Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-08-26

II am just now In antaBonlsm WIN
my own party on legislation in reference
to the election law.n
Indeed of the Bayard bill as to
Federal participations in elections
General Garfield was practically an
author, for he had entirely favored its
principle, its theory and its formulas
at the time of its introduction, and it
was in regard to this measure that he
wrote himself down as Gin antagonism
with his own party"
Nevertheless, when the vote came
upon the bill his vote went upon the
roll along with his party colleagues
against all his previous speeches and
declarations.
A few days before the meeting of
the Chicago Convention General Gar
field, in the course of n speech in Con-
gress, said:
"The man who attempts to get up
political excitement in this country on
the old sectional issues will find himself
without party and without support"
But when he had himself become
candidate upon platform which had
no other vital idea in it than an at
tempt to galvanize the issues of the
war, fifteen years after its conclusion,
General Garfield had no word to utter
in depreciation of that which he had to
all appearances earnestly deprecated
from his place in Congress and since
his nomination no member of his par
ty has taken more pains to revive
"the old sectional issues" than Gen
eral Garfield whenever he has been
called upon for speech at serenade
or upon car platform.
The inference from any one of these
actions would be and ought to be in
furious to General Garfield as n pub
lie man. But when these things are
considered together no inference can
possibly be drawn from them except
that General Garfield as a public man
is not entitled to public confidence.
His is case of moral suicide, to repeat
Webster's phrase, and it proceeds from
moral cowardice, as all suicides may
be said to proceed from cowardice.
He is not a partisan from the temper
of his mind. He is both too scholarly
and too apathetic a man to lose his
head in times of not more than ordi-
nary excitement. He is n partisan
because he is moral coward and be-
cause he cannot withstand the pressure
of men whose knowledge is less and
whose wills are stronger than his own.
He is one of those unhappy men to
whom it is given always
TO see the right and to admire It, too.
To loathe the wrong, and yet the wrong pnrsue."
1t is true that very active hostility
to the wrong is inconsistent with
everything that is known of General
Garfeld's public career. But his in
telligence generally suffices to make
him at least "see Che right" and his
weakness always allows him to be
bullied into doing the wrong. His
political use to his party has been to
furnish plausible reasons for what vio-
lent and unscrupuless men like Thad-
deus Stevens and Zach Chandler had
forced him into doing. He knew as
well when he was trying to remove
Hancock, rs when he wrote to Hins-
dale bemoaning the excesses of the ex-
treme men in his parry, that the policy
which General Hancock was pursuing
in Louisiana was the only lawful and
the only patriotic policy for the COM
mander of military district to pur-
sue. He knew rs well when he was
cooking afiidavits in New Orleans or
ruling out the evidence of the cookery
before the Electoral Commission, as
he did when he was communicating to
Hinsdale bis fears of the violent par
tisans who "meant to count our side
in, right or wrong" that Tilden had
been elected President. He was sim.
ply driven by the violent partisans
whom he was too timid to oppose, as
he was driven by them into voting
against his own proposition on the
Deputy Marshals bill, and as he
would most assuredly be driven by
them if the voters of the country were
misguided into electing him to the
Presidency. One at least of the charges
against his personal integrity owes
most of its sting to this same moral
weakness. If when Ames told the
story of General Garfeld's connection
with Credit Mobilier General Garfield
had come out like man and confess
ed the truth, he would have been
thought guilty, at most, of an indis-
cretion. II was his prevarication on
the stand and his attempt to induce
Ames to assist him in getting it ac-
cepted that ruined him before the
country. Whenever an emergency
has confronted him he has met il in
the same shutting and timid way.
After announcing, sometimes in the
/ ato oar of H;na1aIo oud am, ~,