The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1880-06-26
WAsmNnrox. D. O.. June p, $50

WASHINGTON, d. c., June %, 1850.
Congress has lell Washington, bat the CAP.
it'll will be a centre Of unusual interest daring
the recess. Here will be the campaign head
quarters for both political parties, and all
through the dog day heats, and until what Mr..
Garfield calls the melancholy days OF Novem.
Der, commands and supplies will be issued
from Washington, and the fierce strife waged
in city and village, on plain and in dingle, will
receive Its impulse and return its echo here.
Already clerks IN all the Departments have
organized, according to their several States,
and are prepared to do the work they know
so well how to do, for the party that has 80
long kept them in sinecures at the public ex.
pense,
On Friday night Of last week Mr. Garfield
trumpeted the keynote OF the campaign in a
speech from the balcony OF the Riggs House;
but it wa, u note Of uncertain sound, eharae.
teristie OF the correct, and "who shall prepare
himself for battleg' venture TO predict
that the campaign will not be waged with
much enthusiasm on the part Of the Republi.
cans. Mr.. Garfield is not candidate to ex.
cite enthusiasm. Your correspondent has
known him for thirteen years, and has studied
him, not because he is individually interest
ing, but because he Is such type rs no stu.
dent OF contemporary history can ignore. II
is true that Don Piatt and George Alfred
Townsend have recen,ly written letters that
are highly eulogistic Of the candidate, aud in
genously exculpatory o: his crooked record.
But it must be remembered that these gentle.
men would each like to have foreign mis-.
sion, or at least Erst-class conSulship. Mr..
Garfield, they say, is a great scholar, a broad.
guage statesman, brainy man. do not
think he is any of these. think his genius
is chiefly in his lungs and other yiscera His
voice is like the note Of war; he has the famed
appetite Of Boswell's hero and the digestion
OF an ore crusher. He is y superb animal.
Mr.. Garfeld's chlelest mental attribute is
precoeity, not profundity. lie is unripe, pre-
maturely developed. He rose rapidly from
the helm Of canal boat to the head Of a
fourth-rate college for both sexes. His adj
yaneement had been rapid, but notremarkable,
for, in an era andarea Of low culture, AippAnt
oratory is considered proof of genius, and a
resonant voice is mistaken for oratory. None
Of Mr. Garheld's speeches, indeed scarcely a
single paragraph, will bear literary criticism,
Gush and grandiloquenee arc the characters.
ties of his style. The first time heard him
speak was at college commencement twelve
years ago, when he exhorled us in such plat.
tides as ITO keep up with the times, to press
forward to the van, and march abreast with
the latest thought Nov rejecting men do
not have to be very old before they learn that
the latest thought is not necessarily the best
thought But ia these few words think we
have key To Mr.. Garfelds mental tone. In
religion, politics and science he believes in
many unsound or unsounded things. Jesus
Christ hesitated and asked: "What is TRUTH
II Mr. Garfield could be persuaded to answer,
he would say: "The newest tangled thing. u
a.