The daily gazette., 1880-06-10

DID Nor GARFIELD LOOK on WITH
APPRovAL?- The Democratic press
for six or eight years during and after
Grants two administrations de-
nounced his policy and the corrupt
and criminal practices that it stimu-
lated, maintained and excused. All
this time the Radical newspapers
charged the Democratic press and
Democratic speakers and writers with
promulgating things thai were not
true, and defended Grant and his
Cabinet and the guilty associates that
surrounded him. Belknap, Babcock,
Williams, Schenck, and others were
known to be bad men not fit n be at
the head of government to direct
the affairs of the nation. Grants
Southern policy was also condemned
by the Democrats and defended by the
Republicans for years.
How is it now ? The ablest of the
Republican press go further than did
the Democratic press in charging upon
Grant and his Cabinet and friends all
the corrupt practices of which the
Democrats made accusations. We
have never seen more forcible counts
made up against man than are pre-
sented by the Republican newspapers
against Grants administrations. We
quote a brief paragraph from an arti-
Gle of five columns length in one of
the strongest Republican newspapers
of our neighboring city, in defence of
its course in opposing and assisting to
defeat Grants nomination. 1t says:
''In the Customs service the Leets
and Stockings and Buffers young
man Simmons were given carte blanche
to prey upon our merchants to the
full extent of their pockets desire,
and they differed from other robbers
only in having authority from the
highest authority in the land to rob.
Ofnceholders were sustained every
where in tfeir raids upon the Trea-
sury. Shepherd, for instance, when
Congress, to get rid of him, abolished
the District Of Columbia Commission
and created another, was. to the sur
prise of the whole country and the dis
gust of the Senate, at once reuomi-
mated as one of the new Commission
in order that his career of peculation
should not be interrupted"
Yet bad as these matters were,
they sink into insignifcance when
compared with the Infamous policy
pursued during those eight years OF
General Grants administration to
wards the Southern States. The mos
reckless and unconstitutional employ
ment of the military was restored to II
order to maintain there.the ascendenc
of the political adventures who ha,
swooped down upon The South at tn
close of the war, and who had by al,
of Federal bayonets, supplied by tn
President, usurped the Government o
the Southern Commonwealths, and b.
the use of troops, held them. Thi
control of the civil government by tn
military was without precedent i
the history of this country, and out
side of Turkeys dependencies III
known in any part of the globe in re
cent years. President Grant ruled /
the White House more like a soldier i
his tent than as a civil magistrate; h
brought the arbitrary habits of tn
camp into counsels of the Cabinet, an,
made his own will superior 70 court S
institutions, or constitutions.
During the ex-President admins
tration life and property were withou
security in many of the Southern Con-
monwealths the National Govern
ment while oyerturning the Stat
Governments, neither maintaine
peace and order, nor enforced Law
loyal men were massacred, maimeC
and mangled by the hundreds, or,
the reports of the carpet-bag supper
ers of the administration can be b,
lisved, by the thousand.
We prefer to disregard the repoli
of the carpet-bapgers and to adhere