The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-07-06
WANTED. sRoUsDs OF COMPLAINT.

None are so blind as those who will no
see; none so hard to please as those who have
made up their minds to be and to remain I'M
der any possible combination of circumstan'
ces, captieus, q%uerulous and fault finding
! For some time previous to the meeting OF the
! Cincinnati convention it was amusing to note
the unanimity with which the republican
press ceased not only to attempt to identify
the democrats with the different kinds OF
crookedness with which Mr.. Tilden has been
charged, but even to remind us of the various
unsavory particulars of which the crookedness
was said to consist. How long since we have
heard from republican sources a word about
Nephew Pelton, the income tax, the CIPHER
dispatches, or the bar'l of money: In place
of those old-time taunts we were towards the
last treated to smoothly written, moral DIS
QUESTIONS setting forth the claims of Mr.. Til
den upon his party for renomination, and
urging him upon the democrats as their best,
indeed. their only candidate. 10 such a
length did republican writers proceed in this
direction that their arguments finally became
a tacit acknowledgment of the theft of the
presidency to which Mr.. Tilden had been
righ,fully elected, an acknowledgment that
the country will be apt to keep in mind with
a retentiveness of memory altogether distress
ing to those by whom such arguments were
brought forward. In refusing once more to
confer upon Mr.. Tilden the leadership of the
party the democrats by no means abandoned
the vantage ground of the ''fraud issue"
Their refusal again to nominate Mr.. Tilden
would have constituted such an abandonment
if the wrong suffered in consequence of re-
publican returning-board perfidy had bssn
solely of a personal character, which it was
not. That wrong was not perpetrated upon
an individual named Tilden; it was not per-
petrated upon the nominee of the democratic
party, or even upon that party itself. 1t was
a wrong inflicted upon the majority OF the
American people in depriving that majority
of its right to rule a right it possesses under
our Constitution, and of which it must not be
unless the government conducted I'M
der and through that Constitution is to be
on the downward path to ruin. 1t is
in this light That the ''fraud ISSUE" as our
republican friends like to term it, is viewed
by the thoughtful voters of the country the
voters who are not of the oftice-holding or
Office seeking class, and who, having intelll-
gence enough to think for themselves will
have independence enough to cast their votes
IN condemnation of the most bare-taced,
Il, n laps fra,,1 raooploI in prlifiral bictorv
However, Mr.. Tilden was not nominated.
The democrats did not kindly oblige the re-
publicans by nominating their weakest candi-
date and thereby putting themselves in a po-
sition where they must p~erforce adopt a
defensive attitude during the campaign.
More than this, they did not select their third
best, or their second-best man, estimating his
merits only with regard to his strength as a
candidate but instead they had the audacity
TO place at the head of their ticket not only
their strongest man; but also the only one
against whom the republicans were unable to
urge a single objection, during the prel,mi-
nary skirmishins preceding the nomination.
At that time the self-appointed task, the labor
of love taken in land by the republicans in
their disinterested efforts to foist Mr.. Tilden
on their opponents as their candidate, was in
terrupted by occasional little outbreaks of
malice against Mr.. Bayard, whose Dover
speech or against Mr.. Seymour, whose treat
ment of the New York rioters formed the
vulnerable heel in the Achillean armor OF
honor worn by those pure-minded, patriotic
statesman but not a syllable against Han
cock was to be heard. Aud now that he is
nominated, what are their objections? The
principal one is that he is a military man
and this from the party that has given us only
military men for Presidents ever since the
close of the war; the party which now brings
TO, ward a candidate whose honorable wal
record was not improved upon by the Credit
Mobilier and DeGolyer transactions. Or we
are told that Hancock as the democratic nom,
inee is pitted against the party with which he
co-operated during the war; that he is now
the leader of the rebel brigadiers against
whom the fire of his troops was once directed
Such a change illustrates the weakness OF
the republican objections to Hancock; while
presenting an instance OF the OVefOearlns
arrogance with which the republicans have
always appropriated to themselves the result.
and achievements of the war. We all know
though, that the republican party disbandet
during the wal. The war of the rebellion
was fought from the northern side by the
Union party, composed of many who ha,
been republicans as we'll as hundreds o
thousands Of var democrats, men like Han
cock, who knew nc party when the nations
life was in danger. The reference to rebe
brigadiers again, is not a happy one. Their
is a common impression to the effect that tn
blood and treasure of the country wer,