the
north; the mantle of peace, in
scribed with sectional reconciliation,
flOated softly on the southern
breezes subsidiary machines of
unheard-of strength were estab-
lished in New York, Pennsylvania
and Illinois, SO powerful and so
dangerous to any antagOnizing force
that it was as much as a politicians
life was worth to call his soul his
own, or the property of anyone but
COnkling, Cameron or Logan. The
United States navy was subsidized
TO carry the hero on his advertising
tour and to bring him back to these
expectant shores, and, once arrived
here, nothing seemed capable of re-
sisting or even retarding his trium-
plant progress. But by degrees it
became evident that there was and
had been for some time in existence
A SHERMAN MACHINE.
Wonderfully subtle was it in its
contrivance! Its machinery was so
delicately finished and so nicely adj
justed, and it was so skilfully lubri-
Gated with treasury oil, that it
worked in silence for many months
before the engineers of the vaster |
structure discovered its existence,
and when they did they found that |
its wheels worked quite in a differ
ent direction from their wheels, and |
that in short it was altogether inn
practicable to use it as a fiy-wheel |
to the Grant machine.
There was also
A BLAINE MACHINE,
not elaborate in its mechanism, hut |
worked with a motive force of ire
mendOus energy, that Of sectional
hatred. All these machines were
at length brought together
AT CHICAGO,
the Grant machine with its three
cOmpartmentsm managed by the three
great engineers, COnkling, Cameron
and Logan, the Sherman machine
by one of the cunningest of engin-
GERS, Garfield by name, and the
Blaine machine with no recognized
engineer, trusting to the irresistible
force of its steam power. The action
was very complicated. The Sher-
man and Blaine machines were evil
IDENTIFY put i'm action so as to pull
together against the Grant machine,
and yet SO adjusted as to be ready
to reverse their action and pull
against one another. This complex
action required nicely of adapta-
ton beyond what the machines
were capable of. The stOppage oc-
Cured just mt the stage where the
united b. and 5. machines had
reduced the q. machine to inaction,
rendering it stationary, and the b.
and S. were preparing to pull one
against the other. All these had
raised steam to the highest power
consistent with safety. and, when
the tug Of war came, the machinery
was not found strong enough to
bear the force of this tremendous
strain on it-therc was a general I
explosion and smashing Of all three, ,
which We're reduced to a pile of
ruins, and on the top sat the cum ,
ming engineer of the $. machine, ,
and triumphant. He is I
strongly suspected of having brought ,
ON the collision for the purpose of I
getting rid of his employer (who ,
was buried under the ruins), and so I
engineer of a joint con- {
Germ got up by the three ruined G
companies. I
Such was the action at Chicago; s
now let us study the machinery I
brought into play 4
ar CINCINNATI. q
A machine almost as vast and
perhaps even more complicated 7
han the Grant machine had for v
years been under construction, c
which we must call n
THE TILDEN MACHINE. il
1t too had subsidiary engines con- {
tructed to work under such skilled = y
as Reynolds in New York, g
Jayne in Ohio, Randall in PenRsyl- >