New-York tribune., 1880-07-01
THE REpRISENTfYVE or DEMOCRACY

At present the Democrats are anxious to run
General Hancock as an indvidual-not as the
representative of party. They will find
this impossible. General Hancock is not a
great man. AS to all poll zeal questions, moth
ing is known of him. save that he Is the can
didate of the Democratic party. There have
been men of whom the people knew enough to
trust them with power. without gard to their
party associations. They were well known;
their opinions were well understood; and they
had given ample proof of such firmneSs OF
character and such settled convictions that 1t
was deemed safer to trust them than thelr
party. But General Hancock is not big enough
TO be so regarded by the people Neither by cdu-
cation nor by associations has he ever been lifted
for great civil trusts neither in character nor III
intellect does he tower 50 far above the leaders
of his party that he can he expected to act IN
dcpendenty of their influence 1t is no slight
to General Hancock to say this. Few men
have the power of will and mind to resist, in
such position, the demands of the party by
which they are elected, and there is not par
ticle of evidence that General Hancock Is one
of those rare men. On the contrary, there is
every evidence that he is not. A man so gifted
could not possibly have left his country in abso
questions OF vital Importance which have been
agitated within the past twenty yeaIs.
Neither would the people OF these United
States elect General Hancock to the Presi-
dency if they believed that he was man
capable of acting with great Independence.
For they know nothing OF the direction III
which he would act nothing of his convictions
or purposes The people will never elect
man strong enough to defy his own party
unless they know something about him. The
Democrats themselves would refuse to vote
for General Hancock, if they did moi believe
that he would act under the influence OF his party
Independent Republican voters certainly would
not vote for HIM, unless convinced that nc
would resist to the utmost the influence OF
Democratic leaders and the cOulsc which that
patty has hitherto pursued, in many respects.
In politics, the average voter knows the
difference between the engine that pulls "a
train and the fgurehead that is pushed to the
front by steamboat
General Garfield has been one Of the men who
for twenty years have represented the vital
and moving force of the Republican party.
General Hancock has been, in his only and
brief contact with political aflIrs, one of the
pushed forward. One month ago, there was
not q single man i'll all this land who would
have mentioned General Hancock as one of the
influential or controlling men of the Demo
cratic party. lie has never done anything to
shape its policy ADLER and far more ex-
pericnced men have done that. He has never
been known to advise any legislation or to
resist any to advise any line OF policy, or to
oppose any. There is not one Dem Dcratic
voter, out of the millions in this country who
ever went to General Hancock for leadership
and advice. HIS complete isolation, in pO
litical sense, has not been due to his connection
with the Army, for the political advice and
influence of Generals Grant, Sherman, and
Sheridan were sought repeatedly, when they had
held no civil position Any petty ward poll
tician in any city in this Union has had more
influence over the course of the Democratic
party for the last ten years, and at each and
every emergency within that time than General
Hancock its fgurchead. This is natural
Each little cog and rod in the engine has
more to do with the movement of a steamer
than the wooden figure which decoratcs its
bow. The function of the fgurchead is not to
move, but to be moved.
General Hancock, then, must of necessity be
treated and judged as the fSurchead of the
Democratic party. That he has no power |
whatever to move it or direct it, his behavior |
and its behavior have abuDdantly proved. He |
is precisely what he was Il month agO-a man
who calls himself a Democrat, and assents TO
Democratic IDEAS but has no share and no
uretensOns to share in the real leadership of |
the party. 1t moves and will move without !
any eflOrl 10y him. If it moves him into the |
Presidency, it will move him alter 2 IS in, and
there is not the slightest reason to suppose
that he will make any resistance. lie will not
be voted for, by any considerable number of
persons, because he is Winfield S. Hancock
but because he is the Democratic candidate If
elected, he would inevitably act under the in
hueuce of J. 5. Black, William Wallace, John
Kelly, and other Democratic leaders, he
would he the mouthpece, and they would ex
ercise executive power.
The candidate and the party, In this case,
cannot be separated The Democratic attempt !
to run him OH his personal merits " will only |
force people to observe that politically lie has
no merits. and no opinions Of which anybody Is
aware. lie came into political notice because,
when chosen as an instrument by Andrew
Johnson, he gave out as his own the legal and |
political views of Judge Black and a noted
Judge of the White League party in Louisiana
If he remains in political notice, these and other
such men will shape his political opinions and
utterances. The people, therefore, will ask |
when they vote, not wEat sort of Il man Han
cock is, but what sort OF party is running him. |
THE GREEK FRONTIER.
The work of the supplementary Berlin |