The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-08-02
Boston Herald, Ind.l
Mr.. Tilden's Sore Head.

1t strikes us that if Mr.. Tilden's sense OF
decency is not acute enough to prevent his
making any further exhibition of his wounds
in public it is quite time his friends interfered
to put stop to a spectacle that would be pitia-
BILE were it not amusing. When the Roman
Caesar fell beneath the blows of his assassins,
he retained enough of the native dignity of
greatness to wrap his wounded body
in his toga, cover his face, and die as be-
came man who had thrice refused crown.
Had he been man of Mr.. Tilden's mould, it
is fair to presume that he would have had
plaster casts taken of his stabs and photographs
made of his dying agonies, for use against
Brutus at the next election. II Mr.. Tilden
can find no Anthony to turn his wounds into
eloquent lips to stir up the voters to revenge
his injuries, he had better conclude that the
American people have something of too much
real importance ON hand to permit them to
fight the Presidential battle of 1880 on the issue
of his sore head. His effort at the great ratif-
cation meeting in New York was one of the
most inane and inconsequential substitutes for
speech ever heard at an assemblage above
the grade of ward caucus. Barely stopping
to take up one of the catch-words of the Demo
cratic platform of four years ago. affirming
that "reform is necessary" Mr.. Tilden
plunged at once into the subject of his griev-
ance: "The Republican party" he said,
'stitiing its conscience, has made itself re-
sponsible for the intrusion, under color of
the law, into the chief magistracy of man
who was not elected by the people," Mr..
Tilden is perfectly we'll aware, if he has
memory for anything except his own thwarted
ambltlOQ-aS If often gpemc dOuhtfu1--tbat tho
Republican party no more made itself re-
sponsible" for the outcome of the electoral
commission than did his own personal and
party friends in Congress. Both sides agreed
in submitting disputed case, involving the
gravest issues, to joint tribunal-the
Republican leaders, of the two, making
much the more strenuous opposition to the
arrangement. No word of objection or pro-
test was heard from Mr.. Tilden until after the
decision against him had been rendered-since
which time he has postured before the world
as martyr to his desire for peace, who sub
mitted to being robbed rather than create any
disturbance. Perhaps we ought to except the
considerable period Of time when he was de-
Tending himself by the sacrifice of his friends
and agents, against the charge, brought home
to his very door, of attempting to bribe can
vassing boards and buy electors, in the most
desperate effort to clutch the presidency
accomplished can show Nothing is so dam
gerous as a million of dollars" said an epi-
grammatist-"except two millions" One
ceases to question the allpotent influence of
money, and to wonder at the audacity
of its possessors, when, in the face Of
the disclosures made in the cipher dis
patches, Samuel j. Tilden is called upon to
preside at the first ratification meeting for
Hancock in that metropolis where the man
and the facts are so well known-and when,
too, the name of Smith NJ. Weed appears on
the "finance committee of the party for the
national campaign. But, putting the history
of the electoral dispute aside, and ignoring
Mr.. Tilden's connection with the attempts to
secure the vote in Oregon and other States by
means that should have led to his impeach-
ment and expulsion in disgrace from the office,
had they succeeded, we submit that the issue
of his wrongs is an absurdly dminutive one on
which to conduct presidential campaign. III
''fIaud" is to be the cry, why did not the
Democrats nominate the great "defrauded?"
How can Gen Hancock's election right the
wrong done to Mr.. Tilden? Will the damages
awarded to your neighbor reconcile or compen-
pensate you when somebody has run off with
your wife? The people don't seem to be in
to them in the matter. They believe, with
Tilden, that President Hayes took his seat,
not only under color of the law" but with
just as strong title as any President since the
first. They are satisfied moreover, with the
general conduct of affairs under his admins
tration. Looking at the financial and business
condition of the country and at political affairs
in the South, hitherto so disturbed, they are
really unable to see how Mr.. Tilden's peculiar
reform" notions would have done any better.
A good many of them will vote for Gen. Han
cock, but it will not be as salve to Mr.. TIL
denis fancied injuries