Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-07-08
An Odd Argulment.

THURSDAY EVENING" JULY O. AooO'
An Odd Argument.
The founder of the Philadelphia Press |
and its present editor are engaged in a
mutual effort to satisfy each other on the
pending question as to whether General
Hancock should or should not he elected
to the presidency. Colonel Forney start
ed out in support of the affirmative of
the issue with the declaration that Han
cock had good title to the place by rea-
son of his having saved the country at
Gettysburg. But, says Mr.. Smith in
response, he is a Democrat, and this po-
litical issue is between the two parties.
This apparently stout suggestion Colonel
Forney parties by declaring that Abra-
ham Lincoln took Stephen A. Douglas
to his bosom. The rejoinder is not on its
face very conclusive, but Mr.. Smith, op-
pressed with the knowledge or idea that
it will never do to intimate to good Re-
publicans that Abraham Lincoln could
ever have have done anything that the
Republican party need hesitate to follow
him in, responds that Douglas dropped
his Democracy when Lincoln embraced
him. According to Mr.. Smith he be-
came patriot, and as-by another OF his
suppositiOns- "A patriot cannot bea Dem
Ocrat, he proves that Douglas ceased to
be one and so became eligible to Mr.. Lin
coins approval.
1t is an odd shape for the argument to
take, and Editor Smith seems to have
been forced into an indefensible' position
i'm very strong case. Very clearly this
is contest between the Democratic and
Republican parties, and any Republican
who votes for Hancock abandons his
party, for this occasion at least. And If
there are any vital principles dividing
the parties, Mr.. Smith may fairly declare
that no sense of a debt of gratitude to
Gen. Hancock, alone, should suf-
flee to take to him the vote of a
Republican who does not believe in the
political principles which he avOws and
will cause to prevail in the government
of the country if he is placed in its
charge. Such Republicans as have no
fixed conviction of the wrongfulness of
Democratic policy, and who are willing
to trust to a good man of any party to
guide the country, are those who will be
affected by Col. FOrney's argument and
will let gratitude for Gettysburg and con-
tidence in Hancock's personal character
control their vote for him.
If the gratitude for Gettysburg which
the country owes to Hancock, entities
him to the Republican vote, as Col. For
ney seems to insist, we may look for the
whole party to come over to him; we
know We will look in vain, though the
editor of the Press seems to have secret
conviction that they ought to do it, and
strikes out wildly in seeking reasons why
they should not. 1t says: Let these
Democrats rise above Democracy as
Douglas did in the last noble hours of
his life; let them stand by the public
honor as Douglas did in its crisis, and
we will welcome their cooperation as
Lincoln welcomed that of Douglas. -
Which, if it means anything in cOnnec-
tion with this argument, means tina: if
Hancock was as good patriot as
Douglas, the Republican party might
be expected to support him over
Garfield, though not over the SUI
lerlative patriot, Lincoln, as we
gather from the subsequent argument of
the Press. If it means to say this, it
yields the question, since very few people
will hesitate to say that Hancock I" stood
by the public honor" as stoutly as ever
Douglas did, and certainly with a
greater net result in the decisive vic.
tory of Gettysburg. He is worthy of
every honor that Douglas could claim,
including Lincoln s trust and Republican
confidence. And there is no gainsaying
that the party is put in very awkward
position in opposing him; a fact that is
demonstrated every time its organs at.
tempt to show why they do it. They
had better quit trying to explain what
they find so much trouble to make clear
MAYOR MACGONIGLE'S veto of the
$4,000 loan ordinance is strictly in &C.
cord with the policy LAID down by him at
the outset of his official career, adhered
to i'm his treatment of questions of muni.
cipal administration, and so emphatically
endorsed by the people of the city. He
could not consistently do otherwise than
refuse his assent to the creation of loar
which the finance committee had advised
him would run the city debt beyond the
constitutional limit and which was made
to pay debts created in direct violation
of law. 1t is a very embarrassing posi-
tiOn, no doubt, in which the city il
placed by this state of affairs, but the
mayor is not responsible for it and he is
not disposed to stultify himself and his
past record by untangling the knot which
shiftlessness and recklessness of needless
legislators has twisted. He wisely refers
the responsibility for undoing it to those
who brought it about.
In recently noticing Col. Breckin
ridges mastery argument on the power
of courts to disbar, as punishment fol
contempt, i'm the case of r. w. WOOlley
of louisville, Ky, the INTELL1GENCEB
or fI,af fI,o oo,,rf I,oI d;col,o ,.nroJ re