Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-04-03
AVAILABILITY.

If we were to take counsel from
many political takers and writers,
we should arrive at the conclusion
that the most available man as a
candidate for high Office il the man
about whom nothing is known; the
man who has never identified him
self with any great principle or adj
vocated any stated line of policy
looking to the welfare of the coun-
try; the man, in short, who has
never manifested any one of the
qualities which constitute the char
acter of a statesman. Any definite
manifestation of principle, any
plain statement of opinion is sure to
array some one in opposition to the
man who makes it, and therefore
the available man is the man who
has no principles, nc opinions, no
anteeedents of any sort. This is the
Serbonian bog of nihilism on which
our maxims of political expectancy
have at last swamped us. A mans
best qualification for Office is that he
shall not be known to have any.
We have been led to these re-
marks by our wish to say little on
the qualifications of two eminent
men in the Democratic party for the
Presidential nomination at Cincin-
natl; we speak of Messrs. Bayard
and Thurman. These gentlemen
cannot claim availability on the do
nothing, say-nothing, think-noth-
ing principle. They have since the
last election been engaged actively
and prominently in public life, con-
tending for what they respectively
deem to be for the good of the peo-
Pile. On some important financial
questions their views have taken
opposite directions they, however,
have both put forward those views,
not deferred by the fear of alternating
possible votes for Offices that might
be desired in future by them, and
in fact hare alienated votes, Mr..
Thurman in the East and Bayard
in the West, preferring what they
believe to be the good of their coun-
try to their own prospects of adj
vancement. For all this, we be-
lieve that either of them furnishes
good material for a Presidential
candidate, and we would gladly
vote for either of them in preference
over any so-called availability who
approaches us on the say-nothing
and do-nothing principle. 1t is true
we have our preferences in favor of
Mr.. Bayard, both because his opin-
ions on finance are more nearly in
accord with ours, and because we
believe that hecould obtain the in
dispensible New York vote, which
we fear Mr.. Thurman could not
control any more than Mr.. Tilden,
who would certainly miss it largely.
For all this, we could gladly vote
for Mr.. Thurman if nominated,
though opposed to him in financial
policy, for the reason that the issue
in this contest is not going to be
financial one; issues of that sort are
going to be overshadowed by the
more Vita one of a struggle for the
sanctity of the Constitution against
imperial infractions and alterations
of it; moreover it will not be the
President but the House of Repre-
sentatives which will determine our
financial policy.
In the interest, then, of the per-
manence of our threatened COnsti-
tuition, we can afford to postpone
financial considerations, sensible
that if the scarcely disguised pur-
pose of the Republican party is car
ried out, the people will have no
voice one way or other what their
financial policy is to be. Expressing
our willingness, then, to support
Mr.. Thurman in spite of his finan-
cial principles, are we not entitled
to ask the same of those who may
favor Mr.. Thurman's ideas in the
case of Mr.. Bayard's nomination ?
We think we can do so with even
more reasonable grounds than West
ern men could challenge our vote
for Mr.. Thurman. For remember
that the "Ohio idea" was disas-
trously defeated in Ohio last fall,
with damaging effects on the party,
and would be sure of a still more
disastrous defeat in the Eastern
States if it should be inscribed OH
our standards in the approaching
Presidential election. 1t would at
once enlist the indispensable State
of New York against us, and so en-
sure our defeat.
But we would vote for either
Bayard or Thurman rather than for
a man who should claim the nomi-
nation-not on the score of what he
had himself done, but through a
series of petty attacks on the char
acter of those who might become
his competitors. Such has been the
method of those who advocate the
nomination of Mr.. Tilden, whether
personally sanctioned by him or
not. We prefer men who, at the
risk of impairing their chances of
success, have manfully declared
their principles and let the Presi-
dency go wherever it may. We
therefore announce our preference
for the Presidency, first for Bayard,
second for Thurman, and, for Vice
President, Hancock; all, however,
subject to the action of the Cincin-
natl Convention.
nEAn VSSTES